You might say Phones, wallets, cash, credit cards, random junk, etc.
Wrong! (well… right but we were looking for it in the form of a question… Alex)
Actually, for festival producers, you are losing your customers’ time and consequently additional festival revenue ($$$). Basically, ending up with a not very fun customer experience, millions (yes thats with an M) in dollars of stuff lost, and a hit to your bottom line all as a result of a rough Lost & Found Operation.
Losing Customer Time
Pretty obvious one here but when people lose stuff they tend to look for it. Some for a little while and some for waaaaaaaay longer than you might guess. Our L&F experts have seen attendees ask about their stuff that went missing at a festivals years earlier. That’s years with an S! Like multiple years ago.
The downside of this habit means these attendees aren’t spending time with your sponsors, vendors, the festival acts, or any of the other awesome activations that you are “banking on” (see what I did there?) to create a good experience and keep them coming back. Common time wastes from loss:
1. Looking for it (duh)
2. Trying to find their friends (ever try to find someone with out a phone?)
3. Standing in line (this one is just the worst)
4. Crying in a corner
5. They went home (this one actually happens a lot more than you think!)
Losing Customer Money
This one is a “2 for.” Not only is your customer losing money (some at an astounding rate more than others) but you, the festival producer and subsequent vendors, are losing the chance and earning those dollar bills.
Loss has a big impact on the customer time then has a much larger one on on their pocketbooks, its a British phrase so get over it. Lost cash, cards, and valuable items directly impact customer purchasing onsite at a rate of 60% less in spend.
Crazy right? Would you rather have those people staying at your festival, engaging with sponsors & vendors, and having such a good time they actually return next year?
Wether it shows up or not
The stuff in the bin usually demands all the staffs’ time. Only problem is your customer is experiencing the loss problem whether it shows up or not, and as we covered already Loss = bad for you. Plus, you have way more customers losing stuff and never finding it than the alternative.
So instead of an item only or “we’ll only let you know if we find something approach”, you may want to adopt a customer centric stance. This typically is very customized to your event and the customer situation, of which we will go more in-depth in future posts or you can just give us a shoutout for more info, but includes answers to these common questions:
- What should your customer expect when something is missing?
- How long? Where to go? After the festival?
- What can they do to help find it?
- What alternatives or substitutes could they use in the meantime?
- Who are they going to want to talk to depending on the situation (think guest services, security, police)?
- What common traps or problems will they run into because this is missing (credit card fraud, flight without an ID, locating friends and family, etc.)
- and so on…
Not only does a customer centric approach attempt to help all of your festival attendees but it will actually address a lot of the problems as a result of the item missing. Clawing back a majority of that negative experience for happier customers.
Shameless plug
Of course, we can’t end it without a shameless plug so if you want hear more about Festival Production Lost and Found, other stuff about customer experiences and how to improve it, or just geek out on L&F drop us a line below!
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