{"id":306,"date":"2010-09-28T17:55:37","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T21:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/macphoenix.com\/?p=306"},"modified":"2024-02-28T11:08:18","modified_gmt":"2024-02-28T16:08:18","slug":"livenation_sucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/macphoenix.com\/index.php\/2010\/09\/livenation_sucks\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking the Service out of Customer Service for over 20 years."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I hate TicketMaster<\/strong> and Live Nation<\/strong> with a passion, so please take this example of what never to do in customer service<\/em> 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<\/strong>. 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.<\/p>\n

Again, that was still in the pre-sale phase. And it\u2019s not at all what I want to complain about, since that\u2019s part of the price, purchasing through a ticket monopoly, that I\u2019ve 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 \u201cfree\u201d merchandise, four months before the date of the show. Four months before any<\/em> of the shows. Once the tickets were purchased, I was given a link to \u201corder\u201d my \u201cfree\u201d merchandise, and a coupon code so the merchandise would be \u201cfree.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/strong> site, as it immediately redirects. In other words, FanFire<\/strong> is just another front in the giant Live Nation<\/strong> monopoly. However, the link that I was given had some other cruft<\/a>, which kept me within the FanFire<\/em> domain, and allowed me to order my \u201cfree\u201d merchandise. Four months, remember, before any concert began in that particular tour.<\/p>\n

It is now a week before the concert that I\u2019m going to, and about two weeks since the concert launched. I, of course, have not gotten any of my \u201cfree\u201d 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:<\/p>\n

\"screen<\/p>\n

The text at the top that is impossible to read says, \u201cWe\u2019re here to help! The best way to contact us is to use the form below\u2026\u201d So I do. (Oddly, the order date is a month later than my actual order, but I don\u2019t particularly care, as I have my original email receipt.) I ask the nice form if it knows when my order will ship.<\/p>\n

I get a response one hour later:<\/p>\n

\n

Hello,<\/p>\n

Thank you for choosing Live Nation Merchandise. For all information about your VIP or Premium Ticket Package, please contact tickets@fanfire.com.<\/p>\n

If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to contact us.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n

Taylor\nLive Nation Merchandise Customer Service\nhttp:\/\/www.store.livenation.com\/<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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<\/strong> rep, who tells me that he cannot help me. Yes, that does seem like it was the best way.<\/p>\n

I actually wrote back to ask, \u201cAre you unable to answer this question or even forward it to the proper department?\u201d<\/p>\n

Within minutes, Taylor responds:<\/p>\n

\n

Hello ,<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to contact us.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n

Taylor\nLive Nation Merchandise Customer Service\nhttp:\/\/www.store.livenation.com\/<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I don\u2019t have the heart to tell Taylor that I actually did not choose Live Nation Merchandise<\/strong>. Ever. I purchased my tickets through TicketMaster<\/strong>, was sent a link to FanFire<\/strong> to order my merchandise, and used the form on FanFire<\/strong> 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<\/strong>. I do choose to believe that monopolies suck and there is no way that this behemoth of a company should be allowed to survive.<\/p>\n

I will enjoy the concert that I\u2019ve paid way too much for. And I know that the couple of t-shirts that I\u2019m getting for \u201cfree\u201d will be just as nice after the concert as before. I don\u2019t believe that the artist that this revolves around should be implicated in any way, because Live Nation<\/strong> 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\u2019t really say that Live Nation<\/strong> is doing anything any differently than any other way-too-large company with it\u2019s thousands of divisions that don\u2019t actually talk to each other.<\/p>\n

But I know the Web. I know a bit about usability<\/a> 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\u2019t force your customers to fill out something that won\u2019t go to the correct department. That\u2019s just stupid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,13],"tags":[60,61,62,59,58],"class_list":["post-306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","category-rant","tag-concerts","tag-customer-service","tag-fail","tag-live-nation","tag-ticketmaster"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nj3d-4W","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/macphoenix.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/macphoenix.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/macphoenix.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macphoenix.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macphoenix.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/macphoenix.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1064,"href":"https:\/\/macphoenix.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions\/1064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/macphoenix.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macphoenix.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macphoenix.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}