ORDER STATUS

THE GOALS

•  Create an experience that allows users to easily scan the exact status of their purchased tickets.

•  Reduce calls to customer service.

THE CHALLENGE

When people purchase tickets on a primary marketplace (like Ticketmaster) or directly from a venue (like Berkeley Rep) the tickets typically take less than a minute to appear on the screen, ready to print. Because this site is a secondary market (C2C) platform tickets cannot be delivered immediately. 

This is in part due not only to trust-and-safety issues but also because the tickets may not be available for several reasons: the seller may not have the tickets, the seller hasn’t uploaded the tickets to the system, the tickets need to be sent via UPS, etc. 

Buyers often don’t understand they’re purchasing from a company that does not own the inventory and needs to engage with the seller to acquire the tickets. 

Further complicating the matter, sellers may list tickets they don’t have yet. And then there’s the issue of the tickets’ format. Users are used to getting PDFs from primaries. Tickets on this site could also be barcodes, physical tickets (delivered by UPS or picked up near the venue) or QR codes scanned from their phones and other outlier delivery methods.

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THE SOLUTION

Because tickets could not be delivered from the end of the purchasing flow, I focused on providing an experience within the My Account area where users can find tickets they bought, listed or sold. Instead of a binary experience of tickets being available or not, I wanted to give users an at-a-glance experience that conveyed not all the possible permutations of availability and delivery but an easy-to-scan status of their purchased tickets. This approach was made up of several segments.

Most importantly, users needed to know there was no problem with their order even if the tickets were not yet available. Large messaging in green let users know the status of their tickets (available, not available, in the mail or delivered). If, however, there was a problem, they would get a message in red instructing them what to do (for example, check the UPS tracking number). 

If tickets weren't available users were given a date when they would be available ("Ready to print by Fri, Dec 15"). Additionally, they’re given a roll-over info icon that explains the nature of the secondary market and why their tickets aren't  available. If the tickets are being delivered by mail the message provides a shipping date. I also included the shipper's logo and tracking number so users know not only from whom to expect their tickets but also whom to contact if there’s a shipping issue (further reducing calls to customer service).

I conducted user testing on messaging and hierarchy of information and created iterations based on that feedback. 

I was pleased with the amount of detailed information shared with the buyer in an easily scanned format. Further, the design reduced the number of calls regarding the location of purchased tickets by 10%. However, I had hoped for a greater impact. The outcome suggests that users are contacting customer service from some other part of the experience (probably the end of the purchase flow). That said, users are having a much better, well-informed, experience that gives them both the details of their purchase in an easy-to-scan format and sets expectations on when their purchase will be delivered.