Repeat customers: Memberships

Once the novelty of Virtual Reality wears off, and becomes more common place in homes, LBVR will need to achieve higher rates of returning customers.  With the industry being so young and rapidly evolving we look towards a more traditional entertainment industry as a base line for retention performance. Although LBVR is truly unique, you could consider movie theaters at least a close cousin or more appropriately, a great uncle. On average movie goers across the globe will see 5 movies a year. The dynamics of content including the budget for creation and promotion is vastly different in show business but the industry has had time to mature. Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope was one of the very first projectors invented, and could only be viewed by one person at a time. It was not until Francis Jenkins Vitascope, that displayed on a screen that many can view, did movies really begin to take off and the evolution of movie content begin. Modern movie theaters are beginning to offer monthly passes in hopes to bring movie goers back more frequently. This certainly helps the bottom line as more concessions would be sold, but it also helps the industry as a whole by increasing views for movies that otherwise may not have gotten them. Similarly to virtual reality arcades, movie theaters have blockbuster hits that account for a large majority of ticket sales. When customers subscribe to a monthly pass that gives them 2-3 movies a month, they will then be consuming new content.

Synthesis VR has a robust membership system that is completely customizable and integrated with the online and in store booking system. This allows operators to create compelling membership offerings that will increase returning customers and give some of the lesser known VR content an opportunity to be discovered. There are many customizable features to choose from when creating a membership widget including…

1. What experiences are included: You may have racing simulators, and room scale for example included in your membership. You could include a default time frame for each experience. You can have multiple tiers and prices to add more time.
2. What games are included: You can add a special library for your membership holders which includes games with longer story modes that are not typically suited for shorter duration experiences but members will have more time. Check out Synthesis VR’s game library to discover games that support synthesis’s save feature that would allow players to save the game progress for when they return.
3. When the membership is valid: You may wish to offer a membership that is only valid on the weekdays or before a certain time.
4. How many stations can be booked: You can control how many stations the member can book. You may want them to only book for themselves or have a friends and family option and allow them to share their time and book many stations.
5. Discount: You can choose to give members a discount after they exhausted all their time. For example a 2 hour a month member may receive 15% off additional bookings and services.
6. NFC Support: Each member can be assigned a unique nfc card to check in their reservation.
7. Widget membership store: You can sell you memberships online with an easily embedded widget.
8. Reoccurring payments: You can set up reoccurring payment cycle for any duration you choose or sell one off “power cards” with no reoccurring payment.
9. Online booking Automation: Last but certainly not least is customer membership time will automatically be added to their account and be bookable with online booking widget.

In our next article on  memberships we will get into more detail the benefits and tangible performance increases a membership can offer. To learn more about our membership feature or if you would like to talk to someone from Synthesis VR in regards to managing your arcade and good practices, please contact us.