In Focus: Ticketchainer – Beyond Ticketing
Sami Bouden, co-founder and CEO of Ticketchainer, discusses how the company’s in-house tech and product development team delivers customised ticketing solutions, emphasising their agility and focus on the user experience.
Who are Ticketchainer, what do you do and how do you do it?
We are a French tech company that develops ticketing software for sports clubs, sporting competitions, and major events. We primarily operate in France and work with multiple clubs in rugby, football, basketball and other sports.
A year ago, we decided to expand internationally, and our first client was the African Cup of Nations (Afcon), the biggest sporting event in Africa. This opportunity allowed us to showcase our strengths and demonstrate the capability of our product and technology in handling large events with heavy traffic.
We have a substantial team dedicated to tech and product development. Over 70% of our staff, including developers and product engineers, are focused on these areas. We firmly believe that our product will set us apart in the long run. Its efficiency and ability to help our clients save time and increase ticket sales are what truly matter to us.
Focusing on your work with Afcon, what was it that set Ticketchainer apart from all the other ticket providers they could have chosen from?
During the Afcon tender, Ticketchainer was able to demonstrate a highly flexible product using our technology, setting us apart from other competitors. We adapted all our products to the specific context and ticketing needs of the tournament held in the Ivory Coast. This included implementing digital payment options and specific box office processes.
In just three months, we deployed an online ticketing platform with a fully customized customer journey that covered the six stadiums used for the tournament. Each stadium had a capacity ranging from 25,000 to 60,000 seats and was integrated with three-dimensional viewing technologies.
We also deployed 70 box offices across the country during the Afcon for selling physical tickets, all of which utilised our technology for digital payments. Altogether, we successfully sold over 1 million tickets in approximately three months, demonstrating our ability to handle large-scale projects.
So you’re able to adapt to your customers’ specific requirements which gives you the edge over those with more fixed, less agile technologies?
Yes, exactly. It’s crucial to emphasise that our software can be customised to meet the specific needs of our clients. Moreover, we can do this quickly – we can have a product up and running in just a few weeks. Even if a client believes their needs are standard, we can typically collaborate with them to identify opportunities for automating certain actions.
This could involve automating manual tasks that are performed repeatedly, which can ultimately save time and improve efficiency. Transitioning to the topic of user experience in online ticketing purchasing exchanges, it’s paramount. The user experience is of utmost importance for all online ticketing operations.
We consistently study best practices, especially from the eCommerce industry, since online ticketing essentially functions as an eCommerce platform that sells a specific product, enabling us to remain competitive.
We have clients who have been with us for three or four years, and their platforms have continually evolved as we incorporate best practices into our systems. This enables us to deliver a premium user experience, which is crucial for driving sales. For instance, we collaborated with Provence Rugby which saw an almost threefold increase in online ticket sales after transitioning to our platform.
Their objective was to boost ticket sales, and we achieved this by providing a streamlined and swift online journey, requiring just a few clicks to complete the transaction.
How important is the management of customer data and the adherence to data protection legislation?
We have an internal team that handles all aspects of security, from protecting against hackers to collecting and storing data. Our system was thoroughly tested during the Afcon event, where millions of people tried to access tickets. Our platform is robust, and data is always protected. For our clients in Europe, the servers where the data is stored are also in Europe, which requires us to be GDPR compliant, a priority for us.
Ultimately, our entire strategy and product roadmap are based on two things: integrating best practices and prioritising our customers’ needs. Each product roadmap is developed around the features requested by our clients. We compile a list of their desired features, define their priority, and build the roadmap accordingly. Our customers appreciate the product evolution; they see that their requests are implemented, either in the next month or next season, but they are always taken into account.
For more information about Ticketchainer, visit: www.ticketchainer.com/en/
