ServiceUniverse » Mackenzie http://www.serviceu.com/blog The official blog of ServiceU Corporation Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:35:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 1o tips to promote your Easter performance http://www.serviceu.com/blog/1o-tips-to-promote-your-easter-performance/ http://www.serviceu.com/blog/1o-tips-to-promote-your-easter-performance/#comments Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:35:49 +0000 Mackenzie http://www.serviceu.com/blog/?p=1006 Are you looking for affordable ways to promote your church’s Easter performance? If so, be sure to check out 10 Tips to promote your Easter performance. This article  features easy-to-do marketing and PR tools that your church can implement to help ‘get the word out’ about your production.  There are some great ways to reach people beyond your church campus. Do you have any suggestions? Share them with  us and other churches.

]]> http://www.serviceu.com/blog/1o-tips-to-promote-your-easter-performance/feed/ 0 Online ticketing fees waived to new customers http://www.serviceu.com/blog/online-ticketing-fees-waived-to-new-customers/ http://www.serviceu.com/blog/online-ticketing-fees-waived-to-new-customers/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:39:59 +0000 Mackenzie http://www.serviceu.com/blog/?p=986 During the holidays such as Christmas and Easter, many churches rely on special events – larger and more frequent church services, holiday-themed performances, concerts and even art galleries – to draw people in to their church as a form of outreach to the community. These events are wonderful tools to communicate the Gospel beyond your front doors and assist with overall church growth.

But before your events begin, it’s critical to take a look at the way you register people and take and sell tickets. Taking tickets for events online through your website is a wonderful solution for both events that incur a fee and those that do not.

“TicketU has made it easier for our members to invite guests, which helps with our outreach to those who may not have a church background,” says Candy Phillips, church hostess for Bellevue Baptist Church. “Last year, our Easter Memphis Passion Play drew more than 25,000 people. Although we still sell tickets at our box office, more than 50 percent of the tickets we sell are sold through online ticketing.”

With Easter just around the corner, reserving seats for the Easter services, purchasing tickets for the annual Easter egg hunt, or reserving box seats for the Easter Musical online just might be the way to go for your church. TicketU is an excellent solution that can turn your administrative nightmare and into a springtime dream.

Sign up to use TicketU for your online ticket sales by April 1, 2010, and receive your first 300 tickets free (a $300 value).

To learn more about how TicketU can simply the way you sell online tickets and to lock in your 300 free tickets, click here or call 866-709-7420 today!

Click on the links below to read more about churches that have successfully implemented TicketU for outreach:

]]> http://www.serviceu.com/blog/online-ticketing-fees-waived-to-new-customers/feed/ 0 5 ways online ticketing helps with outreach http://www.serviceu.com/blog/5-ways-online-ticketing-helps-with-outreach/ http://www.serviceu.com/blog/5-ways-online-ticketing-helps-with-outreach/#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:33:45 +0000 Mackenzie http://www.serviceu.com/blog/?p=930 5 Ways Online Ticketing Helps with Outreach
Providing a way for event-goers to buy tickets online can increase traffic to your website and increase interest in your event. Have you ever considered online ticket sales as a way to reach guests and visitors? Here’s a look at how online ticketing can be a beneficial outreach tool.

Here are 5 ways that online ticketing can assist your church with outreach:

1. Online ticketing reduces costs and frees up money for outreach
 Online ticketing cuts costs by reducing postage fees to mail tickets. Participants can simply print out their tickets at home. In addition, online ticketing reduces the administrative burden of selling tickets. This releases more financial and personnel resources to utilize in other areas of your ministry.

2. Fewer volunteers in the box office
 Online ticketing can reduce the need to have as many volunteers on-hand to sell tickets. This allows them to help in other ways, including meeting and greeting the guests.

3. Follow up
Another great aspect of using online ticketing for outreach is the follow up capabilities your organization has once someone has purchased a ticket. With TicketU™, patrons enter their email address when purchasing tickets and check a box if they are interested in other events. This gives churches another way to communicate with people in the future.

4. Reserved seating encourages guest attendance
Reserved seating eliminates the hassles of finding a seat or meeting a friend. This makes guests feel much more comfortable and more likely to attend your event.

5. Flexibility
Many guests may not feel comfortable going to the unfamiliar church office to purchase a ticket. By offering online event ticketing, your guests can order tickets from the comfort of their home.

Learn more about how TicketU can make your church box office management easier—and increase  ticket sales and outreach.

]]> http://www.serviceu.com/blog/5-ways-online-ticketing-helps-with-outreach/feed/ 0 Feedback for the updated My.ServiceU http://www.serviceu.com/blog/feedback-for-the-updated-my-serviceu/ http://www.serviceu.com/blog/feedback-for-the-updated-my-serviceu/#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:28:55 +0000 Mackenzie http://www.serviceu.com/blog/?p=926 We hope you’ve had an opportunity to visit the newly updated user interface for My.ServiceU.com to experience the new look and the enhancements!  While the look has changed to provide a cleaner, more modern interface, the functionality is basically the same (for now). So while you will certainly notice the new look, all of your favorite features are still in their familiar places.

Why we made these changes
In addition to updating and modernizing the look of the interface, we made these changes to enhance the overall usability of My.ServiceU.com. The improvements to the user interface yield “lighter” pages that will load faster in browsers. These changes will also provide better support for a wider variety of web browsers. Many elements have been improved to provide better readability and usability, including the Home page, Search Events pages, as well as buttons and other graphics throughout the system. This new design will also enable us to provide a better and more consistent display of errors and warnings.
Here’s a look at some of the updates at My.ServiceU.com:
• Smaller, faster pages – Improvements to our interface make pages load faster than before.  In addition, we have significantly reduced the size of each page making faster load times for you!
• Clean, visually appealing pages – You may have noticed the new look for the www.ServiceU.com website. We wanted to bring that fresh, updated modern look to the My.ServiceU.com interface as well. We hope you enjoy the fresh new look.
• New calendar and Home page – The main calendar page has also been updated with new visual styling.  Also, the Home page has been decluttered to make it a much more visually appealing Home page.
• New Popup Calendar - Gone is the old browser popup window for selecting dates in the system.  The new, unobtrusive calendar slides in under the date textbox and allows for fast access to date selection.  It no longer triggers popup blockers or hides behind the current window.  This small change greatly improves usability.
• New Newsletter Editor - One of the greatest improvements in usability is on the newsletter creation page.  We have replaced the editor with more functional, efficient editor.  Unused options have been removed, and the new editor works on all browsers!
• Better browser support – The changes and updates we’ve implemented have allowed us to take a major step toward the site becoming more consistent across all browsers and operating systems.   By implementing current web standards, we will have the ability to use innovative features in new web technologies (CSS3, HTML5) in the future.  The site has been tested with Internet Explorer (6,7,8), Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple Safari.  While the supported browser list hasn’t officially been updated, we hope users of the unsupported browsers will have a much better experience.  While Internet Explorer 6 is still supported, we would encourage users to upgrade to a more secure browser for the best experience possible.   Some visual aspects of the site will not be supported in IE6.

So, what do you think?
 We hope you enjoy and benefit from these changes and updates. We absolutely value your suggestions for improvements and new features. As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions via email at support@serviceu.com.

]]> http://www.serviceu.com/blog/feedback-for-the-updated-my-serviceu/feed/ 0 TicketU helps church with outreach http://www.serviceu.com/blog/ticketu-helps-church-with-outreach/ http://www.serviceu.com/blog/ticketu-helps-church-with-outreach/#comments Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:57:00 +0000 Mackenzie http://www.serviceu.com/blog/?p=924 TicketU helps Bellevue Baptist reach the community with Easter message

Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn., has been putting on its Memphis Passion Play since 1991. Bellevue’s Passion Play has been instrumental in reaching many people with the Easter message, many of whom may not have heard it before.

For the last three years, Bellevue has utilized ServiceU’s TicketU to sell performance tickets online and onsite to its members and the community. The simplified ticketing process is easier for their staff and volunteers to manage, and it allows them to focus on the outreach that accompanies an Easter performance that draws in crowds from the community.

“TicketU has made it easier for our members to invite guests, which helps with our outreach to those who may not have a church background,” says Candy Phillips, church hostess for Bellevue Baptist Church. “Last year, our Easter Memphis Passion Play drew more than 25,000 people. Although we still sell tickets at our box office, more than 50 percent of the tickets we sell are sold through TicketU via online sales.”

“And, TicketU is convenient to use,” states Phillips. “Attendees no longer have to stand in line before the performance to purchase tickets. They just go online to our website, choose where they want to sit and purchase tickets…all from the comfort of their own home.”

Simplify the ticketing process for your staff and volunteers

In addition, TicketU simplifies the ticketing process for the church staff and volunteers, and makes the ticket sales easier to manage.

“Prior to using TicketU, we were using a very outdated DOS system to track and sell tickets to our Easter event. The system was very slow, difficult to use for our staff members, and it was hard to fix when difficulties arose.”

Three years ago, Bellevue switched to TicketU and has been ecstatic with the results.

“The ‘ticketing ladies’ just love it,” she adds. “Since it is web-based, in just a few ‘clicks’ we have entered the person’s information and printed out their ticket(s) to the event they want to attend. Even ‘editing’ information is easy as it is, ‘just a click away.’”

Training new employees on the TicketU system has also been a “snap” according to Phillips.

“It takes just a short period of time to train new staff and our events registration group is up and running,” notes Phillips. “TicketU has indeed made our lives in the ‘ticketing world’ at Bellevue a lot easier.”

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