Ticket Office

Are you ringing the correct number ?

I should expect they are very busy, as loads are likely querying non receipt of S/T's, as they were sent out so late, plus the ticket website seems to have been designed by a 10 year old.

http://www.cafc.co.uk/global/contact.aspx

I phoned midday-ish, selected option 6 and waited only a few minutes. My 4 tickets will be re-issued. There seemed to be a degree of frustration with the new system at the club.

Got a reall bad feeling that the lateness in sending season tickets out is going to bite them this week.

They have said wait and call them if not there by Wednesday.nso for a lot of people the post is during the working day so that means waiting until home from work on wednesday evening and trying to call them on the Thursday before the close at 12.

If there are a lot of people all trying to call beforev12 on the thursdaybit is going to be a nightmare.

Just tried to get QPR tickets via website but it didn't recognise the password I used for the w.ham tickets when setting the account up. Asked for a reset over an hour ago and have had nothing through via email. Are the CON numbers now a thing of the past?

bazjonster said:

Just tried to get QPR tickets via website but it didn't recognise the password I used for the w.ham tickets when setting the account up. Asked for a reset over an hour ago and have had nothing through via email. Are the CON numbers now a thing of the past?

You still have your CON no, but don't seem to need it.

I suspect everyone involved knows that it is problematic sending season tickets out so late, but it's needs must because it can only follow from the implementation of the system and the resources available.

It is quite bizarre that they have been unable to take coach bookings, home and away, because they didn't set the system up to deal with them, though.

Hex said:

Airman Brown said:

I suspect everyone involved knows that it is problematic sending season tickets out so late, but it's needs must because it can only follow from the implementation of the system and the resources available.

It is quite bizarre that they have been unable to take coach bookings, home and away, because they didn't set the system up to deal with them, though.

From my brief conversation with them today they have my family's ST renewal info correct on the old system but it's a complete mess on the new system. That must surely mean the data transfer was not set up properly. Since it is in the supplier's interest for this to be as perfect as possible my guess is that the club's testing was not as it should be.

I'm assuming you've never worked with an IT Vendor and relied on them to do a migration for you then? My experience is they quite often cock it up, don't really care and when challenged blame the source data.

I don't know how many records were in the old system and certainly don't know what the quality of the data was like (duplicates, mispelt names etc) but I'm guessing we are talking about 10,000 - 15,000 records. There is only so much checking that can be done, especially if you have to factor in people having get to grips with the admin of a new system, undertake UAT and deal with day jobs.

Suspect the blame lays on two doorsteps here.

Hex said:

Clem_Snide said:

Hex said:

Airman Brown said:

I suspect everyone involved knows that it is problematic sending season tickets out so late, but it's needs must because it can only follow from the implementation of the system and the resources available.

It is quite bizarre that they have been unable to take coach bookings, home and away, because they didn't set the system up to deal with them, though.

From my brief conversation with them today they have my family's ST renewal info correct on the old system but it's a complete mess on the new system. That must surely mean the data transfer was not set up properly. Since it is in the supplier's interest for this to be as perfect as possible my guess is that the club's testing was not as it should be.

I'm assuming you've never worked with an IT Vendor and relied on them to do a migration for you then? My experience is they quite often cock it up, don't really care and when challenged blame the source data.

I don't know how many records were in the old system and certainly don't know what the quality of the data was like (duplicates, mispelt names etc) but I'm guessing we are talking about 10,000 - 15,000 records. There is only so much checking that can be done, especially if you have to factor in people having get to grips with the admin of a new system, undertake UAT and deal with day jobs.

Suspect the blame lays on two doorsteps here.

Been involved in many migrations. In the end the club will have seen the results of test data loads. It sounds like the new database is such a mess that this should have been obvious to the club. In which case the club should have refused to move forward until the tests were OK.

I don't know how robust the project management from the club end is, but regardless of that they weren't going to start the season without the new system because it would have been chaotic - they would have had to have issued match tickets to season ticket holders at best and admitted there was a problem. That alone would be a big extra cost in postage and staff time. So even if it wasn't ready and they knew it, my guess is they would have pressed ahead anyway.

There will have been at least 50,000 records (66,000 at one point to my knowledge) on the old system - a lot of it garbage by now, probably, and some of it useless in the first place because when the system was launched they were just signing up anyone at events as Red Card members, regardless of whether they ever bought anything or supported Charlton. Some of that data got weeded over the years and there were certainly efforts to deal with duplication.

Poor migration doesn't really explain some of the strange things coming out, where for example mistakes are clearly based on what was held not what people have bought this time. That looks more like user error to me, but I would imagine the staff are under a lot of stress.

just rang and upgraded one of my kids ones to an adult one for this Saturday, straight through and took about 2 mins...great service

Just popped down in person and bought my season ticket this morning. Took just a few keep mins