Changes to ST Upgrades (avoid charges)

[StevieSteve]

If you're upgrading a concession ST, do it over the phone or face a £5 charge at the Ticket Office on the day

Changes to matchday upgrades of Season Tickets - Brentford FC

Upgrade your concession Season Ticket ahead of matchday to avoid a £5 administration fee

www.brentfordfc.com

 

[westwing]

This message came up on Facebook yesterday.
Reduce the queues by charging a Fiver for Upgrades is so customer unfriendly,
especially during these hard times. FFS, if you Upgrade, it's because you are being honest!!
You don't always know in advance if you need to upgrade, you might have a sick kid who cant attend
that morning but a mate who can use the seat who couldnt get a ticket, happens all the time.
How about opening all the Box Office windows!!

 

[rebus]

This message came up on Facebook yesterday.
Reduce the queues by charging a Fiver for Upgrades is so customer unfriendly,
especially during these hard times. FFS, if you Upgrade, it's because you are being honest!!
You don't always know in advance if you need to upgrade, you might have a sick kid who cant attend
that morning but a mate who can use the seat who couldnt get a ticket, happens all the time.
How about opening all the Box Office windows!!

I don’t think it’s too much of an issue as it’s on a matchday. Most clubs wouldn’t even facilitate it in the first place.

 

[KcBee]

Makes sense to me. I've upgraded multiple times over the last couple of years and never on the day at the box office. If I did do it on the day, I'd expect and be happy to pay a small (£5) premium

 

[Banana]

If you're upgrading a concession ST, do it over the phone or face a £5 charge at the Ticket Office on the day

Changes to matchday upgrades of Season Tickets - Brentford FC

Upgrade your concession Season Ticket ahead of matchday to avoid a £5 administration fee

www.brentfordfc.com

"This creates a significant amount of work for our Box Office team when they are already busy handling a large volume of enquiries on matchdays and leads to queues and delays for all supporters. "

What are these "large volumes of enquiries"?

 

[nocoat]

Why is your website so sh*t?
Why does my season card not work?
Why has your club shop got no replica shirts?
Why have I still not got my away ticket when I bought it six weeks ago?

 

[Isleworth_Bee]

I don’t think it’s too much of an issue as it’s on a matchday. Most clubs wouldn’t even facilitate it in the first place.

But our club does facilitate it so why do they have to start fleecing fans for more money when they are upgrading tickets so they get used? If you're upgrading you are paying for the upgrade anyway arent you? So its in the clubs best interest to do it?

We moan about membership hikes etc this IMO is no different.

Open more windows............... FFS it even takes 10-15minutes to pay for a bloody programme.

"Large volumes of enquiries"

What are these enquiries?!?

 

[westwing]

But our club does facilitate it so why do they have to start fleecing fans for more money when they are upgrading tickets so they get used? If you're upgrading you are paying for the upgrade anyway arent you? So its in the clubs best interest to do it?

We moan about membership hikes etc this IMO is no different.

Open more windows............... FFS it even takes 10-15minutes to pay for a bloody programme.

"Large volumes of enquiries"

What are these enquiries?!?

Exactly mate.
If you are upgrading, you're giving the Club another £30 to £40 for filling the same seat,
which could easily be left unused. How long does it take to upgrade? It takes a couple of minutes!!
The Club should be looking at the people who are actually clogging up the windows with complicated
enquiries on a matchday, not the people spending the money!!

 

[Jay Bee]

Makes some sort of sense, in incentivising people to do the admin early.
If it doesn't change people's behaviour, which it won't in all cases, it just makes a piddly sum of money and does nothing to reduce queuing times.

Shame the window tax is applied to something that absolutely has to involve talking to a member of the team. If you could upgrade online, there would be no queues and you could even do it an hour before kick off.

But presumably they want this to need a conversation to police it and stop people using it excessively e.g. buy a child ticket to have a guarantee a free seat next to yours, kid comes to 2 games, upgrade it 15+ times.

 

[Banana]

Makes some sort of sense, in incentivising people to do the admin early.
If it doesn't change people's behaviour, which it won't in all cases, it just makes a piddly sum of money and does nothing to reduce queuing times.

Shame the window tax is applied to something that absolutely has to involve talking to a member of the team. If you could upgrade online, there would be no queues and you could even do it an hour before kick off.

But presumably they want this to need a conversation to police it and stop people using it excessively e.g. buy a child ticket to have a guarantee a free seat next to yours, kid comes to 2 games, upgrade it 15+ times.

How about having an "upgrade only" window?

 

[westwing]

Makes some sort of sense, in incentivising people to do the admin early.
If it doesn't change people's behaviour, which it won't in all cases, it just makes a piddly sum of money and does nothing to reduce queuing times.

Shame the window tax is applied to something that absolutely has to involve talking to a member of the team. If you could upgrade online, there would be no queues and you could even do it an hour before kick off.

But presumably they want this to need a conversation to police it and stop people using it excessively e.g. buy a child ticket to have a guarantee a free seat next to yours, kid comes to 2 games, upgrade it 15+ times.

Your view is of the "robot" generation we have today when it comes to Customer Service.
Many parent's kids drop out on the day for whatever reason, how can you plan that then?
You can't upgrade a ST online on the day because you need a replacement paper ticket!
Upgrading and charging £40 which takes a couple of minutes, isn't a "piddly" amount of money,
most businesses would snap your hand off.
The people causing the queues are people asking questions that should be dealt with during the week
and people queuing and asking questions like "how do I buy a ticket for today" and "can I buy a Membership"
or "I've travelled 200 miles, how do I get in to todays match".
I've been there, and it aint the Upgraders clogging the line up!!

 

[callum2468]

Feel the charge is rather unnecessary. Perhaps maybe a small charge 2hrs before kick off but £5 is very steep!

 

[rebus]

Feel the charge is rather unnecessary. Perhaps maybe a small charge 2hrs before kick off but £5 is very steep!

£5 is small in the general scheme of things given admission prices as a whole and it’s zero until matchday.

 

[Jay Bee]

Makes some sort of sense, in incentivising people to do the admin early.
If it doesn't change people's behaviour, which it won't in all cases, it just makes a piddly sum of money and does nothing to reduce queuing times.

Shame the window tax is applied to something that absolutely has to involve talking to a member of the team. If you could upgrade online, there would be no queues and you could even do it an hour before kick off.

But presumably they want this to need a conversation to police it and stop people using it excessively e.g. buy a child ticket to have a guarantee a free seat next to yours, kid comes to 2 games, upgrade it 15+ times.

Your view is of the "robot" generation we have today when it comes to Customer Service.
Many parent's kids drop out on the day for whatever reason, how can you plan that then?
You can't upgrade a ST online on the day because you need a replacement paper ticket!
Upgrading and charging £40 which takes a couple of minutes, isn't a "piddly" amount of money,
most businesses would snap your hand off.
The people causing the queues are people asking questions that should be dealt with during the week
and people queuing and asking questions like "how do I buy a ticket for today" and "can I buy a Membership"
or "I've travelled 200 miles, how do I get in to todays match".
I've been there, and it aint the Upgraders clogging the line up!!

I'm not quite sure how my attempt to follow the club's logic, followed by several critical comments over what isn't logical, has offended, but this is the GPG of course.

I acknowledged in my second line your exact comment - not everyone can plan ahead for every absence.

"You can't upgrade a ST online on the day because you need a replacement paper ticket!"
You could upgrade any ticket on the day if the system allowed online upgrades and allowed you to generate a replacement e-ticket to be shown on a phone, or even print on your home printer if you like. Nobody should need a paper ticket to access the stadium.
The over-riding policy is that nobody can upgrade online because the club say you must do it via phone or in person.

The "piddly amount" is the £5 transaction fee generated by the policy, and piddly from the club's perspective i.e. it generates no worthwhile money for the club but succeeds in pissing off those that have no choice but to pay it.

Maybe the ticket office needs some (more) of those roving helpful people to answer quick questions like "Yes the game is sold out sir" to keep the window for actual useful transactions.

 

[horshambees]

Your view is of the "robot" generation we have today when it comes to Customer Service.
Many parent's kids drop out on the day for whatever reason, how can you plan that then?
You can't upgrade a ST online on the day because you need a replacement paper ticket!
Upgrading and charging £40 which takes a couple of minutes, isn't a "piddly" amount of money,
most businesses would snap your hand off.
The people causing the queues are people asking questions that should be dealt with during the week
and people queuing and asking questions like "how do I buy a ticket for today" and "can I buy a Membership"
or "I've travelled 200 miles, how do I get in to todays match".
I've been there, and it aint the Upgraders clogging the line up!!

Spot on with the queues.

 

[Brentford 4 Life]

Your view is of the "robot" generation we have today when it comes to Customer Service.
Many parent's kids drop out on the day for whatever reason, how can you plan that then?
You can't upgrade a ST online on the day because you need a replacement paper ticket!
Upgrading and charging £40 which takes a couple of minutes, isn't a "piddly" amount of money,
most businesses would snap your hand off.
The people causing the queues are people asking questions that should be dealt with during the week
and people queuing and asking questions like "how do I buy a ticket for today" and "can I buy a Membership"
or "I've travelled 200 miles, how do I get in to todays match".
I've been there, and it aint the Upgraders clogging the line up!!

If they had a proper ticketing site and opened the ticket office proper hours and the full working week, there would likely be less enquiries at the ticket office on a match day. Trying to run a premier league club on a non league infrastructure. As long as people aren’t surprised if there are empty seats in the ground then fine.

 

[westwing]

£5 is small in the general scheme of things given admission prices as a whole and it’s zero until matchday.

Go the whole hog and charge fans to get in to the Dugout because the queue is massive after the game,
that'll reduce that one as well!! £5 isnt small when an upgrade might cost £43 now, then goes up to £48.
I think that would be the point where a mate would just stay in the pub.

 

[westwing]

I'm not quite sure how my attempt to follow the club's logic, followed by several critical comments over what isn't logical, has offended, but this is the GPG of course.

I acknowledged in my second line your exact comment - not everyone can plan ahead for every absence.

"You can't upgrade a ST online on the day because you need a replacement paper ticket!"
You could upgrade any ticket on the day if the system allowed online upgrades and allowed you to generate a replacement e-ticket to be shown on a phone, or even print on your home printer if you like. Nobody should need a paper ticket to access the stadium.
The over-riding policy is that nobody can upgrade online because the club say you must do it via phone or in person.

The "piddly amount" is the £5 transaction fee generated by the policy, and piddly from the club's perspective i.e. it generates no worthwhile money for the club but succeeds in pissing off those that have no choice but to pay it.

Maybe the ticket office needs some (more) of those roving helpful people to answer quick questions like "Yes the game is sold out sir" to keep the window for actual useful transactions.

You havent offended anyone, its just a discussion mate.
Maybe the Club should open 7 windows before a game because there always seems to be plenty of staff.
Maybe have a "Stupid Question Window" and an "Upgrade" window.
I know which one would have the longer queue LOL