Critical capabilities for in-venue mobile visitor experience

In the following opinion piece, LiveStyled discuss the critical capabilities to achieve the best possible in-venue mobile fan experience, and highlight the key features and functionalities.

At LiveStyled, our vision is to ‘Create a Better Visitor Experience.’ From working with a wide range of venues, we have gathered data and insights into what our users and clients really want from our product.

Below we highlight the key features and functionality that we’ve found to be important in making mobile apps successful for arena venues.

Personalisation and Adaptive User Experience (UX) based on understanding the Context of the fan

See “Context-Aware blog”.

Our client’s venues host many different types of events, therefore, the visitors coming through the doors range greatly from event to event. This means that personalisation is a key requirement to deliver an outstanding mobile customer experience.

It is essential to have the ability to present a user interface to each person that is relevant, not just in terms of the content that is displayed (e.g. recommending appropriate events or F&B offers), but also in terms of the functionality widgets that are presented to the user. In order to work seamlessly in-venue, given the fast-paced nature of live event environments, the right feature needs to be at the user’s fingertips at all times. If they have to search through the app or click multiple times to find what they need, they will tend to give up.

Delivering this in the real world requires an underlying data platform that responds to everything we know about the fan in real-time, enabling the entire mobile user interface to change based on the following information about the fan:

• Ticket purchases and ticket type

• Location

• Demographics

• Community scoring / network analysis

• And anything else we know about them

This personalisation should also extend to Push Messaging so that users receive messages that are appropriate to their current context.

Every event is unique in terms of the content, the commercial partners involved and even the venue layout or configuration. The mobile customer experience needs to be every bit as flexible as well as the building itself and the operational teams that deliver the live experience.

Mobile Ordering

See “LivePaper Food & Beverage”.

Mobile Ordering is essential to delivering the return on investment that our clients want. Key considerations for mobile ordering include:

• Unified basket – Enabling users to purchase F&B, merchandise, premium upgrades, parking and any other revenue streams you want to drive, then automatically split the funds and send the appropriate amount of funds to the right bank accounts (caterers, merchandisers, venue etc).

• Prioritising relevant products based on location & purchasing behaviour – Using an understanding of customer behaviour including their ticket type, the concessions which are most convenient for them, the people attending within their group (their “network”) and the products which other similar users have purchased. Offers can also be time-based and limited to specific groups of fans, to encourage people to arrive earlier and only offer discounts where it’s going to make a positive impact on the bottom line.

• Flexibility in operational implementation – supporting different models for different parts of the venue including click & collect, mobile bars, virtual queuing, plus seat & suite delivery for premium areas.

• ePoS integration – syncing products from the ePoS and sending Orders back to the ePoS for reconciliation & reporting.

• Incorporating Wayfinding & Navigation into the F&B journey – Simply & easily showing the user how to get from their current location to the right collection point.

Loyalty

Many venues see an average of less than 2 visits per fan per year. This means that any loyalty scheme needs to maximise the fan’s spending on every single visit, and even a modest increase in repeat visitor frequency can have a big impact. The tools that we use to achieve this are:

• Virtual Currency – Enabling rewards and user top-ups in the form of credit that can be spent on anything available to purchase via the Unified Basket. These “Credit Campaigns” can be funded by sponsors and used to incentivise customers to spend more.

• Loyalty Groups – Identifying groups of customers (e.g. season ticket holders, suite ticket holders etc) and presenting exclusive content & offers to them. This is a great tool for sponsors but it also allows you to create your own loyalty schemes to nurture your best customers.

• Triggered Rewards – Set triggers based on how many times the fan attends the venue, which parts of the building they visit, the amount they spend either in a single order or over their customer lifetime, and any other behaviours you want to incentivise.

Graphics, courtesy: LiveStyled

LiveStyled was a Founding Partner Sponsor for the inaugural ALSD International conference and exhibition, which was held in London last year, and which is coming to Dublin’s Croke Park stadium this October, 28-29. Leading experts from across Europe and North America will be examining Premium Seating & Hospitality, and how to increase revenue through new builds, renovations and service expansions, as well as via the latest F&B and Tech offerings.

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