DigiTickets, a leading provider of ticketing and EPOS solutions for attractions, tours and events, has shared details of a seamless, cross-channel booking experience that it has developed for The Royal Liver Building 360 Tour.
The Royal Liver Building became famous in 1911 as the first skyscraper in Europe, and is still regarded as one of Liverpool’s most distinctive buildings. The Grade I-listed skyscraper debuted its immersive ‘360 Tour’ in 2019, featuring a 15th-floor viewing platform which offers stunning panoramic views across the city.
DigiTickets has partnered with The Royal Liver Building 360 Tour (RLB 360) to create a complete online ticketing system to ensure a consistent, on-brand visitor experience across all direct, third-party, and walk-up booking channels.
Future-proofed, seamless platform
As a new attraction, RLB 360 sought to build a solid platform on which to launch and expand its brand. Creating a uniform visitor experience was identified as an essential objective that had to flow internally through its software, people, and processes from its very beginning.
Even though they were only accepting walk-up transactions and direct sales through their website at first, the operators desired a tech stack that would expand with them as their visitor base grew. They also wanted the ability to incorporate online travel agencies (OTAs) into the channel mix. This would enable them to reach and engage new audiences once they had established a consistent, high standard of guest experience and service.
The RLB360 Team had prior expertise with several ticketing and EPOS systems. During the procurement process, they researched numerous providers before deciding on DigiTickets as their preferred choice.
Chris Devaney, operations manager at Royal Liver Building 360 Tour, says: “We needed a system that could facilitate easy booking and sales management in the back end, while also offering a really clean and simple UX at the front end to maximise staff efficiency and customer engagement. Once we’d shortlisted a number of prospective partners based on our criteria, it quickly became clear that DigiTickets exceeded all of the other systems quite comfortably. In the end, it was an easy decision.”
Optimised visitor experience
DigiTickets immediately began building a system to fit RLB 360’s requirements. It first concentrated on creating seamless online booking and point-of-sale functions and worked closely with RLB 360 on extensive testing and enhancements to the website’s user experience. This guaranteed that each stage was comprehensively connected, frictionless, and easy for individuals of all ages to use.
RLB 360 had also been searching for a system that could support its approach to data collection and analysis, allowing it to identify important user behaviour trends, optimise for conversion, and guide strategic decisions.
Devaney comments: “DigiTickets allows us to control the entire guest journey while ensuring the online experience lives up to the same standards as when they’re on site. The guest journey starts from the moment they book and runs right through to when they receive a post-visit email. That end-to-end experience is so important for us.
“We really appreciated how easy the setup was and how quickly we were able to train staff on how to use the system, even with the advanced data and reporting capabilities it offers. Making changes in the back end is simple, which is handy for our managers when it comes to adjusting capacities or time slots – and that can happen quite frequently given the amount of walk-up trade and short-term bookings we get.”
PPC is one of RLB 360’s most effective sales channels, and so the attraction required the system to integrate flawlessly with Google Analytics to ensure that all information was recorded and presented correctly. RLB 360 can now monitor load times, dwell durations, and other vital metrics to ensure an optimised experience at all times.
Driving growth
RLB 360 added DigiTickets’ channel manager, Experience Bank, soon after launch. This would help them launch their OTA channel strategy and consolidate and automate all of their primary booking channels.
Devaney explains: “The good thing about Experience Bank is that all the partners listed there have a direct API link with DigiTickets. Everything gets automatically updated at our end whenever a guest books through another website or OTA. The system checks our capacity, confirms the booking and adjusts the data accordingly. That means we don’t have to worry about updating things manually, which saves time and cuts the risk of making mistakes.
“Although we pay commission on OTAs, we don’t treat the commission as a cost; instead, we see it as a marketing percentage and put it down as a cost to the sale. We don’t generate those sales otherwise. They help us reach a wider audience and build their own marketing campaigns that we’d probably spend thousands of pounds to do as well, but they’re doing it while driving revenue.
“We’ve also been able to extend our advance booking timeline thanks to Experience Bank, as it’s usually people looking at their holidays a few weeks in advance. Overall the system has helped us manage capacity, staffing and last-minute changes to tour plans.”
As a result of implementing DigiTickets solutions, RLB 360 has experienced a rise in sales income brought in by OTAs and the increased exposure of their brand as a result of favourable reviews on websites like TripAdvisor and Get Your Guide, and also reports higher website conversions, with a significant increase in conversions within two months. In addition, by employing data insights and customer feedback to continuously refine its strategy, the business has developed a flawless online experience for its visitors.
Devaney concludes: “Our next big focus is to grow our presence even further with third-party sellers, wholesalers and DMOs, helping to encourage bookings for larger groups and companies. We’re also looking at adding Google and Apple Pay functionalities to give our guests another great, easy payment option.
“Overall, our plan is to continue growing the site and developing our offering, while still delivering the same high level of experience and customer service that we’ve now set – and DigiTickets will continue to be key in enabling that.”
Last year, DigiTickets shared key consumer behaviour trends related to ticketing which could benefit attractions. The firm predicted that the post-COVID rise in international travel would continue, and shared ways in which operators can harness the promotional power of top marketplaces including Expedia, Tiqets and TXGB.
