As an organisation that’s quite young, we have used Tessitura since we opened,”

says Latoyah Forsyth, Digital Marketing Manager at the Melbourne Recital Centre. The Centre is celebrating its tenth anniversary in 2019.

Robert Murray, Director of Marketing and Customer Relations, adds: “We have people who have been with the Recital Centre as customers, donors, and stakeholders from the very beginning.” That means that they have “a full picture of their life with Melbourne Recital Centre, which is incredibly useful to our day-to-day business.”

“Having the customer data all in one place is immeasurably valuable,” agrees Latoyah. From a marketing perspective, she appreciates “being able to use all of the facets of Tessitura to be able to craft, to segment, to target” communications. Then, she adds, they can “review, go back and do it all again.”

“Having the customer data all in one place is immeasurably valuable...being able to use all of the facets of Tessitura to be able to craft, to segment, to target.”

“I think Tessitura is unique as a CRM tool,” says Robert, “as it gives you access to all of the data that you might find useful. For example, ticketing data, customer preferences for how we contact them with marketing, what their donation history is.”

“It is a very powerful tool for any organisation,” he says, “and it’s the central business tool that Melbourne Recital Centre uses.”

More than that, Latoyah says, Tessitura has “help[ed] us grow and progress as an organisation…. The way our processes have refined and become a lot more streamlined because of Tessitura has been of great benefit.”

Photo courtesy of Melbourne Recital Centre

Growing Along with Tessitura

“We’ve been on Tessitura since the very beginning,” Robert says, “so we’ve had plenty of time to grow with Tessitura.”

One way in which they’ve grown their usage is by moving their hosting to Tessitura’s Hosting Services. The Centre, which has a lean organisational structure, doesn’t have an internal IT department. Simplifying their setup, Robert explains, “has really opened up the possibilities as we move to a more cloud-based IT framework.” Moving to Tessitura’s Hosting Services “was the first step of that.”

“We really wanted to put Tessitura in the hands of the experts,” Latoyah said of that decision. She especially appreciates having Tessitura manage the infrastructure and security of their database.

Robert notes that the move to Hosting Services is “an important part of our IT transformation strategy.” Latoyah simply calls it “a no-brainer.” And the move was “amazingly easy,” Robert says, “thanks to the great assistance from the whole Tessitura Network. Latoyah agrees: “The Tessitura team worked with us in such dedicated and wonderful way. They were there for us for the whole transition and it was a really, really great experience…. Being able to place Tessitura in the hands of the experts has been of great benefit.”

“The Tessitura team worked with us in such dedicated and wonderful way.”

Breaking Down Silos

Across the organisation, says Robert, “Tessitura has a great potential for breaking down silos between departments and really encouraging people to work together to solve problems.” He continues: “I see it happen every day as we meet cross-departmentally to discuss data, or strategy, or tactics with our colleagues from the development department, with programming, with box office, with front of house. We all use it. So it’s a really important tool.”

Tessitura’s benefits go beyond the software itself. “There are so many inspiring examples of how Tessitura is giving back to the community,” Robert says. Those include the Tessitura Learning & Community Conference (TLCC), the Australia-New Zealand Tessitura User Conference (ANZTRUC), and active user groups in Melbourne and dozens of other cities around the world. 

“Tessitura Network is a very generous organisation. There are so many inspiring examples of how Tessitura is giving back to the community.” 

“I’ve been privileged enough to be working with Tessitura for almost my entire career in the arts,” he says. “Tessitura Network is I think a very generous organisation, not only the members but the amazing Tessitura staff who are constantly engaging with us and pushing us to be better.”