Anyone else seriously pissed off with today?

[Mr deez]

Also, your 2nd point is invalid. Why on earth did people queue up unnecessarily when those who could buy a ticket had all week to do so? The club are rightly promoting online as THE way to buy tickets as it is by far the easiest. I doubt the club shop expected so many people, I certainly didn't, it was lunacy.

I worked all day and about 11 ish it took about 10 minutes of trying to get on the site before buying my tickets no bother. As an experiment, I just tried again - 10 minutesto get on...

 

[poidy]

In a word - no!

The club did everything as best they could given the very difficult circumstances.

Re the loyalty points error, these database errors happen all over the country, it is just that it happened today of all days. It would appear that as soon as the application error (re those with 1000 points being allowed tickets) the situation was dealt with quickly.

Re the queue on the phone and at the ticket office - why was that the club's fault? Yes the tickets went on sale today but it wasnt neccessary for ALL of us to try and get them on the first morning, most of us could have waited until tommorrow or Friday without any less chance of getting our tickets.

However the excitement of getting our hands on those tickets led ALL of us to go for them in one big hit. That is OUR fault and not theirs.

A big thankyou to the ticket office staff for working so hard with very little thanks; also thank you to those in the Queens Road queue this morning, a great spirit and I heard no moaning.

In summary, the club sold tickets for three seperate events to thousands of people, they took orders for travel vouchers, the dealt with parking voucher requests, they dealt with people who had queries - some related and some not. All in all the club deserve a well done for what they acheived in just one short day.

You forgot to mention the 3500 points cock up

Presumbly you have an excuse for this aswell

 

[mcshane in the 79th]

No complaints from me, a few refreshes of the website around 11am and then tickets for Spurs and Gills purchased. Considering the enormity of the day (the first time the club has put approx 40,000 tickets up for sale online), I couldn't have asked for anything easier

 

[Bozza]

What I would like to see from the ticketing system provider is the answer to these three questions:

What is the theoretical maximum number of concurrent Albion fans undertaking ticketing transactions?

Is the capacity available to Albion fans impacted by concurrent usage of fans of other clubs you service (Rangers etc)?

What have you found to be the actual maximum number of concurrent Albion fans transacting prior to the 'Too busy' signs going up?

 

[Bozza]

You forgot to mention the 3500 points cock up

Presumbly you have an excuse for this aswell

As I've said, I've heard from the club that the '3500 points thing' did not impact matters at all.

 

[Art Vs Science]

I could get that ticketing system working ten times better in one month and have better and fairer ticketing windows sorted easily. I am offering my services for free for one month to prove it, then they can give me a job. Seems fair

 

[Left Footer]

surprisingly it was all too damn easy.

 

[fire&skill]

I had to re-load a couple of times but eventually ended up where I wanted to be

 

[Ken Newbury]

You forgot to mention the 3500 points cock up

Presumbly you have an excuse for this aswell

I didn't forget, read the third sentence. It was a database error, these things happen, get over it. You posted your rant and in general people don't support your view.

 

[Lord Bamber]

A number of us knew we had problems on-line before today, the friends & family functions werent linking. Some kind NSC'ers helpfully pointed out how we could fix this, but it would mean speaking to the club. Given the fact it was going to be so busy today, I took the decision to go and queue for tickets. Didnt have to, could have waited but I have to admit, I couldnt wait, I needed those tickets, waited 14 long years, could not wait another day.

So, I was part of the problem, like others. I enjoyed queueing, especially as I was inside when it threw it down outside, great banter, shop staff really friendly, ticket staff so helpful, thanks to all of them.

 

[Beach Hut]

Having now read the rant, I can see where you're coming from. Bozza makes some valid points, though.

I didn't queue at Queens Road - as it happens, because I went to Birmingham today and heard a nice little presentation about something called WORLDHOST - a new Customer Service Standard that has been developed to deliver top class customer service at the London Olympics, the Paralympics, the 2014 Ryder Cup and the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

The WORLDHOST programme has been developed by the Government of British Columbia and incorporates everything that they learned at the Vancouver Winter Olympics. It looks bloody good.

Coming soon to a shop near us? I hope so.

No doubt my company Atos will adopt this as we will providing the IT for London

 

[Bozza]

A number of us knew we had problems on-line before today, the friends & family functions werent linking.

I think there will be lots of similar data issues - friends not linking, kids who are adults and the like. The good thing is that over the course of these ramp-up events, 95% of them will be resolved by fans discovering them and fixing them with the club's help.

By the time the season kicks off the ticketing data should be very clean, which will help us all when it really does matter.

 

[wigman]

I waited until the afternoon to go online,logged on and bought mine within 5 minutes.
No complaints here.

 

[Titanic]

Not in the slightest. I queued on the phone for a fairly long time because I wanted one of the 700 available car parking tickets.

I was also able to purchase the 15 tickets my group were entitled to (as 1250 pointers) and not buy the 9 we are not yet entitled to (as 1000 pointers).

I hope there is still some Spurs capacity left next Wednesday, so we can order them and Gills tickets. I would expect the SC to have sold out.

All in all, it did what it said on the tin.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

I'm sorry ... but with the SSC final only 10 days away, I feel that there is a real urgency to get on with buying tickets. The new ticketing system is untested, I know, but most of us have experienced things like postal delays that have made us very nervous about ordering anything from the Albion at the last minute. Living where I do (with a piss-poor postal service), I automatically add a further three days to the expected arrival time of anything that needs to be sent out to me. My business experience of postal deliveries in Brighton is just as bad.

It's easy to say that there was "no need for us to try to order tickets today". I agree, in the case of Spurs and Gillingham tickets, but not in the case of SSC tickets. The fact that tickets for all three games came packaged up together isn't the fans' fault. It just means that all transactions over the coming week will be just that little bit longer and just that little bit more complex.

If a sale feels bad to the customer, it's for the seller to ponder why and ask if things could have been done better.

Having said all that ... I'm now off to watch The Apprentice. That should teach us all about selling things.

 

[poidy]

I didn't forget, read the third sentence. It was a database error, these things happen, get over it. You posted your rant and in general people don't support your view.

Lucky for me that i still harbour my opinions despite the view shared by the vast majority.

One of the great features of an open forum is that everyone has different views on different subject matters and this is a platform in which to share them.

 

[bridge]

Whilst not excusing todays issues in reality with 18k season ticket holders the current setup and staffing will probably be adequate for selling the remaining league match tickets and most away fixtures. The problem comes with games like this friendly and home cup games that are not included in the ST. The club will need to think about how they cope with the exceptional demand sales in these rarer circumstances this season.

In the cup at home it won't be a problem as everyone will have seats reserved so no need to panic buy. I imagine today's panic was increased by only 12k tickets being available for 18k ticket holders. Mind you all 1250 would get a ticket it's the 1000 point club next week
Where the fun will begin.

All part of the fun of a new bigger stadium.

 

[pasty]

Not pissed off at all. Yes it took me about half an hour to log in, but I wouldn't have expected anything less to be honest. Once I got in I bought my tickets for Spurs and Gills quite simply.

Minor point: I think it was an error to have all friends and family tickets already in your basket as a default as I had to go through them one by one removing them. Would be better if they showed in the list but you had to click add if you want them rather than click remove if you don't.

 

[Ken Newbury]

Lucky for me that i still harbour my opinions despite the view shared by the vast majority.

One of the great features of an open forum is that everyone has different views on different subject matters and this is a platform in which to share them.

Indeed poidy, life would be boring if only one veiw was ever allowed, its good that everyone can put forward their own views, even if they are wrong

 

[Bozza]

Minor point: I think it was an error to have all friends and family tickets already in your basket as a default as I had to go through them one by one removing them. Would be better if they showed in the list but you had to click add if you want them rather than click remove if you don't.

I said this first of all, went through a period of uncertainty but on balance I think you're right as most people seemed to be buying only for themselves or for a smaller group, not a gull F&F group.

However, if you'd logged in today to buy for your entire 12 person F&F group, this 'feature' would have seemed brilliant to you.

The main issue, probably, is the removal mechanism. The user has to click on each unwanted ticket and wait for the transaction to fire and the screen refresh. It would be far more efficient to be able to check all the unwanted tickets and then click 'remove' to remove them all in a single update.