This year Inc. magazine named Gametime, a mobile ticketing app for sports, concerts, and theater, the third fastest-growing private company in America. Gametime, founded in 2013, prides itself as a leader in the experience economy, offering last-minute tickets to people who spend their money on experiences rather than things. The company also distinguishes itself with its customer service, responding to customers quickly to meet their needs.
The problem: clunky texting
Yet in its early days, responding to customers wasn’t as efficient as it could have been. And when customers are trying to get into an event and their tickets are delayed, or they need an update on their order status, communication is critical, says Zach Moore, Gametime’s Fan Happiness Manager. While Gametime has always used texting, email, and phone calls to communicate, its staff prefers text—email can be cumbersome for back-and-forth conversation, and phone calls require customers to pull away or even hang up to use the app.
Texting keeps everything mobile. “If you’re texting you can go back into the app or shoot us a quick response and stay within the app,” Moore says. But Gametime’s original system, a Google Voice number, had a clunky interface and made it difficult to send important announcements to groups or for multiple co-workers to participate in a single conversation. So the company used it infrequently, for last-minute and one-way communications.
The solution: smooth communication
When Textline came along in 2015, Gametime became one of its early users and found it solved those problems. “Once we started using Textline,” Moore says, “it was a two-way conversation, which is more helpful for the customers and for our team.” Now Gametime uses Textline to send updates on customers’ order status or to get more information to complete an order. The company also uses Textline as a tool to combat fraudsters.
With Textline, Gametime can respond to customers’ needs in a matter of seconds. “One of the things our team focuses on is our response-time metric, and Textline has been a big player in that,” Moore says. “Text messaging is mobile focused and Gametime is mobile focused, so the two really go hand in hand.”
Gametime’s ability to text its customers has helped it become one of the country’s fastest-growing private companies. Sign up for a Textline free trial so customers can text your business today.
