With restrictions lifted up that you won’t think about what a nightmare the past two years have been, businesses have ramped up their services too. But unfortunately, while others see this as an opportunity to recover the sales the pandemic has robbed them of, others that offer services (like amusement parks) have milked their cows too much, forgetting that in their industry, empathy drives profit.
I have recently visited a small and local Christmas-themed park, which opens up annually.
I was told that their customer service was okay during the pandemic when the services industry was beginning to open up. I wasn’t told explicitly whether it was superb, but that it was okay.
And like all annual events, you have to wait for a whole year round to see what changed, if there is. If you heard about COVID-19, you’d understand that many things could change in a year.
Generally, amusement parks, no matter how small, often cater to all generations: the young filled with vigor and the elderly who must be treated with care. But in this particular amusement park, there doesn’t seem to be a distinction between generations, which is dismal. How so, you ask?
It all started with a very long queue. We understand the queuing system, and it works this way:
- Fall in line, following the last person at the tail.
- Stick to the line until you arrive where you’re supposed to go.
And for our case, we were supposed to queue at the ticketing station to pay the entrance fee for this local Christmas village. But the thing about this queue was that it was absurdly longer than it was supposed to be. The queuing system simply wasn’t working.
If your business is an amusement park, every paying customer counts, sure.
But if you don’t put up a system that takes care of your customers, you will lose many of them. And first impressions are remembered.
So what happened?
We left, along with the others who were beginning to realize the absurdity of it all, because the queue was impossible. And there was no systematic payment system aside from going through a line you had to be in for hours.
What’s worse was this: their staff never cared for the elderly. What happened?
We asked the staff if he could make an exception for our aunt, who finds it challenging to walk anymore, and allow her to be picked up at the nearest point instead of letting her walk in pain to the designated pickup point, more than 100 meters far. We asked kindly, almost begging him to understand the situation.
But it seemed to be the embodied spirit of this local amusement park, the lack of empathy, that kept the staff from seeing our humanity to respond with something like, “No. Let her walk the distance.”
And at that moment, it was clear as day, that they value profit more than giving their customers the empathy they deserve.
jessa 