Does Event Cinemas Need Good Customer Service?
… Or is the movie screening business doing so well that customer service isn’t required?
Judging by the number of people at the cinema today, I think they’ve decided good customer service is no longer required. They’re making profits, people are still coming, why invest in customer service.
I took Boo to see Alice in Wonderland today. We both enjoyed the movie immensely (despite my earlier concerns at taking a 4 year old – it was fine). What neither of us really enjoyed was our cinematic experience.
My grievance might not have gone any further than the usher, and a quick Tweet but this is the third time in a week, I have been miffed by the lack of customer service at my local Event Cinema.
Last week I phoned the cinema regarding a promotion. The person on the other end of the phone denied all knowledge of this promotion (though there are promotional posters on every single wall in the complex). Off he went to enquire, and eventually came back and rudely told me that the promotion is still on, you can’t buy tickets online before ending the call with an audible sigh!
I popped into the cinema on Thursday to buy the tickets, and avoid the inevitable line. The bored and uninterested girl at the box office wasn’t very friendly, or particularly helpful. I think I interrupted her gossip session with her buddy.
And did you know they make you pay for 3D glasses, whether you want them or not (we already had some)? So kindy dress up box will have another couple of pairs of glasses, because you are kidding me if you think I am going to stick them in the recycling box for the cinema to sell them to the next person!
So we had our reserved seats, and arrived with plenty of time to spare. There were two middle aged women in our seats. They refused to budge despite admitting that they weren’t in the correct seats.
The trailers were ending. The cinema was full. There were a few single seats dotted around but I could not see two seats together in the semi darkness. These ‘cougars’ (because that’s what they looked like) were still in our seats and because my 4 year old was about to lose the plot, I stepped away.
I planted Boo on the top step as the movie was beginning, in search of some assistance. I had to walk the 50 odd metres back to the entrance and the poor girl collecting tickets was frantically collecting tickets but she more or less straight away radioed for someone to assist.
By the time the usher arrived we were about 5 minutes into the movie. He wasn’t keen to move people from in the middle of the row, in the middle of the cinema. I sort of don’t blame him. So he moved some people along in the next row to make two seats together for us.
At the end of the movie, I went to speak to the manager to whinge offer my suggestions. I wanted to know why the cinema sold reserved seating tickets if they don’t regulate it, and why when a movie is practically sold out and seating issues are a possibility isn’t an usher available to help prior to commencement of the movie?
The manager, Cody was about 18 and looked as though I’d interrupted him from doing something important, like styling his hair? If he’d run his hand through his highlighted, long, blonde fringe one more time, I may have had to slap him!
Cody, gave me a half-hearted, insincere apology (running his fingers through his fringe), and looked completely disinterested and blamed the poor usher for not doing his job, rather than address the issues/suggestions I had made. I saw it was fruitless whining, and left so poor Cody could get back to his mirror.
And because Cody, didn’t satisfactorily placate me, I came home and wrote a formal complaint to the cinema. Tweeted @eVent_cinemas that their customer service sucks, and blogged my whining, and maybe, just maybe, they will do something to improve the customer’s experience.
Event Cinemas probably should count themselves lucky I wasn’t premenstrual, and that I diverted my child’s tantrum about people sitting in her seat!
Nice writing. You are on my RSS reader now so I can read more from you down the road.
Allen Taylor
That sucks! Good luck with the formal complaint!
And what kind of people were those to not go away?!
Gives the name “Event” a new meaning…
Good for you! I have to be honest though, and tell you – I hate that cinemas give allocated seating. Hate it.
I hope you get some response from your letter. I hate that when there is no response and you are left with that bitter taste of unfinished business.
Also: I fully believe that nobody believes in customer service any more.
I had a very expensive tshirt fall apart. It was new – a Run Scotty Run shirt. One of Noah’s faves and the print melted off it on the second wash.
I contacted the place who sold it to me, who told me it wasn’t their problem
so then I contacted Run Scotty Run.
I got a response straight away, saying they had had alot of complaints about that particular shirt.
The man I received an email from said he would replace the shirt
if I gave him my address, which I did.
Three months later and still no shirt.
I’m not sure I can be bothered complaining again.
It has left a terrible taste in my mouth though and I will never buy Run Scotty Run brand again.
Actually, it’s been five months! Five months!
I received a letter of apology from the local cinema, not the head office! It could have warranted a spell check before clicking send as there was about 6 errors in 4 paragraphs, and the grammar was shocking. The person also defended Cody’s fringe stroking!
Rhu – The seat allocation is a pain but more so if they have it and people don’t adhere to it!
That sounds incredibly annoying. I hate bad customer service. I think it can really ruin an experience. And good customer service can turn a mediocre service/product into something great.
Our movie theater has been fairly nice so far. No rudeness there. But I remember going to movie theaters and few years ago, and the people there were so unfriendly.
It’s exactly as you describe….they act like you’re interrupting something incredibly important.
I would have kicked those women out. I also don’t like the allocated seating and go to those cinemas as little as possible. Recently we went to see a movie there though and my boyfriend lost his phone. We rang, were on hold for ages, but eventually spoke to someone who rang me back a couple of hours later saying they’d found it. So small good things do happen occasionally.
Wow, thank you Missy Boo. I went through a very similar situation myself back December 2009 for a film festival that I attended. I booked my tickets pretty much when they were released to avoid disappointing seats. When the day came for the movie screening, I found a group seating where I was. So since there was only two of us, we sat at an empty chair.
The only problem was the cinema filled up and we were booted from our ‘seats.’ The usher who we called twice to come help us decided that it was easier to usher people into their seats rather than help us out and when we called for the third time, he ‘helped’ us out by putting us in two empty spots in the front row. I was absolutely frustrated that he took care of us as some small nuisance and when I made a complaint to him about it, he said that there wasn’t much he could do and to watch the remainder of the movie. We lost about a good 25 minutes of the movie and since it was a film festival, there was no additional screening for this.
The funny thing was the usher happened to be the ‘supervisor’ of the cinemas and was never apologetic. My written complaint took 8 weeks to respond to, especially when I kindly asked them to explain their actions in writing. They wrote back a very very generic letter stating that they were ‘sorry for the experience but we would like to offer you two complimentary tickets.’ Sorry to say, I’ve never visited them again and I don’t think I will for a bit.
~Sorry for the rant. Reading your blog just brought back very distasteful memories of my experience.