What a furore this weekend with the sale of Oasis tickets. I am not a big fan but a friend decided to get tickets and I felt that I lived through the pain of that experience.
Initially, he had to register to get tickets but was not lucky enough to get into the pre-sale ballot. We had a discussion as to how much we were prepared to see them and due to age, decided we would need to have seats! We were pleasantly surprised when the prices were released – well within budget.
On Saturday morning at 8.15, he messaged me to say that he was in a queue for a queue to get onto Ticketmaster. By 10.15, he was still in the same queue. At 10.17, he messaged me with a screenshot of his position in the queue that he had just entered– number 278941. There was a discussion as to whether he should wait or give up, but there is the danger that he gives up and so do 270,000 other people. He told me he had to go out at two o’clock. At midday, he was number 256,000 in the queue. He went out at two o’clock and he has not asked me to transfer him any money so am assuming that he did not get tickets!
I feel so sad for him and all the people in that queue, many of whom will be fans from the 1990s, keen to see their favourite band of the day. But what made me really cross were the reports about those who did get onto the website , only to find that the tickets were not the price as originally quoted earlier in the week but ‘due to excessive demand’ (well that’s a surprise!), had increased substantially. And many of those went onto Twitter to express their disgust at this. It even made it onto the BBC news.
So – you know where I am going with this?
Dynamic pricing
If you read my diary regularly, you will know that one of my favourite topics is fees. I am incensed by those firms which start with a low price and then have ‘add-ons’. When I speak with a potential client about fees and they tell me that they have had a quote three times cheaper than mine, I point out firstly that the firm will need three times more work, but more importantly, that it is probably not the true fee. There are add-ons which will make the ultimate price they pay more than my fee.
But perhaps, as we become busier, we should increase our fees. It is likely there will be another stamp duty cliff edge at the end of March next year – as we become busier, let’s put up our fees. Tell clients that it is ‘dynamic pricing’ and use the Oasis debacle as the reference point so they understand if we are busy, our prices have to increase to cope with the additional workload.
And remind them that we are not selling tickets to a concert but buying the most expensive asset they are ever likely to purchase and it has to be done properly. Be proud of what we do and charge for that.
Many of us remember Oasis from the first time around… that is how long many of us have been doing conveyancing(!) and we need to be paid accordingly.
This is written by a real high street conveyancer who wishes to remain anonymous. Read more in Today’s Conveyancer every week.
One Response
Assuming the higher pricing comes with a greater time allocation and better service, why not?
There is a huge difference however between dynamic pricing and price gouging.
Motivation.
Are you motivated to utilise greater revenue per hour not only to make more, but more importantly provide better service, greater empathy, and allocate resources to ensure wholly satiated clients?
Or are you just ramping up fees and proving the same level of service.
‘Price is what you pay, value is what you get’ – John Ruskin.
Clients who pay high fees expect high value. They’ll be far quicker to tell the world if they feel they haven’t had it.
And then, when they do so the words ‘rip off’ will be used on top of whatever their original complaint is.
Dynamic pricing comes with responsibility often misunderstood and overlooked.