City were on the verge of having a reliable digital ticket system but chose chaos

[Tim of the Oak]

I’ve spent several hours trying to transfer tickets to friends and family for the Burnley game. I’ve also bought a pair of tickets for friends who’ve returned to Manchester for a family funeral the Leipzig game that can’t be transferred. I’ve rang Supporters Services twice and tweeted them. They promised to fix it.

The Club’s admin had a working digital ticket system that was doing a decent job but chose to reinvent the wheel mid season. It’s not the fault of the people in the ticket office / on the help line. It’s those in charge who didn’t have the foresight to get any changes they felt needed to be made preseason when there was time for proper testing.

The people I’ve got tickets for include young families hoping to see their first game. Hopefully that can happen.

 

[jimharri]

I got a seasoncard transferred over to me for a game a couple of weeks back. Went pretty smoothly, apart from them originally transferring the wrong game. That happened on the friday, and was corrected by the following monday/tuesday.

 

[train man]

Can you not just send the recipient the QR code(s)? Has worked fine for me by whatsapp or text in the past.

 

[Axel Freed]

I got a seasoncard transferred over to me for a game a couple of weeks back. Went pretty smoothly, apart from them originally transferring the wrong game. That happened on the friday, and was corrected by the following monday/tuesday.

So not all that smoothly at all then :-)

 

[jimharri]

So not all that smoothly at all then :-)

Hence the "pretty".

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

I went to the Youth Cup game and got my digi-phone-techy ticket with no problem, but it just contained the details of the game, no seat number. A day or so before the game I received a text informing me that it was reserved seating. I thought, Oh fuckity fuck, there goes the ticket. But no, a quick glance at the 'new' ticket and it contained the seat number, and it was the same seat number that I thought I'd bought originally. Isn't it nice when technology just works?

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Exactly the point I made long and loud at City Matters over this.

It was a huge and (to me) unnecessary risk to implement it in the way they did, with minimal user testing. Two years on, the basics seem to work (although that took half a season and I've only got NFC to work once and have to use the barcode) and I've had people transfer their tickets to me for a couple of games, which has worked.

I've just started a new job at a bank that's completely re-engineering their systems and processes and they've picked one quite niche product, with small volumes and have stated that many back-office processes may have to be done manually while they ensure the customer-facing things are working properly. Much more sensible approach.

 

[Pablo ZZZ Peroni]

I’ve spent several hours trying to transfer tickets to friends and family for the Burnley game. I’ve also bought a pair of tickets for friends who’ve returned to Manchester for a family funeral the Leipzig game that can’t be transferred. I’ve rang Supporters Services twice and tweeted them. They promised to fix it.

The Club’s admin had a working digital ticket system that was doing a decent job but chose to reinvent the wheel mid season. It’s not the fault of the people in the ticket office / on the help line. It’s those in charge who didn’t have the foresight to get any changes they felt needed to be made preseason when there was time for proper testing.

The people I’ve got tickets for include young families hoping to see their first game. Hopefully that can happen.

Are you talking about a change that has just been made this season? If so what has the change been?

 

[Tim of the Oak]

Can you not just send the recipient the QR code(s)? Has worked fine for me by whatsapp or text in the past.

Everything was working fine before the changes in the last week mate. Now I can’t even access the QR codes. Thanks for the suggestion

 

[Tim of the Oak]

Exactly the point I made long and loud at City Matters over this.

It was a huge and (to me) unnecessary risk to implement it in the way they did, with minimal user testing. Two years on, the basics seem to work (although that took half a season and I've only got NFC to work once and have to use the barcode) and I've had people transfer their tickets to me for a couple of games, which has worked.

I've just started a new job at a bank that's completely re-engineering their systems and processes and they've picked one quite niche product, with small volumes and have stated that many back-office processes may have to be done manually while they ensure the customer-facing things are working properly. Much more sensible approach.

Thanks Colin. I agree with you.

I thought the technology had settled down but this reworking of the format or people’s tickets accounts seems to have thrown up more glitches. The basic update to my own ticket on my phone is working fine but I’m no longer being allowed to transfer tickets or access the ticket link emails. I wish they would have just left what was working alone.