ROBIC APPLAUDS THE GENEROSITY AND INGENUITY OF ITS CLIENTS. HERE IS THE INSPIRING STORY OF THEPOINTOFSALE.COM
This month of October, at the dawn of a second wave of COVID-19 in Quebec, the partners and team of Thepointofsale.com recount how they managed to stay afloat despite a flurry of cancelled events across the province.
Thepointofsale.com, an online registration and ticketing management site, was launched 10 years ago when Yannick Cimon-Mattar, Simon Gaudry and Martin Coutu, who at that time were organizing an average of 100 events each year, were unable to find an adequate solution that could meet some of their needs. They felt as though the solutions available on the market were inadequate for a multitude of reasons:
- High service fees (4.50$ per ticket 10 years ago);
- Defective user data collection;
- Complex purchasing process for the customer;
- Difficult management of marketing, promotional codes and discounts.
That is when the vision of creating a simple and performing platform emerged and this website was made possible thanks to the intervention of programming specialist Martin Coutu, chief technology officer. Mr. Cimon-Mattar, chief executive officer, explains that “Martin’s strength lies in his ability to simplify complex problems and we were able to greatly benefit from this expertise.“
However, the company whose mission is to bring people together currently faces a daunting challenge as event and festival organizers, venue owners and keynote speakers are experiencing a catastrophic downturn in their activities.
“With the arrival of the pandemic, our business model fell apart.“
“We had to be creative in order to turn the tide. To do so, we put ourselves in the shoes of our clients who were struggling with multiple cancellations and cash-flow problems.”
- Mr. Cimon-Mattar.
Thus, they went to the drawing board and, in a short period of time, were able to develop effective tools to allow organizers to cancel events and help them maintain their contingency funds with the implementation of a solidarity ticket system which allows the ticket holders to donate their tickets. Moreover, with the Worry-Free Refund Movement, Thepointofsale.com and participating organizers wished to convey a message of trust to their ticket holders by guaranteeing to refund their purchase, if necessary, regardless of the reason. This initiative has had a resounding success.
In addition to these initiatives, Lepointdevente.com made a big splash with the Entertainment Barometer, a longitudinal study that analyzes the evolution of the entertainment attitude of Quebec consumers in relation to the current pandemic. Finally, they developed a platform allowing the broadcasting of virtual events in a secure environment, accessible only to ticket holders. In just a few weeks, the company has enabled nearly 1,000 virtual events to come to life, thereby giving new impetus to the activities of its clientele comprising of approximately 5,000 event organizers. It was also by polling their vast database of ticket holders that the company was able to determine their interest in attending virtual events, and they were right on target!
The quick rollout of these initiatives in times of a pandemic has therefore placed Thepointofsale.com in an advantageous position to serve major organizations such as La Place des Arts, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, ComédiAh and many more.
“We are a bit like the creative player who comes up with new ways of doing things within the industry and who distinguishes himself by his creativity, among other things.”
– Yannick Cimon-Mattar
The company whose mission is to propel local initiative aims to quickly and efficiently implement solutions to expand its market share in Canada and the United States over the next 3 to 5 years.
The 3 entrepreneurs are now looking into developing a complementary service that would allow the team of 20 employees the opportunity to grow and expand in other related directions in order to meet the particular needs of many organizations with specific ticket sales requirements.
Overall, Yannick Cimon-Mattar explains that the company is currently planning its next wave of growth rather than allowing this second wave of COVID-19 to overshadow the best that they have to offer, namely their creativity and ingenuity.
ROBIC salutes their ability to constantly rethink their approach in order to offer optimal solutions based on the needs of their customers in times of crisis! Congratulations to the entire team!
