Moomin World
Moomin World is a theme park founded in 1993, based on the Moomin stories and tales by Tove Jansson. The idea behind Moomin World is to offer genuine experiences for the whole family. The core audience for the park are families with kids.
Along its digital path, Moomin World found it challenging to engage their customers on a personal level. As marketing focused on mass communication the connection to an individual customer was secondary. This was one of the key challenges Moomin World sought to solve with digital means.
Moomin World tried to engage in online ticket sales before their co-operation with Sofokus, but the previous versions were found to be too challenging for the users. Therefore, Moomin World wanted to create a system which was both cost-efficient for the organization and convenient for the customer. This model is called the “Electric Hattifattener” and it has been worked on in co-operation for the past couple of years. The biggest leap in the model becoming a reality was founding the on-site ticket shop which also enabled establishing an individual contact to the customer for the first time. Even though at this point that contact is merely an e-mail address, it creates a foundation for continued communication after the purchase.
The benefits of having our own digital shop
As always, the road to success has been challenging. Moomin World has always tried to offer an excellent user experience to its customers who are using their services. Ease of use and simplicity have been the focal points.
Moomin World had a steady belief that the customers would prefer to buy their tickets in advance from a convenient online shop. They also believed that their brand image would convince the customers to make purchases on their site.
Moomin World had learned from previous attempts at online ticket sales that external ticket vendors were not the right solution. This experience combined with the high number of users on Moomin World’s site lead to the decision to develop an on-site ticket shop. The customers have found the store even better than expected and currently over half of the tickets purchased are bought from the on-site shop.
Why Sofokus?
The reason Moomin World chose Sofokus was an immediate click between the two. From the get-go Sofokus expressed a clear understanding of Moomin World’s business goals. All of the decisions along the way were made with mutual understanding and were communicated clearly. Project-related discussions were always solution-oriented and this lead to Moomin World choosing Sofokus as their developer without even considering other providers.
The ticket shop has been in use for several years and has worked well. There haven’t been any major needs for updates along the way and the shop has suited Moomin World’s needs very well.
Sales exceeded expectations
Sofokus built an entirely custom-made ticket shop that was integrated as a part of Moomin World’s website. Moomin World has used the ticket shop to sell entry tickets. An additional use for the ticket shop has been to deliver free passes and tickets intended for Moomin World’s partners.
When the ticket shop was in design, Moomin World had a vision in which advance ticket sales covered 80% of all sales. When the shop was first launched, advance ticket sales were approximately 1000 tickets per season. The goal set for the new shop was set at 10000 tickets. Sales exceeded expectations and ticket sales reached 25000 despite the ticket shop having not received any marketing at this point. The numbers have gradually climbed since then and in 2018 over half of the season’s tickets were sold on the online shop.
A positive experience
Moomin World was surprised especially by how fast the first version of the shop was launched. Over the years changes have always been implemented quickly and the design meetings regarding those have always been on point and with the correct people present. The approach to the task at hand has always been professional and the product top of the line. Whatever shortcomings the system has had and changes it has needed have always been solved quickly, thus making the system serve its purpose even better.
What the future holds
The “Electric Hattifattener”-model will continue to evolve and will eventually manifest itself in different services being even more closely integrated as a part of the user experience. The goal is to improve the value the customer receives from being a patron, thus enhancing their experience even further. Moomin World hopes to develop its own mobile application, an e-commerce store as well as improve the instances where the customer is interacted with and the overall experience they have with Moomin World. The goal is to develop all of these in unison so that the customer can find the digital services provided to them as a means to enhance the value of their experience and provide them with ease of use.