they don't call it.....

......the Sunnyside Chairlift for nothing!

Today's (belated) rant is about customer service (just for a change!) so look away now if you can't be @rsed reading further -

Got up at 6 am this morning to head for the hills and a spot of morning snowboarding.
Arrived at the 'shee for 8, bought the ticket (£24, btw for a 4 and a half hour ride).
I was the first up to the Butchart poma and the young lad on the poma was fine and told me politely what was open and what was still being pisted down.
I suffer a little from arthritis in my hands and thus was struggling to grip the poma pole and so had to let a few pomas go on up the hill without me.
A member of ski-patrol decided to impart some very un-helpful advice by shouting at me aggressively something along the lines of 'just grip it, just get ahold of it for God's sake otherwise you're just going to ruin the run. The poma poles are going to drag along the ground and chew it up for everybody else!'

Amazingly, I managed to count to 10 , calm down and then get myself on the poma successfully.

Up the hill I went and down the hill I came, but the anger had not subsided. I visited the manager's office and had a few words.
'Oh yes', he agreed, 'some of the ski patrol lads have got a bit of a bad attitude on them.'
'But it's not just them', I pointed out. 'I'm here every fortnight at least, if not more, and on every visit at least one member of staff from either the cafe, the car park or the lifts is either cheeky, sweary or rude'.
'Oh' he said, 'that's strange.'
'I doubt it', said I. 'I have been on these travel sites and a common theme for here is the rudeness of the staff. You should be glad that I'm a local-ish and I'm coming to tell you about it and not a tourist on their first trip who will just go home and tell everyone about their bad experience'.
'Oh, yeah, well I've read something on FaceBook....., but well if the lifts are busy, I can understand how they would get impatient....'
'and when I am the first and only person there at 8 o'clock in the morning, but regardless......what if I'm a beginner.....or a younger person with little confidence......?'
He wasn't quite sure what to say about that, but I seemed to hit home when I pointed out that you don't go to a coffee shop to have a coffee and expect to be shouted at and lectured on how to drink it (of course if you go to the Chambers Restaurant/Coffee shop on South Tay St in Dundee, I can't guarantee a thing! Just had to get that one in).

It ended with me getting a fully comped ticket for the day, which was very good of the manager, but would rather I hadn't had to complain in the first place.

But aren't we missing a trick in this country? It's already expensive to get here and to stay here and the weather is, for the most part, crap. Surely then the very least we can do is offer the most outstanding hospitality in the world to make up for it? This is a beautiful country full of kind and open-hearted people, but why do we seem to fail on customer service and value for money so regularly?

So to everyone out there, if you experience bad service, please, please, please

Keep Calm and Complain!


EDIT - I have just realised that this blasted collage has posted on today's date when it should be for Saturday! My fault for not correcting the date on the collage-making thingy as it dates for the day you create the collage and not the day you take the shots.......grrrrrrr.......feel free to complain to the management ;-)