The Richter Scale^®

I’ll be posting a few more E3-related items here in the next week, but at present I am on a short vacation in Ft. Lauderdale with my family. The purpose of this vacation is a bit of rest and relaxation, eating, spa-ing, and binging on new and recently released movies. On Bonaire we have only a one screen movie theater and movies shown there are typically 2-4 months old. And the seats are horribly uncomfortable.

So, we look forward to our U.S. trips, where we generally squeeze in as many movies as possible in the comfort of plush reclining stadium seating. It’s not a cheap activity these days, but if you’re a movie-a-holic, it’s well worth it. We’ve only been in Ft. Lauderdale 28 hours, but have already seen three titles: Over The Hedge (6.0 out of 10.0), The Da Vinci Code (6.0 out of 10.0), and M:I3 (7.5 out 10.0) - and all at the Sunrise Cinemas Stadium 15 at Las Olas Riverfront.

And that brings me to the topic of this blog. Each of these visits, for a family of four - two adults, two children - runs $30 for movie tickets (less for a matinee) and then a bunch more for even simple munchies and refreshments.

When we went this evening to catch the 8pm showing of Mission Impossible 3 (MI3) at the Sunrise Cinemas, I asked, as I had the last two times, for two adult and two child tickets. The cashier/ticket seller, a young man named Martin, rang it up. I had already handed him $40 at this point, and was surprised to get only $8 in change, knowing from last night’s movie that I should have gotten $10 back. Turns out he made a mistake and charged me for two student tickets instead of two children’s tickets, and that’s why I got charged $2 more. $2 isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but I also don’t think I should have to pay for something I didn’t ask for.

When I asked Martin for the additional $2 back, he politely explained that he had issued me student tickets, and those were a $1 more each. I politely explained in return that I had asked for childrens’ tickets and those were a $1 less. He then informed me that as I had paid and the tickets were issued, he could not correct the matter without there being a shortfall in the cash register attributed to him. As it was at this point a matter of principle, I insisted on getting my $2 back, at which point he gave me a small piece of paper with all sorts of information I would need to fill out (like my name, home address, phone number, etc.) - all to get back money which was the result of a mistake HE made in the first place.

As the movie was about to start I told him to just forget and that I would simply blog the incident. And here we are.

There are two customer service issues here that should be addressed:

1) The Sunrise Cinemas appear to have polices in place which burden the customer in the event of a staff error. That’s a major inconvenience to the customer, who only wants to pay for his or her tickets, maybe buy some refreshments, and then watch their movie.

2) The staff of the Sunrise Cinemas is either not empowered to resolve customer service matters, or not capable of coming up with solutions that would keep the customer happy. Either one is something that could be easily resolved.

These two items are classical flaw in customer service in most any business, and the businesses that have overcome them tend to stand out among their peers. The businesses that succumb to these customer service flaws lose customers.

In my case, we still have at least another three or four movies to catch before we fly home on Sunday. That’s at least another $90-120 in ticket sales alone that I will gladly give to some other movie theater in the Ft. Lauderdale area, even if I have to drive a bit further from my hotel, because I will not give any more business to the Sunrise Cinemas Stadium 15.

The lesson to be learned here is that a couple dollar mistake that is not quickly and easily corrected can cost a business a whole lot more in lost revenues and reputation.