New Casual Box Office Staff

When you bring in new box office staff members or casual staff members, they need to be brought up to speed on the general basics of what they may need to know to perform their functions within the box office. The following is a listing of topics you can cover with a new casual staff member. This list of topics will vary, depending on their actual role and set of responsibilities.

The following list of topics is a guide for new box office members and/or casual staff members rather then the comprehensive list of the core set of tools and functions a Box Office Manager would need to learn and know for complete Theatre Manager application knowledge.

Another option is to allow the new box office member to follow a self-guided demonstration of the Theatre Manager application using a generic demo database. The step-by-step self-guided learning tool can be followed by the employee at their leisure.

Preparation Part 1: Setting Up A New User


Preparation Part 2: Creating a Training Database

  • Delete the old training database first (NOT the LIVE database)
  • Use a training database to allow the new employee to 'play around' without worry of 'backing out' what they do
  • Always use payment method of Cash - to avoid accidentally charging a real card
  • How to change from the LIVE to TRAINING database and just as important, how to change back to the LIVE database after training

How to log into Theatre Manager


Patron Management

  • The key to having success is knowing proper Patron Management. If you can find the patron, then you can move from there.
  • Searching for patrons
  • Updating patron accounts
  • Adding new patron accounts
  • Merging and Splitting Household Members (If applicable)

Ticket Selling

  • Before showing them 'how' to do it, you will need to explain to them your Box Office Policy rules for what you allow for Exchanges and Refunds of tickets:
    • Cross show exchanges
    • Waiving lower price and/or collecting for higher priced exchanged events
    • Price zones and/or pricing levels

  • Selling tickets
  • Exchanging tickets
  • Refunding tickets - they need to know this for the situations where they may need to just refund all the tickets and start over.
  • Overriding a held seat (wheelchair seats)
  • Holding tickets for a future release date (optional based on box office policy)
  • Releasing tickets (optional based on box office policy)

Processing/Handling Fees


Payments


Finishing the sale

  • Printing tickets immediately
  • Printing a cash and/or credit card receipts

Donations


Gift Certificates


Redemption of Passes and Gift Certificates


Activities After the Fact


Web Sales


Technical Situations

  • Providing log in access to the computer (not Theatre Manager, rather the actual computer) in case of reboot or power failure
  • How to insert new ticket stock, or clear a ticket stock jam of paper
  • Who to contact and/or how to restart the web listener
  • No power? No access to Theatre Manager? Take their money; write them a paper ticket; let them in the venue; process the ticket sales & payment later (don't panic)

The Day of the Event


End-of-Day Processing

  • Till Balancing (if applicable)
  • The complete EOD process is geared towards non-casual staff and will be run by the box office manager or equivalent.

Support & Help


Review Progress and Access to Modules

  • You'll need to monitor the progress of your casual staff member to see if they need additional access to learn more as they may turn into a star employee