China Paradigms interviewed Greig Charlton, the CEO at 247tickets.com, to gain knowledge of his business at personalized ticketing services in China, and to know more about the business model of a platform recommending the best events in China.
Greig Charlton, a credible leader at a platform recommending the best events in China
Greig Charlton graduated in 2003 from the University of Dundee, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in anatomy and physiology. However, Greig began his career journey in a totally different direction from his major in school. With a focus on developing client service, Greg has been the CEO of 247tickets.com for over 5 years now. He has a unique insight into customer management and how to make customers loyal to a brand.
Since there are many relevant giant ticketing websites in China, like Damai, 247tickets.com has developed a distinctive business model that aims to offer personalized ticketing services in China. Instead of customers going on the ticketing website and randomly looking for events, Greig and his team are trying to make 247tickets.com a specific platform where customers can find events that perfectly match their interests.
247tickets.com, Is it possible to be a platform recommending the best events in China? How to understand that the event will be worth it?
“What we have done is we have actually created an ecosystem for ourselves to allow us to be able to take advantage of the fact that none of these companies are actually supplying what users really want, or focus on users.”
From Greig’s quote, “the best events for customers is not necessarily the most excellent or best-organized event, but the one that perfectly fits with the customer need, the event he really wants to take part in”. Therefore, 247tickets.com is proactive in providing a personalized ticketing service in China. It is like a bridge that connects event promoters and organizers with the customers. On the one side, 247 helps to deal with the permitting process and licensing of qualified foreign artists in the Chinese market. On the other side, it builds WeChat groups to gather customers with similar interests, in order to categorize various events for different customers.
Themed WeChat communities: social groups that share a similar passion
Once a customer purchased a ticket for an event or is referred by his or her friends, this person will be recommended to different themed WeChat communities. For example, sports lovers, music fans, comedy addicts and so on will be put into separate WeChat groups. Based on the classification of customers with particular interests, it will be way easier for event organizers to promote their activities thanks to this accurate customer targeting system:
“Our product is based around finding out as much information as possible from our users. And helping them deciphering, go through all the information that’s around there in a very simple way so that they can make an informed choice of what they do with us every time.”
Once a new customer joins the themed WeChat communities, he/she will first get a piece of notification to help him/her understand what the groups are about. Within a themed WeChat community, group members can share information about events freely and this partly ensures that customers will be using 247tickets.com to book tickets for their favorite events.
It is a platform recommending the best events in China, which is beneficial for both customers and event organizers. Because event promoters do not only care about how many people finally come to their events, but also about how relevant they are customers, according to the event.
“They (event promoters) need to show their backers that they are getting the right people because a lot of events will make a lot of money through sponsorship. And the brands care about their demographic who are seeing their brand.”
Smart technologies for social e-commerce in China, AI robot as order maintainer
Within every themed WeChat community, there will be an AI robot maintaining the order inside the group. AI robots are able to make sure that there is no spam or anything irrelevant in the group. Smart technologies for social e-commerce in China have made it possible to maintain a customer base more efficiently without manual service. What’s more, AI robots can also follow customers in the transaction phase, which can allow events’ organizers to get a better knowledge about customer’s exact preferences, and 247tickets.com can refine customers’ needs and offer them more relevant events in the future.
There are two kinds of WeChat groups based on 247tickets.com: concierge groups and community social groups. Smart technologies for social e-commerce in China have different functions in these two kinds of groups. In social groups, the team leader or any member of the group can produce specific QR codes that link to themselves. If anyone follows the QR code, they will be put in touch with relevant communities. In this way, the community is always active and keeps expand itself. In concierge groups or informational groups, they can simply ask AI robots what to do generally, so that the AI can recommend them several events based on the communities they belong to.
Apart from the existing functions, Greig also looks into the future development of smart technologies for social e-commerce in China, which is expected to provide totally personalized ticketing services in China: not only in groups, but also on WeChat official accounts, apps, and websites, will be personalized for each customer.
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