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Wild Mouse at BPB Closure - R.I.P. 1958-2017

sandgrown said:
Well lofty, it's generally not considered good practice in customer care departments to send massive cut and pasted emails as replies as it annoys people who are already angry.
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Actually, having worked in a few customer service departments - that's exactly what you're trained to do.
Not saying that's how it should be - but that is how it is.

As far as their PR goes, their job is essentially to lie, or attempt to twist the truth in a positive, management-approved angle, much as a politician would. They've attempted that and as others have said, there's now not much else they can do. Again, I'm not defending them by any stretch of the imagination, but it's the unfortunate truth.
 
Will said:
Actually, having worked in a few customer service departments - that's exactly what you're trained to do.
Not saying that's how it should be - but that is how it is.

As far as their PR goes, their job is essentially to lie, or attempt to twist the truth in a positive, management-approved angle, much as a politician would. They've attempted that and as others have said, there's now not much else they can do. Again, I'm not defending them by any stretch of the imagination, but it's the unfortunate truth.
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But they haven't even lied. They've said that they have dismantled the ride over the winter (true) and Amanda said she was sad about it (quite possible). We all know it was probably inevitable h&s stuff and as I said further up in the thread, they're not going to say "we closed it because it injured people and so nobody would insure it". People might claim it's all lies etc because they're angry but there is nothing scandalous about what they've said.
 
sandgrown said:
Well lofty, it's generally not considered good practice in customer care departments to send massive cut and pasted emails as replies as it annoys people who are already angry. Some degree of personalisation, or at least answers to one or two specific points raised, is seen as good form.
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And they won't like you when you're angry, will they?
 
Dammit, I was hoping there was someone sitting in a dressing gown in an armchair, writing by candlelight with a feather quill personal hand written letters about why the Wild Mouse is gone, to be delivered by a messenger on horseback.

Of course anyone who complains is going to get the statement they've already released. That's as much information as they want to give out.
 
If that's standard practice, it's rubbish and ineffective. A bit of the personal touch works in the long run, whereas the Ryanair way will backfire in the end. I guess I disagree with you all. There are decent organisations who do customer service well and reap the benefits in terms of loyalty and reputation. Don't have such low expectations.
 
Howie said:
Don't even joke about that, Phil.
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Lost a world class coaster, got a crap woodie - it's like the inverse of Blackpool's 2018 :p

sandgrown said:
If that's standard practice, it's rubbish and ineffective. A bit of the personal touch works in the long run, whereas the Ryanair way will backfire in the end. I guess I disagree with you all. There are decent organisations who do customer service well and reap the benefits in terms of loyalty and reputation. Don't have such low expectations.
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Okay... It's rubbish, but it's pretty much the only way to deal with these things. Let's just tackle one thing.

BPB had two options. Announce and demolish or demolish and announce. For any major decision a business makes, you have these kinds of choices. Act and announce, or announce and act. Which is used comes down to management style, the business arena, the chances of announcing first having somebody stop you, etc. As the Jedi say "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission" ;)

It all boils down to the fact that people are easily outraged. If they'd announced first, there would have been a mass of angry people going to the press talking about how wrong it is. PR nightmare. Let's say BPB have a million customers a year (good guess, nobody knows as they don't release figures) - 100 of those customers, or a thousand - 0.001% to 0.01% of customers could have a massive negative affect on PR if they continue in the face of that tiny customer number and demolish. So they demolish and then issue a press statement and it dies down rapidly. No people sneaking in the chain themselves to the ride, nobody with drones filming demolition, etc. YES, they should have issued a press release before the photos of the destruction where made public, but that's their only fault.

Anyway, onto the entitlement people feel, because that's what this "they should reply to me personally" thing is. It's a sense of entitlement because you once gave them £30 to enjoy their business as a customer. You feel that because you've parted with cash in exchange for a deal where you had a small time as a customer, that they then owe you forever. One (or a few) exchanges makes them beholden to you for life.

If they were a corner shop, a local plumber or builder, something personal - then you may have a point. Customer relations and service in those instances are vital and to be expected. There's a small, tight knit number of customers and providers. Once you step into large scale businesses with a massive customer base, it's utterly impractical to be personal. Let's see some examples.

[Customer to Plumber] Why don't you work after 6 pm?
[Plumber] Because I have a family and want time with them in the evenings
[Customer to plumber]But that isn't convenient for me this week, could you please make an exception?
[Plumber]As an exception, yes, okay.

[Customer to Alton Towers]Why don't you stay open after 6 pm?
[Alton PR]The opening times are decided by management at the start of each season. The closing times are clearly stated across the park and on our website.
[Customer to Alton Towers]But I wanted to stay later. Can you stay open later for me please?
[Alton PR]The opening times are decided by management at the start of each season. The closing times are clearly stated across the park and on our website.

The reason Alton repeats is because in the first example, it's one person from a customer base of maybe 5 or 6 a week, and one person with this query every six months or so. For Alton, their Facebook page is full of that kind of things. Out of the 2 million visitors they have a year, probably 1000 people ask. That's a thousand different replies doing it on an individual basis. Six minutes to read and respond personally to each, multiplied by 1000 and that's 6000 minutes or 100 hours, which is 2.5 person weeks replying personally. At a wage of £10 an hour, £1000 of ticket intake gone replying personally. Cut and paste response (or don't respond), down to a minute per reply and it's £166 or 17 person hours a year. Just think how many fountains £1000 could buy?

This happens for everything, and it comes down to accounting. While you may think a big business (even somewhere like McDonald's with hundreds of thousands of employees worldwide) have resources to cover this, they don't. Answering multiple thousands (millions) of the same unanswerable questions would be too much of a drain on them. So they issue a press release or have a standard answer. The petty little amount you once gave them as a business transaction doesn't mean anything to them. It doesn't cover the cost of employing somebody to specifically deal with YOU, one customer. I'll bet BPB employ maybe 3-4 people in their marketing and PR department - it's not enough to deal with common questions that they can't answer.

Another example of this.
[Customer to McDonald's staff]MY burger has gherkins. I asked for it without
[Till staff]I'm very sorry sir, I shall get a fresh one made for you now
[Customer to McDonald's staff]Thank you, but I'm not eating with my family now, that's not good and it isn't my fault
[Till staff] I'll ask my manager if you can have an Apple Pie for your family while you wait
[Manager]Of course sir. Enjoy

This is good customer service. It's personal because it's a single instance of a single customer affected. If every burger in the world came WITHOUT gherkin, then that would be a different matter. A mass change changes the response. See...

[Customer to McDonald's till staff]Why don't you do the McRib any more?
[Till staff]I don't know, it was a decision by head office.
[Customer to McDonald's staff]Well, get your manager please. I loved them and bought 100 of them when they were on sale. I'd buy one right now if you sold them
[Till staff]But Sir, we don't sell them
[Customer to McDonald's staff]MANAGER!
[Manager (costing 50p per minute spent talking to this customer]How can I help you Sir? What seems to be the problem
[Customer to MManager]Why don't you sell the McRib any more?
[Manager]I don't know sir. It was stopped by the company.
[Customer to Manager]Well that's rubbish, I at 200* of them * when they were on sale. I love them. Give me McRib
[Manager]I'm sorry sir, but we don't have them to sell
[Customer to Manager]Tell me why please? It's an easy question. You sold them, people bought them. Why stop selling them?
[Manager]It was a company wide policy to stop selling them - that's all I can say.

Now, this is where it should be left, but imagine if the manager instead said
[Manager]I'll find out for you. ALL CUSTOMERS. I have a query to deal with, please note that I can't manage the staff for the next couple of hours, so all orders will be delayed by several minutes.
[Manager to local area manager]Why did we stop selling McRibs?
[Local area manager (costing a £1 per minute of conversation)]I don't know? It's because head office said so
[Manager]Well, can you find out please?
[Local area manager]Of course
(...four hours later...)
[Manager to customer]So you see (complicated accounts) and due to (complicated marketing) means that (complicated reason).
[Customer]I don't care about your reasons, I don't understand what you're saying, I just want to eat a McRib! I ate 500 of them last tiime!
[Manager]I'm sorry sir, but we don't sell them
[Customer]Well, that's rubbish. Big Mac meal please.
[Customer later on Facebook]And then they said they were having financial troubles, gave me all of their accounts details. And Bob from marketing doesn't know what he's on about.
[McDonald's receivers]NEVER tell anyone outside of the business information that can be used against you. Sorry, Ronald, I'm going to have to sell your comedy nose.

Multiply that by 1000 times a day across the world. Utterly impractical.

It would be interesting to see any instance where a big company made a big change and answered each query individually (stepping aside from responses which are just a reworded version of the press release). I'm going to put the burden of proof onto you ;)

Even when there is a "personal response", I'll bet it's used as a marketing tool and is a single response (or set or responses). There are some good examples of supermarket chains doing this on social media. Light hearted responses to light hearted things. Anything contentious though and it's a definite "tow the party line".

Some poor person sitting in BPB office though, with a 1000 complaints, death threats, unanswerable questions and their normal jobs to do? Nah, they don't have time. Cut and paste the press release.

Seriously, this is how customer relations work. It's the real world and any large employer with large numbers of customers will not feel they owe you anything for >0.0001% of their annual income.



*these complaints always grow in exaggeration
 
davidm said:
Yeah but gherkins, evil things, why even bother?
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One of MMF's friends last week forgot to order his burger without gherkin - he hates gherkin. He took it off.

I said, "you can't do that, the burger is now tainted with gherkin flavour. It's all the burger will taste of"
He said, "I haven't noticed"
I said, "well, you must like gherkin then"
He said, "maybe I do!" and went on to eat the gherkin. "I do", he said.
Needless to say, he is no longer welcome ;)

And this is why I'm not allowed to post any more :p
 
davidm said:
Marmite ; isn't that just made of concentrated gherkin?
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I think that this is getting stupidly off topic, so to keep it on topic, I believe that Amanda is also made of concentrated gherkin.
 
Marmite's great and excellent for hangovers.
Only one of those statements also applies to Wild Mouse.

What the **** has happened to this thread?
Although, as we're unlikely to get any fresh information, I guess that much like the PR Execs, our choice is either to endlessly repeat ourselves, or spam crap in the hope that everyone forgets the issue ;)
 
Will said:
Marmite's great and excellent for hangovers.
Only one of those statements also applies to Wild Mouse.

What the :emoji_zipper_mouth: has happened to this thread?
Although, as we're unlikely to get any fresh information, I guess that much like the PR Execs, our choice is either to endlessly repeat ourselves, or spam crap in the hope that everyone forgets the issue ;)
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I'm going with spam as it's better than slitting wrists.

Thoughts and Prayers for those without the cred.
 
If the initial statement made by BPB felt like it had some thought put into it and perhaps encouraged people to share their memories of the ride (rather than the "it's progress, deal with it" attitude), they probably wouldn't be recieving as many emails!
 
CoasterJamie1 said:
If the initial statement made by BPB felt like it had some thought put into it and perhaps encouraged people to share their memories of the ride (rather than the "it's progress, deal with it" attitude), they probably wouldn't be recieving as many emails!
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Absolutely do not disagree with this. They should have been quicker on the press release and handled it better. To defend them a little though, they're a really good amusement park business owner - not so good on the PR front. I'd rather they spent more time being good at what they're meant to be doing than throwing money and effort into something that crops up once every ten years or so.

Yes, brand and PR are important, but they're not Ford or Gucci or even Merlin (who could do with spending a little less on **** PR and shipping containers and more on looking after their amusement parks :p ) - they're a stolid, working amusement park business in the grim North of England. They've irked a handful of people who will still go to ride Icon this year. I see what they should have done, but I can understand why they didn't - they didn't need to - there were pies to eat, stout to drink and rides build.
 
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