Behind any so called good company whatever the industry there in, they all possess one great factor…excellent high qaulity customer service and a true sign of how good that service is when they work under pressure. I’m like many millions of people worldwide work all week and look forward to what maybe there only 1 day off at the weekend and do like to chill out in various ways with my choice been a trip to the cinema.
I live in Paisley which is one of Scotland’s largest towns we sit 10 miles west of Scotland’s largest city Glasgow, we do have a cinema, a very poor qaulity (which I had the unfortunate experience working for twice) one in a unaccessible location 3 miles outside the town centre so many moviefans from the town either head to the near by shopping mall or jump on the 15minutes train ride into Glasgow city centre. In Glasgow there used to be 4 cinemas and now there’s 2 GFT excellent little arthouse cinema and Cineworld a 20screen multistorey cinema (there is a odeon 5 minutes drive from city centre too). I used to go to the Odeon cinema at the nearby shopping mall but with my alternative been Cineworld Glasgow but now I’m working in the city cineworld became my choice.
Before I decided Cineworld I was venturing out into The Grosvenor in the west a small old school cinema been modernised into arthouse type cinema, theres also Scotland’s only Empire Cinema, Clydebank, a little rundown but makes up for it in service and prices. So due to several things Cineworld was ending up the best for me and after several weeks of persuasion from the Cineworld staff buy the the monthly pass its better for you I caved in and said yes. So here we go see as many movies as i want in one month for the monthly price of less than 2 adults tickets, cant go wrong with that, well until yesterday.
This weekend saw the release of Paranormal activity 2, Red, Legend of The Guardians 2 (previous week social network, despicable me) So I expected it to be busy so I planned my day off around watching early afternoon screening of Paranormal Activity 2 and early evening RED show and my day never went to plan. The actual queue to get into the cinema was outside and nearly around the block, I decided to walk up and I asked a usher just inside the enterence “Can I go To The machines inside and get a ticket for a movie usung my monthly pass (which at this time holding the card to show him) he said “off course you all cards are taken” he kindly pointed me to the queue for machines and after a 15minute wait I get to the machine and the machine doesnt take the card. So now Im eager to watch a movie Ive given up on my plan and I decided well its plan B get ticket for one of the movies both showing 3 hours later so before I joined the queue I approached the same usher who gave me false information. When I told hime he at no point apoligised and told me I had to join the queue now.
So out I go determined to watch something as now Ive wasted 20 minutes of my time I’m in the queue and it took me 1hour 10 minutes to finally get to the front of the queue. During my time waiting the queue was larger due to been the weekend and so alot of teens where in the queue and many would arrive in groups not willing to join the end of the queue like the rest of us they sneeked in up to the front to the anger of the people who waited in the queue for so long. At times it was becoming unbearable with so much queue jumping some people just left or vent there anger towards the management who at this point werent not interested (more interested in getting your money). Now here’s the part that really pissed me off and alot of the people in the queue behind me too, the movies we all waited over 1hour for ie the later screening where now full!
I got the desk and the next screening is now full and I thought a roit was nearly going to kick-off. I told the ticket person whats been going on his reply was ” So what!” come tomorrow and see it and like any sane person I said could you garuntee sunday wont be the same his reply was “Im not a mind reader” I warned him you are going to have alot of angry people he just shrugged his shoulders, off course I was on a lossing battle and I told him i work all week and this is my day off to chill out he once again shrugged his shoulders and rudely ignored me. I walked away but kindly thanked the girl who was sending people to desks who was very helpful. I went to the two security guards and at this time I wasnt the only ones and told them about outside they kindly said thanks for letting us know but they still stood there after several people told them about the queue jumpers.
Okay Busy days always happening yes Im disappointed waiting that long to be told sold out I accept that but what I dont accept is rude staff and queue jumpers. Ive worked in several cinemas locally as well as Manchester and any time we had days like that we used to have security guards walk outside with the queues we also had a few ushers going up and down the queue to inform people of sold out movies so that if anyone doesnt want to wait they can go to save dissappointment, doing these thing minimalised complaints but also showed a form of good customer service. The way the ticket desk person spoke to me and looks of it several people if I spoke to anyone in my own job I would probably loose my job if not displine action take, secondly the work force need to know what does what and understand what they work for anbd dont send people to buy tickets with a card they cant use on the machines, so better product knowledge. So some of things I just said if the staff did this i wouldnt have been so dissapointed and would have tried to see elsewhere.
I did thanksfully catch the movie at Empire Clydebank but whats really angered me is the attitude of the cineworld staff who after several weeks convincing me getting this monthly card is the ultimate choice, the correct choice and when I’ve bought it they just didnt care about you , a persuade them to get the card, get your bonus and after that dont care about them attitude.wrong! Whatever industry your in and you deal with public on a regular basis your customer service should be 100% from start to finish (ie aftersales).
Going to the movies is now an expensive day or night out from the tickets to the popcorn, snacks it can be alot of money per person and with the qaulity of the movie below par people are now felling ripped off in the product they receive by many chains especially the so called big boys of the industry. I feel the service at small independents like GFT, The Grosvenor, even Empire are far superior to the likes of Cineworld. I feel now been conned into a card which I cant use, the rude box office guy didnt even offer me the option of one of the even later screenings he was more interested in upsetting more people and you always here companies saying we dont want people going to opposition and they would do there best to accommodate (offer alternatives), this box office guy didnt want to help so my hand was forced to go to a rival:
good customer service means people will come to you, bad customer service people go elsewhere.
