Bad customer service at badminton arena

Last Monday, I spoke about watching a badminton competition live. At the end, I mentioned that there was one incident which spoiled the event a little. In the interest of being fair, I will summarise the event as factually as possible so you can understand what happened before adding in my comments at the end.

Situation
There were two courts in the badminton arena. Our seats were right behind court number 2 and we were right next to the VIP area which was reserved for members of the HK Badminton Association (and clearly labeled as such). Our seats gave us a great view of court number 2 but court number 1 was a bit far off (but still very watchable).

Play in the evening started at 6:30pm. Lin Dan finished his match on court 1 just before 11:00pm. By that time, court 2 had already finished all games by then. After Lin Dan finished, quite a few spectators got up and left (he was obviously a big draw for lots of people). At this point, the tannoy announced that there was 1 more doubles match to go on court 1 (a lot of matches on court 1 went to 3 games which was why court 1 was still playing despite it being so late).

The timeline of events that followed was roughly thus:

• Large groups of the crowd near court 2 get up and start moving closer to the seats near court 1
• Our group gets up and moves over 4 seats into the VIP section (the people originally sitting in the VIP section had already left)
• Just before we sit down, one of the ushers (hereafter called usher 1) says that we can't sit down there as those seats are reserved for VIPs. Then he adds "Can't you read?"
• We move back to our original seats and sit down.
• Usher 1 sees that we are sitting next to the VIP section and then comes over and asks to check our tickets.
• My friend says "Everyone is moving around - are you planning to check everyone's tickets?"
• Usher 1 replies "Don't worry - I will check everyone's tickets"
• My friend says "yeah - right" (not exactly, but this is probably the closest to what he actually said in Cantonese which was "ha ma")
• Usher 1 says "Yeah. My name is [redacted] and my number is [redacted]. You can complain to my manager if you like"
• My friend says "Fine - I'll watch you do your job"
• Usher 1 says "You do that"
• Usher 1 goes to another group of people who had moved into the VIP section and says "Excuse me. I'm sorry for troubling you but that group over there (points at us) says that I have to check your tickets"
• My friend immediately calls usher 1 back and demands to see the manager.
• Usher 1 calls on his radio and, while waiting for someone in authority to show up, goes to a 3rd group of people and asks them not to sit in the VIP section as it is reserved for VIPs. That 3rd group try to justify their position by saying that everyone else is moving around and usher 1 says that this isn't an excuse to move into the VIP section.
• At this point, a lady shows up (I will call her usher 2 as she wasn't a manager but just slightly higher up the food chain relative to usher 1)
• My friend calls over usher 1 again and after usher 1 shows up, he then explains what happened above and why he is upset (basically that usher 1 made a rude statement about his ability to read and that usher 1 is stating that he is checking tickets at the request of my friend). He also acknowledges straight off that he was wrong to move into the VIP section.
• Usher 2 makes usher 1 apologise for the rude statement about his ability to read. My friend accepts the apology.
• Usher 2 points out that we shouldn't have moved into the VIP section (my friend agrees with this again).
• Usher 2 then says that usher 1 was indeed checking tickets at my friends request because my friend indicated that other people had moved seats.
• My friend explains that this doesn't make sense as checking tickets is the job of usher 1. It isn't the job of usher 1 to be directed in how to work by members of the public.
• Usher 2 doesn't agree and says that my friend was giving a heavy indication to usher 1 that he needed to check other peoples tickets which was why usher 1 was checking the 2nd groups tickets.
• My friend doesn't accept this and, as other viewers were complaining about the noise, decides to take it outside to find a manager (and consequently missed the final doubles match).
• The manager apologises.
• My friend lodges a formal verbal complaint as well as a formal written complaint the following day.

My opinion
Flexible rules
Anyone who has any experience in CS will tell you that rules are flexible. In my opinion, the best way that usher 1 could have handled the above was by simply ignoring people moving seats. Its already late (11:00pm) and people have already started to leave. Its the very last match of the day and if anyone was coming to sit in the empty seats, they would have been there already.

Quite frankly, there was no need to get so uppity and insist on everyone moving back to their original seats. If someone did show up and find his seat taken, then a quick word and the person would have moved. There was no need for a confrontation at all in this case.

Rude
As a CS rep, you absolutely cannot be rude to the clients and say stuff like "Can't you read?"

If you want them to move, then you ask them to move politely. You can be firm and stand your ground, but you cannot be rude. Only a moron would say something like that to a customer.

If I was a boss and I heard anyone in my team do something like this, at a minimum, it would be a formal reprimand. And in the current economic climate, if I had to make cuts, you would be one of the first people out the door.

Know your job
It was usher 1's job to check tickets as an usher. To even suggest that he is checking tickets because it was at the request of my friend is basically shirking your duties. If you don't know what your job and responsibilities are, then you don't deserve to have that job.

In case there is any doubt, the ushers job and responsibilities do not include following the instructions of the public.

Cocky
When usher 1 said his name and number and said that you could complain to management, he did it in a really cocky manner. What a moron.

Most people don't like confrontations and making a formal complaint is a type of confrontation. This means that most people won't actually proactively complain unless they get really upset. For example, people might get pissed off by a really arrogant CS rep who seems to think that he won't get into any trouble.

His attitude only serves to inflame the situation and raise the possibility of a formal complaint.

Even his apology for the rude comment (which he was forced to do by usher 2) was a joke - he didn't even look at my friend and just said in a really arrogant voice - "sorry". The impression I got was that he was not remorseful and didn't think that he would be reprimanded.

Usher 2
Usher 2 could have defused the situation immediately. When usher 2 made usher 1 apologise, my friend accepted the apology even though it was clear that usher 1 didn't mean it and had no remorse whatsoever (my friend is a really easy going guy). Usher 2 should have realised from this that my friend was not interested in kicking up a fuss.

If usher 2 had made usher 1 give another apology for the incident re checking the 2nd groups tickets, my friend would have accepted it even if it had been insincere (I believe - obviously we will never actually know). And usher 2 should have realised this from his reaction to the pitiful first apology.

However, instead, usher 2 tried to justify the actions of usher 1 and say it was indeed my friends request that usher 1 check the second groups tickets. This was unacceptable to my friend which meant that he had to argue his position. The end result was that they eventually had to find an actual manager to resolve the situation and my friend ended up missing the final match.

By this stage, my friend was so pissed off that there was no way in hell he wouldn't lodge a formal complaint.

Summary
From the above, I can only come to one of two conclusions:
1) Usher 1 is a moron; and/or
2) Both usher 1 and usher 2 have little to no experience in customer service

Both usher 1 and usher 2 handled the situation badly. A little more intelligence on their part and the whole situation could have been defused easily.

But then, maybe I'm being unreasonable. I mean, let's face it. In a city like HK, if they had any intelligence, they wouldn't be working such a dead end job.