“Swifties” Label Ticketmaster as the CX ‘Anti-Hero’ from Yesterday’s Verified Fan Presale Disaster

These are my personal reflections, and opinions, on the Ticketmaster “fan” experience and the potential implications from yesterday’s fallout that may be detrimental to their brand.

Is Ticketmaster a ‘Mastermind’ at Monetizing and Monopolizing the Ticketing Industry?

Angry “Swifties” took to?social media?yesterday and have been very vocal sharing all the negative buzz around the complete and utter Ticketmaster presale ticket disaster and PR nightmare, after thousands of online complaints and user experience (UX) issues — leaving fans empty handed, or at minimum, waiting in limbo for hours on their website to get a chance in line to purchase tickets for Taylor Swift’s upcoming “The Eras Tour”. There’s definitely some “bad blood” between fans and Ticketmaster for more than one reason — rightfully so, and here’s why.

Yes Ticketmaster, and LiveNation Entertainment (their parent company), have been been doing this for years as they’ve evolved their strategies through the merger — trying to first digitize their business, then monetize their platforms, and now attempting to?monopolize?the industry as a whole. My take, they won’t be successful at doing either and here’s exactly why.

Yes, gone are the days where we used to stand in a?physical?line at Famous Barr after grabbing a ticket in the “queue” to buy our Metallica and Tool tickets fresh out of high school when we’re practically broke already. However, one thing has consistently remained the same — the joy around the experience itself — and it starts with the point of purchase. Despite strategies shifting to digital and business models becoming more about monetization to become a true leader in a respective industry (a service reaching critical mass at scale), the same core business values and emphasis on the experience, starts with the ticket purchasing process. In light of increased processing fees as they’ve jockeyed for position in the marketplace and continued to fight for consumers’ wallet share, Ticketmaster still hasn’t yet “mastered” one thing since I’ve been purchasing concert tickets — the customer experience (CX).

How a Poor Experience Equates to Bad Karma

A sound business strategy doesn’t simply equate to a positive customer experience that earns a brand the right to either monetize, or monopolize, an industry — it’s the other way around. Think of Apple. If you can’t provide recurring value, much less a first-class customer experience, your customers (in this case both artists and end consumers) will move onto the next platform for ticketing sales, or artists will figure out how to cut out the “middle man” entirely, and go direct to consumers at some point when they’ve had enough of the complaints around a poor experience and ethical business practices in tandem.

The world of digital isn’t anything new to all of us at this point, and the customer “is king” is still a valid philology that predates the digital revolution as well. So what’s changed? Not much, other than consumers have far less of a tolerance for a poor CX, and less hesitancy around “jumping ship” to the next best product, service or affinity towards another exciting, innovative brand. This is exactly what happened to Blockbuster once Netflix was born. We as consumers value digital experiences and the everyday interactions we have with a brand — now more than ever. It’s not a glitch, it’s all about customer value and outcomes. That’s Karma, baby.

Will Some Vigilante S*** Solve the Problem?

Some unhappy Swift fans are calling for change asking the artists themselves to stand up to Ticketmaster and LiveNation — demanding they conduct business in a more ethical manner. Here’s the crux of the problem when it comes to the?alleged monopoly?between Ticketmaster and LiveNation. LiveNation has a stranglehold on concert venues already, and because LiveNation and Ticketmaster are affiliated, an artist then can’t balk at using Ticketmaster (who owns 70% of ticket sales at major concert venues), without also severing ties with LiveNation. So at this point, when it comes to doing right by the consumer, with respect to anti-competitive barriers and good-faith conduct, this extends well beyond what consumers and even the top artists can and can’t control unfortunately. Consumers have been shouldering the brunt of the problem either paying high fees for tickets or choosing not to see their favorite artists live. From an artists’ perspective, relative to the economics behind it all, it makes sense why artists like Swift, Springsteen and many others are forced to rely on Ticketmaster as their primary distribution channel — they’re trying to monetize their fanbase and combat the digital disruption they face with streaming services cannibalizing in-person concerts and royalties from both ends of the spectrum.

It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me, says the publication,?Politico, as lawmakers demand a breakup of Ticketmaster.

Ticketmaster needs to first take a good, long look at the overall fan “experience” themselves, first and foremost. Purely putting out a PSA and tweet from their support team saying there was, “unanticipated and unprecedented demand” and they’re sorry for the service outages, paused queues and delayed presale dates/times isn’t going to cut it with “Swifties” or Taylor herself, I suspect. For those of you that may not know the backstory on her, she likes to do things?her?way, or it’s the highway. From announcing her?“Midnights”?album on national primetime TV during the VMA Awards, an exclusive video premier teaser on Amazon Prime TV to re-recording and releasing old albums under her own label after ongoing battles with Scooter Braun, it’s clear she is cutting-edge when it comes to building and marketing her brand. There’s no “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” when it comes to TSwift!

So how many more instances such as today have to occur before fans, artists, the legal industry and the government all start to question whether or not Ticketmaster should be able to chalk this up to just being another “fluke” accident? Or should Ticketmaster, and their parent company, face increased scrutiny around current business practices and whether or not the government needs to step in to impose and uphold higher CX standards for the ticketing industry, given the potential monopoly that allows for?skyrocketing processing fees?and the introduction of new pricing models at their discretion? I will come back to pricing strategies a bit later on.

The Great War: CX and Retention Strategies are King

To fight the war on gaining consumer loyalty, Ticketmaster needs to not only take a solid look at their customer experience but?also?their retention strategies — that is the end game every business needs to play at this point to be successful. In high tech we know 80% of SaaS revenues come from existing/repeat customers, and it’s WAY less expensive to retain a current customer than acquire a?new?one. The same should hold true for Ticketmaster, as a digital-first company, and the ticketing industry as a whole.

The question around why CX and retention strategies trump everything else is simple. There’s no?Lavender Haze?when it comes to using CX to drive the right outcomes. If you start with the end experience in mind, this allows you to then look at your product-led growth (PLG) strategy and business model together. Take it a step further, this then feeds into pricing strategies — speaking of pricing, why hasn’t Ticketmaster already evolved to a subscription-based service model? Because they haven’t earned the right to say they can deliver a high-value, quality fan experience that allows them to charge a premium for their service. Imagine a world where Ticketmaster gives fans that “extra peace of mind” as a VIP that we all want to?guarantee?access to securely and easily purchase verified concert tickets that don’t result in poor brand sentiment. That’s when a brand has earned the right to monetize a platform, the ability to optimize for scale and can unlock new revenue streams for growth, far beyond what these companies have already achieved.

Groundbreaking, no. Eye-opening, yes.

The Glitch Goes Beyond the Experience Itself

Beyond the continued scrutiny around a poor end user experience and brand sentiment, Ticketmaster is potentially damaging their reputation and jeopardizing the “right” to their customer base (the artists themselves) more broadly. So much so with what transpired yesterday during Swift’s presale, I suspect the ticketing industry may eventually end up facing legal ramifications with an artist at some point contractually, or far worse, involve government intervention at some point to regulate this industry and hold companies like LiveNation and Ticketmaster accountable, hold them to a higher standards and looking to dissolve unjust monopolies (similar to regulatory requirements in the financial services industry).

From a legal investigative perspective, there are several other aspects that I think require greater scrutiny, that all tie back to their inability to deliver a quality, customer experience — especially when you spend upwards of $300+ a ticket (at face value) to see an exclusive artist like Taylor Swift.

False Promises Don’t Equate to Increased Profitability

There should be no such thing as?Sweet Nothing’s, when it comes to a ubiquitous service like Ticketmaster.

Ticketmaster’s?Verified Fan?feature is an example of a classic “bait and switch” publicity stunt (marketing promise) to give fans a false sense of security tied to “exclusivity” and sole rights to presale tickets only to be told their verified presale codes are invalid. For those who were lucky enough to get through the virtual queue unscathed, Ticketmaster then turned around and price gouged customers in the end that were anxious and desperate, after hours of waiting, to fulfill a promise to significant others, kids or friends to finally get to see Taylor Swift live in concert. Cutting out access for ticket scalpers to profit off their platform does help put profits back into artists’ and Ticketmasters pockets, no argument there. Some loyal fans however, did try to capitalize by immediately trying to flip tickets for upwards of $5,000 or more though so it still doesn’t solve the root problem entirely. And implementing?dynamic pricing strategies?for Swift’s tour was aimed to increase artist profitability (retention and loyalty strategy) and/or combat Ticketmaster’s undoubtedly rising operating expenses. I get it, that’s just how business works.

However, back to my earlier points, If they instead increased their focused on CX and instituted a subscription service model as core business strategies, this could allow the company to put more money back into R&D around the Ticketmaster platform to deliver a better fan experience — which in turn increases customer loyalty and drives better profitability by unlocking new recurring revenue streams and delivering greater value to shareholders, artists,?and?their fans. See where I’m going with all of this yet? It’s a win, win here!

Smart Queue?is also a flat out fraud and massively, error-prone feature and purchasing process if you ask me, and Ticketmaster’s IT leadership needs to feel some heat for a “false promise” and the inability to deliver on a quality experience that lives up to its name?and?cost associated with her ticket prices. On a slight tangent, the individuals responsible for deciding the go-to-market behind Taylor Swift’s presale strategy clearly didn’t talk with IT on server capacity planning to get out in front of potential performance issues and prevent service outages either. It’s not rocket science, I’m sure I could estimate fan demand, and potential website traffic during a given period to address server load balancing thresholds and mitigate site performance issues simply based on the number of presale registrations and codes distributed. (I’m a marketer by trade, but a techie at heart.) Allowing millions of fans nearly simultaneously access when their IT infrastructure clearly couldn’t can’t handle the massive traffic hitting their website all at once, was really poor planning. As evidenced by yesterday, their server capacity is ill-equipped to support said “unprecedented demand” repeatedly for these high-demand artists so, yet again they have consistently over-promised and under-delivered on CX time and time again for these top-tier artists.

Additionally, I don’t know how it’s legal to say you’ve implemented a “smart queue” with accurate, real-time seating availability that rips seats out from under you while in the middle of the checkout process with no “hold” on tickets if someone is faster than you at pushing buttons or network connection is slower. The “no guarantees” disclaimer feels like a legal loophole with some potential red tape. And yet another example from today, the checkout process failed/errored out because users had been logged in for 3+ hours because Ticketmaster’s platform couldn’t handle traffic and they had to pause their own queues during an active login session?without?first addressing the product loopholes in their UX; go check out all Twitter screenshots from fans as proof. This move simply highlights “band aid” fixes around a much larger problem at scale — an antiquated IT environment for a leading brand faced with disruption in a digital-first, consumer-driven world. In the end, all of these examples equated to a sub-par experience for “Swifties” which could also be detrimental to the artists’ reputations and their bank accounts in the long run (could become a retention issue).

As Swift’s song title says, You’re on Your Own, Kid…

How Do We Combat the Anti-Hero, Taylor?

So while I don’t disagree boycotting Ticketmaster’s presale events are one way consumers can stand up to the expectation around a better customer experience, fans shouldn’t have to pay the price (figurately and literally) sacrificing their love for music in this way to put an end to poor customer experiences, nor should these talented artists who are focused on putting out smash hits and dominating the industry, like Taylor Swift.

A vast majority of companies have been faced with adversities in a constantly changing landscape and volatile economic environment that has forced brands to evolve their thinking and way of doing business quickly. Throw in a global pandemic and economic shutdown for 2+ years, I get the artists’ appeal for allowing dynamic pricing and the advantages of a forum like Ticketmaster, to help revenue by unlocking ticket sales that they likely can’t deliver on their own. But unfortunately, more is still required to force the issue around creating a truly transformative, end-to-end motion, but hopefully a class-action lawsuit that cites preventing against ‘predatory and exclusionary behavior’ is a good wake up call for them. Start shifting the focus to materially, impacting the customer experience to help you avoid skepticism around past relationships and help fans find ‘new love’ in the Ticketmaster brand, just like Swift wrote about in the song lyrics for?Labyrinth.

Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled “Streaming”

Now that I’ve reflected back on the potential impacts of the thousands of negative customer interactions experienced by other “Swifties” out there yesterday on Ticketmaster, I’m headed back to streaming the new?“Midnights”?album on repeat so I can ignore the fact we spent?way?to much money on three Taylor Swift tickets because we couldn’t just buy two (that’s a head scratcher). Couple that with the worry around the last-ditch effort seats we were able to snag, potentially having an obstructed view of the stage based on the venue renderings (Note: there was NO disclaimer during checkout regarding potential viewing issues.) I guess we’ll see if this leads to yet another poor Ticketmaster experience…again.

Taylor Swift, you are not only the brains behind the future of the music industry, you can also become an influential?Mastermind?behind pioneering a next-gen ticketing, concert?and?fan experience in the industry without Ticketmaster and LiveNation’s help in my humble opinion!

P.S. How many other “Swifties” out there happened to pick up on all the new?“Midnight”?album song title references used throughout this post? That’s my contribution to providing a positive, end user reading experience for her fans. The end.