How to set-up Benefit Products for membership schemes

Membership schemes, or Benefit Products as they are called in Ticketsolve, provide a range of advantages for both customers and arts organisations. 

Memberships give customers a sense of community and emotional attachment to your organisation and are a great way of opening up additional revenue streams, cultivating a loyal customer base, and enhancing customer engagement.

Setting up Benefit Products for membership schemes.

There are a number of different types of membership schemes you can offer your customers. In Ticketsolve, e.g., annual, tiered loyalty schemes, community / seasonal benefits, accessibility card holders, etc. Whether these are free or paid, they are always set-up as a Benefit Product.

Discounts contain the actual benefits (i.e., what the customer gets) and every Benefit Product must have an associated Discount, even if that Discount has no monetary effect. For example, customers who are part of an accessibility register may get access to special seating areas, but no monetary discount. 

 Important

Set-up the Discount first. Discounts need to be set-up before setting up a Benefit Product.

Our guide on Discounts and Discount examples will give you more options and outline the settings you need to set up different Discounts. In the example below we will set up a membership scheme with a Benefit Product that offers priority booking. 

Your settings might be different than the ones outlined below depending on the benefits you want to offer in your membership schemes.

Set up a Discount

Create a Discount

Go to Manage > Discounts

1. Click Add New +.

2. Fill in the fields on the screen.

• Name: Enter a descriptive name.
• Description: Optional, but a short description can help make it clear what the discount is for.
• Active Discount?: Set the toggle to on (blue).
• Start date and End date: Do not set a date here - the Discount needs to always be active because it is tied to Benefit Product(s). 

 Notes

To offer members time-bounded exclusive access to tickets or exclusive access shows you can do this through ticket allocations rather than through the Discount itself.

• Priority: You don't need to enter a priority number here, as the Discount is linked to a Benefit Product.
• Tags: You don't need to enter a tag here.

3. Click Save New to save your Discount. 

Create the Rules for your Discount

Now we need to set the Rules for the new Discount. The Rules are set up in two steps:

• When customer . . . (uses a promotion code, buys a certain amount of tickets, etc.)
• Customer gets . . . (a specified discount, exclusive access to, etc.)

To begin, in the Discount you want to set the Rules for:

1. Click the Rules tab to begin the set up. 

2. In the When customer . . .section click + Add New.

3. In the pop-up, select Use promotion code from the Select condition type dropdown menu.

 Notes

When setting up exclusive discounts just for members which will use the rule When customer uses promo code (the promo code is their account). You cannot  apply another When customer rule.   

4. Click the Save button. 

5. In the Customer gets . . .section click + Add New

6. The pop-up will guide you through setting up what the customer gets. In our example, we want to set up priority booking as a benefit.

 Important

There are a few ways to set-up exclusive access. With Ticketsolve you can set-up exclusive access to shows and tickets in a few different ways. For more information on the rest of the set-up steps, read our articles on Creating Exclusive Access Shows and Exclusive Access Tickets and Ticket Allocations. 

To set-up the Rules for exclusive access follow the details below:

• Select access type: Exclusive access to
• in . . . : shows with tag
• Select tag: select the tag that you added to the shows that this benefit applies to. 
• Define pricing: at any price
• Define discount amount: with amount off
• [Number field]: Enter 0
• Define discount limit:  with purchase limit
• [Number field]: Enter 2

7. Click Save to finish.

Create a Benefit Product

Now you can create the Benefit Product associated with the Discount.

Go to Manage > Products

1. Click the Add New + button.

2. Fill in the fields on the screen.

• • Product type: Select Benefit Product.
• Name: Enter a descriptive name.
• Comment: You can add a comment or other descriptive information that will display to customers online and in the Box Office. 
• Price: Enter the price if there is one. Certain membership schemes such as an Access Register may have no price associated with the Benefit Product. 
• Allow price override?: This allows the price to be changed. Set this toggle to off.
• Assigned discount: From the drop down menu, select the Discount that applies to the product. 
• Expiry rules: Set the expiration dates of the Benefit Product if that applies.
• Add the following tag . . . : Create a new tag or add an existing tag, so that when the Customer declaration is agreed to, this tag is added. The tag will help with reporting and tracking. 
• Priority: Enter a number here from 0-99. The number here determines the order in which Benefit Products are displayed online with 99 being the highest (shown first) and 0 the lowest.
• Assign to program?: From the drop down menu, select the Program that applies to the product if required.
• Highlight colour: This is optional and sets the colour of the label that appears in the Cart and other areas of the system when a customer has a Benefit Product.
• Tag: Enter tags, i.e., subdomain tags, if required.  

 Notes

If members are not charged booking fees and booking charges add the tag 'skip_booking_charges' which will skip both booking fees and booking charges for members.

• Active product?: Set the toggle to on (blue) to make the product available. 
• Can be sold?: Set toggle to on (blue), to make the Benefit Product available for purchase both online and in the Box Office.
• Disable online sales?: Set this toggle to on (blue). You can make the Benefit Product available for sale online once set-up is complete. 

3. Click the Add button when you are finished. 

4. A new field called Uploaded image will now appear so you can upload an image or gif associated with the Benefit Product. 

Adjust the Settings of the Benefit Product

Within Ticketsolve, you can fine-tune different Settings at the Account, Subdomain and Product level. To adjust the settings on a specific Benefit Product:

1. Open the Benefit Product you want to adjust the Settings on.

2. Click on the Settings tab at the top of your screen.

In the Settings tab you will see 4 columns: Setting, Account, Subdomain and Product. Next to each setting, you can see how the Account and Subdomain level settings are defined or set-up. Changing the Product level settings on this page will override any Account and Subdomain settings. To change Product level settings:

3. Click on any setting to make changes. 

• benefit_expiry_warning_days: Entering a number here, will set an expiry alert (in days), so that an alert is sent to customers to inform them their benefit is expiring soon. You can also set up the benefit expiry warning days at the account level.
• display_qr_code: Tick the box on this setting to create a QR code that will display along with the product.
• email_note: Create a product specific note that will be emailed to all customers who buy this product. 
• fulfilment_options: Tick the boxes next to the fulfilment options you want to offer on the product (e.g., Postage, Collect at Box office, Print at Home / e-Ticket). 
• template_data_print_at_home_product: Customise how the product voucher or ticket will appear when printed. You can add new fields, edit existing fields, add images and barcodes and preview your designs before committing. 
• template_data_product: Customise how the product voucher or ticket will appear digitally. You can add new fields, edit existing fields, add images and preview your designs before committing.
• voucher_reward_rate: Enter the voucher reward rate here, e.g., 10%. 

 Ticketsolve Tip

Product level branding: If you have branding that is specific to a membership (Benefit Products) or any other internal product branding, check the e-ticket / print at home template and template data product settings to ensure you are happy with the look of print at home and e-tickets. You may also want to consider any branding for Benefit Products that are sold across multiple subdomains.  

4. Click the Update button to save each Setting you adjust. 

Settings for the online view of memberships 

Memberships (Benefit Products) will be on a specific Benefit Products tab, e.g., yourdomain.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/products/benefit. 

In the online view, by default the page header for Benefits Products is called 'Benefits'. This can be changed in Settings (e.g., change 'Benefits' to 'Membership').

Go to Settings > Public Website Snippets

2. In the search filter, search for the setting "Public website benefits heading".

3. In the text box, replace 'Benefits' with whatever heading you wish to use. 

4. Click the Update button to save.

 Notes

Making a change to this heading will also apply to all subdomains in your account.

The below example shows what the online view looks like when the heading was changed to 'Membership'.

Benefit welcome note for new members

You can add a welcome note to new members your membership schemes, which will appear in the customers' confirmation email when they purchase these products via the email note merge field. These notes are benefit product specific, so that you can make them very targeted to specific members and schemes. 

Go to Manage > Products

1. Search and select the Benefit product you want to add a welcome note to.

2. Click on the Settings tab.

3. Click on the "email_note" setting. 

4. Enter your welcome message in the text box. All new members with this benefit product will receive this welcome note in their confirmation email (within the 'order.email_notes' merge field). 

5. Repeat the steps above to add welcome notes for other Benefit products. 

Set the Benefit Product to live

With your Discount set up and associated with a Benefit Product and any Product level settings modified, you can set the Benefit Product live. 

1. Click on the Product details tab on the Benefit Product you need. 

2. Set the Can be sold? toggle to on (blue).

3. Set the Disable online sales? toggle to off (grey) or leave the toggle set to on (blue) if the product will not be offered for sale online. 

Setting up notifications of Benefit Product sales

You can also set up alerts each time a Benefit Product is sold for any Ticketsolve users. Each time a new member joins your membership scheme you and / or your colleagues will be alerted. To set this User alert:

Go to User > Manage Users

1. Search and select the User's name you need. 

2. Click on the Manage alerts tab. 

3. On the alert, Each time a benefit product is sold, set the toggle to on (blue) .

4. Click Update Alerts.

5. Repeat the steps above for all Ticketsolve users that you would like to alert.

Now, all the users with this alert turned on will receive an email notification with the details of the new member, their order and the Benefit Product they chose.