WILDLANDS: The experience starts with buying a ticket online
Payments. Not exactly a topic that grabs everyone right away. But talk about receiving money and CEOs start paying attention, and once stable cash flow comes up, CFOs quickly get interested. Herman Bolt, ICT Manager at WILDLANDS Adventure Zoo Emmen, is mainly driven by the customer journey. In his view, the payment process contributes to the overall visitor experience. And that matters, because experience is the central theme of WILDLANDS.
"It feels good to be the game changer and the enabler."
Herman Bolt, ICT Manager at WILDLANDS
- WILDLANDS' challenge
Extending the customer experience into an all-round payment experience - Buckaroo's solution
International payment methods, gift cards and credit management - Result
A payment process integrated with the customer experience, plus time savings
The customer journey in payments
At Buckaroo, we can't say it often enough: payments are not just a matter for the CFO or the finance department. Make paying easy, and it has a huge effect on the entire purchase process. But we don't need to explain that to Herman: “I regularly talk with the marketing department to keep them informed about payment methods and to work out together how we can optimize the purchase process on the website.”
“I'd always advise people to talk to their payment service provider (PSP) to find out what's possible. That helps you make better choices and innovate. And my tip from an ICT perspective: talk to other business disciplines and have those conversations together. And do it for the customer! That's what I consider most important. Everything we do should be done for a better customer experience. That's how you get the most out of it. That's what makes ICT fun. Of course, we're not the ones creating the direct experience in the park, but we can make sure everything runs like clockwork. It feels good to be the game changer and the enabler.”
Tailored to visitors
At Buckaroo, we rarely meet someone who has looked into payment options as thoroughly as Herman: “At first we could only accept iDEAL, and I thought, 'that's no longer acceptable these days.' We want to grow and attract more people. Visitors from abroad couldn't pay in advance at first. They paid at the gate. The first step was accepting credit cards, but when I looked into it further, I found that PayPal would be more interesting. PayPal now exceeds our credit card payments. PayPal is especially popular with visitors from Germany.”
“At WILDLANDS, the first thing we look at is where our visitors come from. For the Netherlands: iDEAL, PayPal, credit card and gift card. For Germany: Sofort, PayPal, Giropay and credit card. For Belgium: Bancontact. And we cover everyone else with credit card. We no longer get complaints from abroad asking why they can't pay with their own familiar payment method.”
Choosing Buckaroo
“We spoke with several providers and asked for proposals. What mattered to us: the payment options, ease of use in the back office and being able to extract data easily, gift cards as a payment option, and the ability to combine them with other payments. Gift cards were very important, because everyone with a VVV gift card used to have to report to the ticket desk. Now, with COVID-19, we can handle everything online.”
“Another important point for us was that season pass holders can pay by direct debit (SEPA with e-mandate). We can import lists from our POS system into the Buckaroo system. Every 10 days, we check which payments succeeded and which didn't. People who reversed their direct debit receive a reminder email from your system. If someone who reversed their direct debit shows up at the entrance, they can still pay at the ticket desk. A notification then has to go back to Buckaroo that the payment has been made, so they don't receive payment reminder emails. Credit Management helps us with this and saves us a lot of time. Having automated this is the biggest gain.”
"Credit Management saves us a lot of time. Automating it has been the biggest gain."
Herman Bolt, ICT Manager at WILDLANDS
Gift cards in the checkout
The WILDLANDS checkout is very extensive. Besides the regular payment methods, the options also include Sofort, GiroPay and gift cards. Of course, those first two payment options relate to visitors from the neighboring countries of Germany and Belgium. But what about paying with gift cards? “We have our own gift card, the WILDLANDS Giftcard, but we get more conversion from the VVV gift card and our recent partnership with Doenkado. They bring new visitors to the website.”
Additional payment solutions
Herman doesn't just focus on the checkout. WILDLANDS also uses Buckaroo's additional payment products, including recurring payments to collect subscription fees from its season pass holders. They pay by automatic direct debit and, where needed, receive a follow-up with a payment reminder or a new direct debit attempt. The payment status, such as 'paid', 'unpaid' or 'reversed', is tracked in real time in Buckaroo Plaza. Herman: “Your back office is incredibly user-friendly.”
Integration
Online drugstore Plein.nl is growing extremely fast, but it certainly hasn't lost sight of sustainability. Its new, highly smart packing system reduces parcels to a minimum, so empty space or environmentally harmful box filler never ends up in transport again.
“The smaller the parcels, the more parcels fit in the truck and the less transport on the road.” says Juriaan Spoormaker, CEO at Plein.nl.
Future plans
So WILDLANDS' payment strategy is to offer a wide range of payment methods while still making clear choices. “I can see why buy now, pay later (BNPL) is popular, but it's more suited to selling products, not tickets and services. Our amounts are also too small for it. And it's a day visit. Another up-and-coming payment method is Apple Pay. I really want it and suggested it right away. Online, we're holding off for now. Of course, visitors can already pay contactless with Apple Pay in the park, just not on the website yet."
Herman's tips for your payment strategy
“Choose a payment provider with good software that gives you a clear overview, with different user profiles for teams such as customer service, and the option to set up and run follow-up actions yourself. For example, sending a payment reminder with a payment link or a payment request by direct debit. I find Buckaroo Plaza very pleasant to work with for this. And feel free to try out payment methods. Your dashboard will show you whether they're being used. If not, you can always switch them off again.”
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Towards an optimal payment strategy
About WILDLANDS
Until 2016, the heart of the city center was home to ‘Dierenpark Emmen’, which originally opened in 1935 as ‘Noorder Dierenpark’. Anyone who ever visited knows it was a beautiful zoo, but its location made expansion difficult. Bringing the wild plans for ‘more experience’ to life required space, so a new park was built on the edge of Emmen. With the arrival of several serious attractions and roller coasters, there was briefly a question of whether it might become an amusement park. “We brought it back to our roots and essence: the experience of animals and discovering the world. That's why it isn't called WILDLANDS Adventure Park, but WILDLANDS Adventure Zoo Emmen.”
P.S. WILDLANDS is also available for business use. In 2018 and 2019, it won an award for the best event venue with its advanced ATLAS Theater. The park also has several other buildings suitable as venues for corporate meetings and other business events. ‘A meeting in our zoo is really something different from the average office environment.’ We at Buckaroo can certainly imagine that. Hopefully, WILDLANDS can soon welcome businesses and host events again ‘post-corona’.
"Your back office is extremely user-friendly"
Herman Bolt, ICT Manager at WILDLANDS
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