Theme Park Customer Service, Who decides whats good or not?

[Galvan]

Go to basically any rollercoaster enthusists' website. And more often then not, you hear the same old same old.

"Six Flags customer service sucks, they suck blah blah."

"Disney's customer service is awesome."

"Cedar Point is just the best freaking place in the history of modern man."

Now, these are extreme examples of what im talking about but, I was thinking, What exactly constitues good customer service at an Amusement Park?

Now Six Flags is continuously run through the mud on how bad the service at the parks is, but on what aspects? Last time i checked Six Flags along with other theme park operators are not non for profit companies that are looking to make money. And basically not around to kiss anyones ass.

So, does that mean since John Q. Public had to wait a little longer for a rollercoaster or had to wait in line an extra 15 seconds to get his season pass processed that, the specific park had bad customer service?

People seem to forget that people are human, mistakes are made and the rides and attractions parks have a machines that do brake down.

So it begs the question... What and Who decides whether or not a specific park's service is good or not?

[CoasterDave316]

Here's a few things that could decide good or bad customer service in a customers minds.

Good Customer Service:
-All rides are operational.
-Rides running as many cars/trains as possible
-Ride ops working fast in order to run the ride to capacity.

Bad Customer Service:
-Many rides not operating, for any reason. Staffing, maintence...having rides broke especially main attractions does not make a customer happy.
-Rollercoasters with long lines that aren't running all the trains it's capable of running.
-Slow ride ops, messing or goofing around causing the ride not to run to capacity.

To me those are the main factors in good and bad service

[SFGA Bob]

for whatever reason, I never took the rides into consideration when I thought of customer service. I figured what everyone was talking about was rude, unhelpful, or otherwise annoying employees.

now that I hear Dave's explanation, it makes sense considering I often hear of other Six Flags parks not running rides the way Great America does.

[danieln84]

As far as Running as many cars as possible, i would say Fair/ Not good. because Raging Bull will try to run as FEW cars as possible (well atleast all the times ive been there) until it is nessecary. i think rather than holding everyone in line up just to add a car is nonsense. if your sure you will need it then why not just put all 3 cars out before park opens?

[Maggie&meSFGAm?]

I agree with you on the RB factor. I think staffing, and having enough trains running is a big customer satisfaction problem for SF in general. Our SF is very good at these though. When people mock SF, I don't think many people say that SFGAm is the problem.

However, many people on this website have been complaining something that SFGAm has done such as taking out the picturesque fountain in Hometown Park and loading it up with games. I also think that it's stupid to go through SWT to get to the waterpark. Adding station lines for Viper would help along putting a stupid que in the BTR line where the stupid yellow line starts. I ALWAYS have these people taking up both lines, and when they get into the station, they have no idea where they are going because they didn't read the sign to begin with. I have had this problem with IW as I'm sure many of you have. I can't get into the 2-7 lines because the front people are taking up both lines. That's what customer satisfaction is all about.

SFOG, and SFMM have big problems with these aspects. As SFMM is supposedly the "best" SF park, people will always complain about this park and make it look like it's the only SF there is. It's not the only park SF owns. I always here that SFMM doesn't have enough trains per ride, and has some permament broken rides from time to time (Superman the Escape). Rides that are never open can also bring down customer satisfaction such as D Vu' at SFOG.

It has just recently been working, but it was down for more than a year. Acraphobia (over there) which is an Intamin drop ride had also been down for awhile due to lightning, and is now up. When I was there, some rollercoasters were one train operation which made me mad because I had to wait too long for these rides. The park wasn't even that crowded. They also close the park earlier than SFGAm. The time might say 8:00 pm, but they close the RIDES at 7:45. Recently, I've heard that they have been sending ghost trains for no reason. The ride didn't breakdown, but they just have been doing it. I say that management over there does not know what they are doing.

As for SFNE, people have been complaining about the park's shape. They said that it looks like they just left it, and came back. SROS only has one train operation along with (I believe SFCritic said) SFA. This gets extremely packed at both parks, and is only running one train. If SROS was a junkier ride, I don't think people would complain about it, but it's like SFGAm's RB.

This is why SF gets such a poor reputation.

I really want wholeheartly for every person who has control of what's being done in the park (or any park) to actually walk around the park, and actually see what's going on, and can be fixed. I can be counting numbers all day, but you don't get the feel for what your customers feel. If the people in control experienced the nausiating feeling in the very congestive D Vu' station, they would do something to fix it. It becomes the fact that how do these higher not no, and it must be because they don't get into these lines and see.

[sixflagsguy5]

"Cedar Point is just the best freaking place in the history of modern man."

-Ride ops working fast in order to run the ride to capacity.

When I went to CP some of the ride ops on the kiddie rides were sleeping, so I'm a supporter of Cedar Point is not better than six flags.

[Danhockey04]

Bad Customer Service:
-Many rides not operating, for any reason. Staffing, maintence...having rides broke especially main attractions does not make a customer happy.
-Rollercoasters with long lines that aren't running all the trains it's capable of running.
-Slow ride ops, messing or goofing around causing the ride not to run to capacity.

That is all basically CP, they keep the back rows of their coasters roped off in the mornings.

[w00dland]

Just be thankful we aren't at SFMM or SFA or somewhere like that who only run ONE train for the first few hours if not the entire day on most of their coasters. Imagine RB always running one train until like 1 in the afternoon, that would suck.

Anyways good customer service is me is a lot of the little things. Employees asking how your day was and being interested in how you are doing. If they mess up they should try to compensate somehow to make the customer happier. They should never serving food or checking restraints slower than they could, paying attention is key as well.

[SF Critic]

In 2001 Six Flags disappointed people. Vekoma was rushed into building Batwing, X-Flight, and 3 Deja Vu's. Unfortunately these rides didn't open till late in the year. As for Batwing, the ride didn't make media day till mid July. Also they have low compacity and always breaking down

Guest enjoyed these rides advertise on tv, but didn't enjoy when they went to the park and they weren't open. Since 2001 attendance started to drop due to employees opening limited rides. Employees started slaking on customer service.

SROS only has one train operation along with (I believe SFCritic said) SFA. This gets extremely packed at both parks, and is only running one train. If SROS was a junkier ride, I don't think people would complain about it, but it's like SFGAm's RB.

Just be thankful we aren't at SFMM or SFA or somewhere like that who only run ONE train for the first few hours if not the entire day on most of their coasters. Imagine RB always running one train until like 1 in the afternoon, that would suck.

Some notes on SRoS... SFA, SFNE, SFDL
-They don't seem to like the cold very much. At FrightFest last year (which has similiar temps to what SFNE, SFDL, SFA facing now) they wouldn't dispatch unless the train was full... They said if it wasn't full, it could valley between the first 2 hills.

SFA SRoS valleyed on opening day. Luckily no one was on it because it was being tested. I'm no expert, but I really don't know what is up with these rides, but the 2nd trains must still be in the process of being tested with the new restraints (due to the man that died on SFNE version last year). By Mother's Day weekend both trains should be running by then.

Customer Service has gotten better this year

[Galvan]

I simply dont buy the notion that if a ride is broken down that, a park has bad customer service. These are complex machines that sometimes breakdown. If you need new brakes on your car, you have to wait for it, samething should hold true for a rollercoaster.

[Maggie&meSFGAm?]

Its more than rides braking down. Let's say that someone goes to SFGAm in May, and that's the only time they go each year. I'm not personally going to get upset about refurbishing starting late (Condor), but someone might. Condor might be there favorite ride. I have enough rides that are empty to go on in May.

In the beginning of June, I expect Condor to be open. However, TP wasn't open in the beginning of June. I think that both of these rides were closed during Fright Fest. I know TP was closed before it was refurbished. They basically just dismantled it during this time (Fright Fest). Couldn't they wait till after Fright Fest? They also dismantled ERC. Technically, Condor is not broken down, but it's not open.

At SFOG, they didn't have a rollercoaster open when the park opened (Mindbender) which is much worse than a flat because of refurbishment. They also had D Vu' down for at least a YEAR.

Sometimes, as I said before, its not that all rides are open, but rather are they sending enough trains for the rollercoasters? You can't change flats except for the water rides. When RR opens, I really hope they put all the boats out there. One time I was on there, and they only had three boats. The line wasn't empty either. For Logger's and IMS, why change the amount of boats and logs?

If you can't figure out why I complain about capacity try V2 on a crowded day, and then try BTR. The BTR line moves quicker than V2. I also think that BTR has more lines than V2.

I like to think of it as customer satisfaction rather than customer service.

[danieln84]

In my opinion? Ride Op's Tech's and other employee's are more Worried about Getting out of there as fast as possible when park closes. so they try not to run 3 trains on bulll. just so they dont have to take the time to put 1 away. even at 9pm (with park closing at 10) they will drop down to 2 trains maybe even 1... when lines are still very long. probably because THEY want to get out of there.

Most employee's are probably not thinking about the customers. just that the park closes and 10 and they want to go home

[w00dland]

^If they were worried about getting out of there fast they would keep 3 trains on so the line would be smaller at the end of the day. Putting on or taking off a train takes less than 5 minutes to do at most.

[Carlo]

Having 2 or 3 trains on Bull is all about staffing. They need to have an extra person (5 totals I believe) to run 3 trains where they only need 4 people to run 2 trains. If 1 person goes home at 9pm and the park closes at 10pm. They will have to remove one train and run only 2 trains because they are missing a person.

[DejaVu The Ride]

In my opinion? Ride Op's Tech's and other employee's are more Worried about Getting out of there as fast as possible when park closes. so they try not to run 3 trains on bulll. just so they dont have to take the time to put 1 away. even at 9pm (with park closing at 10) they will drop down to 2 trains maybe even 1... when lines are still very long. probably because THEY want to get out of there.

Most employee's are probably not thinking about the customers. just that the park closes and 10 and they want to go home

Actually, if they keep 3 trains on the ride, the line will move faster therefore letting them be able to leave earlier because the people aren't left in the line. They have never taken 2 trains off at the end of the night with people still in line.(Leaving a one train op.)