I hate TicketMaster and Live Nation with a passion, so please take this example of what never to do in customer service with a grain of salt. A rock god is playing a once-in-a-generation event in my area, and I was going to see him, even if it meant purchasing tickets through the hated brokerage, TicketMaster. I signed up for a lottery that would give me access to pre-sale tickets, got that access, and still had to purchase tickets in a far more expensive area than I had planned, because all the cheaper seats had sold by the time I could purchase mine.
Again, that was still in the pre-sale phase. And it’s not at all what I want to complain about, since that’s part of the price, purchasing through a ticket monopoly, that I’ve been painfully aware of for the past 20 years. What is in important to highlight, however, is that I purchased my ticket package, which included some “free” merchandise, four months before the date of the show. Four months before any of the shows. Once the tickets were purchased, I was given a link to “order” my “free” merchandise, and a coupon code so the merchandise would be “free.”
The link took me to a site called FanFire.com. If one were to visit FanFire.com without any other tracking info embedded into the link, one would quickly find herself on the Live Nation Store site, as it immediately redirects. In other words, FanFire is just another front in the giant Live Nation monopoly. However, the link that I was given had some other cruft, which kept me within the FanFire domain, and allowed me to order my “free” merchandise. Four months, remember, before any concert began in that particular tour.
It is now a week before the concert that I’m going to, and about two weeks since the concert launched. I, of course, have not gotten any of my “free” merchandise. So I go to the site and check on my order status. There is no information, other than the order was received. There is a link to inquire about the order, so I click on it to get this page:
The text at the top that is impossible to read says, “We’re here to help! The best way to contact us is to use the form below…” So I do. (Oddly, the order date is a month later than my actual order, but I don’t particularly care, as I have my original email receipt.) I ask the nice form if it knows when my order will ship.
I get a response one hour later:
Hello,
Thank you for choosing Live Nation Merchandise. For all information about your VIP or Premium Ticket Package, please contact tickets@fanfire.com.
If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to contact us.
Sincerely,
Taylor Live Nation Merchandise Customer Service http://www.store.livenation.com/
Huh. So the best way to find out about my order is to fill out a form on the FanFire.com site, which forwards to a Live Nation rep, who tells me that he cannot help me. Yes, that does seem like it was the best way.
I actually wrote back to ask, “Are you unable to answer this question or even forward it to the proper department?”
Within minutes, Taylor responds:
Hello ,
Thank you for choosing Live Nation Merchandise. The VIP ticket packages are handled by a different division of our company. That is tickets@fanfire. You must email them regarding an updated status on this order being that the merchandise is fulfilled and shipped out of their facilities. If they have not responded to you after a few business days please contact me back.
If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to contact us.
Sincerely,
Taylor Live Nation Merchandise Customer Service http://www.store.livenation.com/
I don’t have the heart to tell Taylor that I actually did not choose Live Nation Merchandise. Ever. I purchased my tickets through TicketMaster, was sent a link to FanFire to order my merchandise, and used the form on FanFire to inquire about the status of my order, some four months after the purchase was made. At no point did I choose Live Nation Merchandise. I do choose to believe that monopolies suck and there is no way that this behemoth of a company should be allowed to survive.
I will enjoy the concert that I’ve paid way too much for. And I know that the couple of t-shirts that I’m getting for “free” will be just as nice after the concert as before. I don’t believe that the artist that this revolves around should be implicated in any way, because Live Nation is the only game in town, and there is just no way to have a nationwide concert series without using them in one of their guises. In all, I can’t really say that Live Nation is doing anything any differently than any other way-too-large company with it’s thousands of divisions that don’t actually talk to each other.
But I know the Web. I know a bit about usability and the tenets of extremely basic customer service. And point number one in any lousy presentation that is going to bore the caffeine out of everyone: Don’t force your customers to fill out something that won’t go to the correct department. That’s just stupid.