Why Do We Give Parks a Pass on Customer Service?

Awesome Paula! What a great story.

Barry, I believe that you are just a nice guy, and it shows through your CS. I've been on the receiving end of your CS before. You helped me after the girl who worked for you wouldn't. The difference between you and her were night and day. I really appreciated your fix to my problem and still remember it after all of these years.

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LostKause said:
You helped me after the girl who worked for you wouldn't. The difference between you and her were night and day.

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Which proves something I've tried to say forever now - you can't make people work.

So often people want to point to management when something is wrong and that's just not always fair. You can tell people what to do, remind them to be nice, even create a culture that emphasizes it within the company and it doesn't guarantee that when the time comes that any given employee will deliver.

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matt. said:
This would be more pertinent if, you know...he was sending the video directly to you or something. I don't think coaster geeks on an internet message board was really the audience in mind at the time.

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I understand that, but I'm a YouTube user as well. I could have easily stumbled across this video too. The thing that I really hate about YouTube is the responses down the bottom that follows the majority of videos posted.

Instead of anyone having a legitimate conversation about customer service, we get a bunch of dumb people arguing back and forth about what coaster is the best. And I guarantee you some of them are coaster geeks. Who cares?

Back to the subject at hand, if you want to teach people customer service, we're doing a really bad job at it these days. I can recall an incident recently where I pushed the help button at a home improvement store, and no one came. I had to go to the front counter where they had to page someone while I waited even more.

We go to megastores where a lot of people don't know their stuff. You go to check out and there's no one to wait on you because you have to check out yourself. We crawl through endless phone-trees, because the last thing a company wants is for you to actually talk to one of their human beings.

Those self-checkout lanes are pretty much the greatest thing in the entire world, though.

^How are they the greatest thing? The stores have tricked you into believing that because you have the power, that you're as fast as a checkout person, and that is the furtherest thing from the truth. A cashier will destroy you time-wise every time.

And I really hate it when I have to wait for help because of the idiotic systems they've installed in supermarkets, home improvement stores etc. Recently, I was at a SuperFresh, and all I wanted to do was buy a small tube of Bull Frog sunscreen in a blister pack.

I put the item on the conveyor belt after I scanned it, but because I violated some stupid rule of the machine (some message about my item winding up on the back hopper [before it should have] ), I had to wait for the helper to come over and we had to start all over again, and she did the work for me about five times faster than I could have. I wasn't the only person that she was helping in the amount of time I was there.

Home Depot is another fun store to visit. Say you bring an item in to match it up and you're forced to use their self-checkout lanes. So you've got the original item in your hand and you want to put it down so you can scan your other item/s. Nope, you need to remove your original item from the all-too-small bagging area first.

My whole point is that we shouldn't be doing the store's work. We're not getting paid to play cashier now, are we?

Gonch. I believe that the lady I am speaking about who was very rude to me was a manager just under Barry, if I am not mistaken.

To flip it all around though, the kids who work the rides at Barry's small family park only get paid a few dollars an hour (last I heard anyways), and most of them are very nice.

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I'll do self checkout if I have just a few items, but I leave the 10-100 item purchases to the cashers.

It's fun to listen to the self checkout robot lady at Wal-Mart stutter. PPPPlease ReMMMMemBBBBer TTTTo TTake your reCCCCCeipt...

HAHAHAHAHA!

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Intamin Fan said:
My whole point is that we shouldn't be doing the store's work. We're not getting paid to play cashier now, are we?

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It sounds like your entire trouble with them is you don't know how to follow instruction. I've never had any sort of problem at self-checkout, and the employee working there probably recognized you were struggling and just did it themselves just to save themselves the headache.

As for getting paid to play cashier, I don't care. I'd rather play cashier then stand in line for a real cashier who isn't going to do anything I can't do myself.

Here's a shocker. In some places in Europe, they expect you to bag your groceries yourself! The horror! What would Americans ever do if they didn't have a slack-jawed 16 year old standing there to do it for them?

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Intamin Fan said:
The stores have tricked you into believing that because you have the power...

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There's no trick involved. I can bag my crap the way I want to, which unless cashiers started reading minds, they can't do.

And who cares what your opinion is about the quality of YouTube videos? You aren't an arbiter of taste, and you don't get to decide which voices get heard. I can barely get through your average 12-paragraph rants on the how many restrooms you have to visit to take a crap.

In some places in Europe, they expect you to bag your groceries yourself!

...and bring your own bags, too!

In the stores around here the lines for self-checkout are usually longer than the lines for cashier-manned checkouts and etiquette seems to dictate that the self-checkout is more of an 'express' thing - not a full cart thing. It's pretty much discouraged for people with a lot of stuff.

I don't use the self checkout much. If I do pickup just a handful of items, I can usually "walk-on" to a cashier checkout rather than stand in line for the self-checkout and if I have a lot of crap, I'm not going to use the self-checkout anyway.

I am saving the store money by using a self-checkout. Why do I not get a discount? ;)

Just so you know, I was thinking of all of you this afternoon as I ran a $104 order through the self-serve checkout at Weis Markets. Hell yes I use it for larger orders too. Why should I have to wait behind two or three other people with orders as large as mine in every line-- who are paying with checks? Besides, there are two other self-check lines, so I wasn't holding anyone up.

An employee did the bagging for me, and was very helpful. She got a new cart and put the bagged items in while I was still taking items out from the cart I used. You still need one employee around each bank of those to help out with items that don't scan. Or like happened to me once, the machine didn't accept the only $20 bill I had on me, so the employee had to switch it for me.

BTW, Giant Markets: great place to buy discounted HP tickets. Lousiest self-checkout system I've seen.

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RatherGoodBear said:
Hell yes I use it for larger orders too. Besides, there are two other self-check lines, so I wasn't holding anyone up.

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See, I've actually had the attendant tell me that the self checkout isn't really for large orders when I've tried it - both at a Wal-Mart and a Meijer. And like I said, around here there is usually no wait...except for the self-checkout.

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Jeff said:

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Intamin Fan said:
The stores have tricked you into believing that because you have the power...

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There's no trick involved. I can bag my crap the way I want to, which unless cashiers started reading minds, they can't do.

And who cares what your opinion is about the quality of YouTube videos? You aren't an arbiter of taste, and you don't get to decide which voices get heard. I can barely get through your average 12-paragraph rants on the how many restrooms you have to visit to take a crap.

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Jeff, first off please reread my post. It had nothing to do with how your groceries are bagged, but it had everything to do with businesses cutting corners with machines ******.

There are no self-checkout machines at Wegmans (well-known large grocery store for anyone not familiar), and if I remember correctly, if a line gets more than three people in it, they open up another register. That's called customer service.

Okay, so what the hell does my opinion of YouTube videos have to do with a trip report I made two years ago? If you hate me that bad, then you should have gotten rid of me a long time ago. I find it really weak as well that you constantly get involved in discussions that I'm having with other people, as if they're not able to defend themselves.

You see, most people would want to keep people coming back to their business, but sadly that doesn't seem to be your mindset. I would've gladly signed up for another year of Coasterbuzz Club after it expired, but then you started attacking me about my trip reports to places you hold dear.

And to the ******* before your post, it has nothing to do with being able to follow directions. I can follow directions just fine. The lane was open and I scanned my item. It was the machine that screwed up.

[naughty name calling removed. -J] *** Edited 6/30/2008 4:26:32 AM UTC by Jeff***

Any customer experience that requires you to read directions is bad customer experience anyway. Especially one that should be as simple as scanning your item and giving them money for that item.

IMHO giving customers the choice to check-out via a cashier or in a do-it-yourself line is an example of good service. Seems to me it should/would be up to the individual to decide for his/herself which they felt was the best for them.

Point taken, moosh, but many times that option is unavailable at my local Wal-Mart as they understaff the cashiers so that people use the self checkout lines. Sure the option is still there, but I don't want to wait in a line that is five people deep with thirty items each.

Ah, but then you're actually discussing two examples of customer service, not one. Offering the choice to use cashiers or self-checkout: good. Understaffing: bad.

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matt. said:It sounds like your entire trouble with them is you don't know how to follow instruction.

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A little testy aren't we? In all fairness, I've run into trouble at the self-checkout stand many times. I follow instructions just fine. Heck, cashiers run into problems sometimes and they do it every day.

Anyway, self-checkout is wonderful for a couple of items. Not so for many as has already been pointed out.

Regarding bagging your own groceries, there is an employee-owned big box grocery store in the central valley (CA) that has this policy. It's kind of cool actually. The prices are cheaper because of it. And yes, the store was busy...so "Americans" seemed to be doing fine with it thank you very much! ;)

Re: Self Check-out

My big problem with self-checkout is when it is the only option. My local Home Depot sometimes has only the self check lane staffed. It was like playing some sort of word puzzle game. I don't remember specifically what the guy in front of me had; but after several tries he turned to me and said "what would you call this?"--Is it nut,wing,#12 or fastener,nut,wing or fastener,wingnut .

At the supermarket, I occasionally use self-check if everything has a barcode; but trying to ring up produce by myself usually isn't worth it.

RE:Training customer service skills

While it may be difficult to train exceptional customer service (some level of natural aptitude is required--you must have an adequate inteviewing/screening process followed up by training to achieve it), I think that it is possible to train adequate customer service skills. It simply requires commitment by management, setting proper expectations (Your job is to operate your ride safely, efficiently, AND with a smile on your face; you must sit up straight, pay attention to the ride and the guests etc), have proper supervision [frequently lacking at parks] and consequences for not playing by the rules. Are the parks really in such a desperate need for employees that they have to hire any live body that shows up? Why not start everyone out at some lower wage than you intend to pay and then step them up when they demonstrate they can work properly. If they continue to maintain a good attitude raise them again on a regular basis. At the end of the season give everyone who got all of their raises a bonus (you could work the numbers so you don't pay any more than the intended hourly wage for the summer, but everyone feels good about getting raises and a bonus). If somone fails to attain a raise more than once then move them out of positions where they interface with the guests or let them go. *** Edited 6/30/2008 10:28:28 PM UTC by Alan T.***