I need to rant about this a little bit before I forget about it completely. When you work in an industry that’s all about the customer, noticing how other places do customer service becomes magnified. I find myself thinking – “ooo, that’s a neat idea for us to do”, or “bleh, that cashier was just awful”, or “wow, I can’t believe she just did that for me!” Most people do this anyway – but as a librarian and one who always desperately strives to make every person leave my library happily, the little things (and big things) that other people do become more amplified. I find myself wondering how the baristas at Starbucks are soooooo sweet to me every single day – I wonder, am I *that* cool (prolly not) or is the Starbucks Customer Service Training really *that* badass (prolly so)? There’s about 10 of them at this Starbucks that know my name, tell me my new haircut looks great, ask me how my trip to CiL was, recommend me getting the espresso chocolate brownie (nuked, by the way…it’s heavenly), practically have my drink waiting for me the instant I walk through the door, and sometimes give me drinks on the house. In fact, I love them so much I haven’t been able to bring up the fact that I’ll be moving two towns away in two weeks and will only be able to come back to this Starbucks on rare (but special!) occasions.
The last time we visited Foxwoods Casino was to see Peter Cetera (shut up) in concert, which was January 2007 I think, and the time prior to that, probably a couple of years before that. Mohegan Sun, on the other hand, – everything is great there, and we visit it probably once every couple of months. We always say we’ll never go back to Foxwoods, but we try to take a peek at least once every couple of years to see if it’s gotten any better. And it hasn’t. I spent last Sunday at Foxwoods and regretted being there as every moment passed, the exchange I witnessed while trying to redeem my Wampum Rewards was the clincher, and it sealed the deal for me that I’d swear I’d never return.
I won’t bother getting into details about how the self-service kiosks for swiping your Wampum Cards make absolutely no sense. Why do you give me buttons for coupons and tickets just so that when I click on them, you tell me there’s an error and in fact, I have zilcho? Why can’t I just swipe the damn card and get my entry into your stupid sweepstakes (get a clue from Mohegan Sun – they got their act right) – and NOT have to enter my pin and then hit another button to actually enter it in? I know I’m not going to win anyway but you could at least simplify the process so I can get disappointed more quickly (and thus, head to the freaking slot machines faster. Cha-ching!).
I also won’t bother getting into (more) details about driving around on the joint. Somehow I was driving along and looking for a different entrance and I wound up in a mysterious administrative area, I think. I came to a four-way intersection with absolutely no signs. I turn right and wind up heading towards a secure, gated area. U-turn! Back to the intersection. No signs. Fine.
But what really bothered me is what happened when I was leaving. Sunday night; it’s 7:30ish. I am tired of Foxwoods and I want to leave. The ambiance of the place has sucked the life out of me and the slot machines have sucked the cash out of me. But before I go, I want to redeem all the $$ I’ve accumulated on my not-so-ubar Wampum Rewards card. So as I’m walking out, I check my balance – it gives me two numbers, one is some point accumulation crap which I don’t get (it’s like 13), and the other is $4 cash rewards. So I figure I have $4 to spend, and I head over to the little Pequot Trader convenience store. I get a $2 bottle of water, and I can’t decide between Altoids mints or the king size Snickers, so I get both, knowing full well I’ll go over the $4. I stand in line. There are two groups of folk in front of me. All of a sudden this commotion ensues. There are 4 asians at the front of the counter arguing over the 4 cigarette cartons; I assume they are trying to decide what to purchase because the woman behind the counter is screaming “I HAVE A LINE! You need to make your decisions NOW!” They continue arguing. What’s the woman do? She – I kid you not – snatches the ciggy boxes out of their hands, storms over to the other counter, slams them down on that counter, and says – sadly I must paraphrase but I’m sure I’m pretty damn close to what she says - Here! You decide over HERE what you are going to do, I have a line here and I can’t be waiting for you all day! She then tells the other clerk behind her to stand there and watch them while they decide.
Why? Whyfor did you need to be a massive bitch like that? Do you just assume – or do you hope - they’ll probably never come back and you can get away with treating people who probably just dumped a buttload of money into your casino like crap? The woman in front of me turned around to me, totally wide-eyed, and said “I have no idea what just happened there but that was really rude.” The clerk (in fact I think she’s a manager) gets the line going again, all the while having an argument with the four folks over on the other side telling them they can’t use their coupons together. The whole fracas of this situation continues for another 5 minutes or so. The woman did slightly redeem herself by not being a total brat when they finally decided what to do – and even made an adjustment to how she rang up the purchases so that they could use all four of their coupons (why the hell didn’t you just do that in the first place and avoid the whole gd 20 minute situation that made you look like a complete ass?)
Part of me wanted to drop the stuff and leave, but the other part of me wanted to make sure I got my whole $4 that I so rightly earned on the stupid card, so I sucked it up and stood in line a bit longer. And when I finally got to pay, it turned out to be $7.35, and I had my $3.35 in cash extra ready to go, but the other clerk hands me the card back and says I’m all set. So what the hell just happened there? I had more than $4 on the card but nowhere did it tell me that. Was it the points then? If so, what the hell is the “cash rewards” then? And, why didn’t you ask me for my pin number when I went to make that purchase? Your stupid machines gave me all this grief at the self-service kiosks to just look at the balance, and even on the slot machines themselves you force me to put in my pin number just to see my balance, and yet, I didn’t need a freaking pin number to make a purchase? You must have a clue as to the number of cards that get left lying around the entire casino – so it would be okay for me to just run around and collect all of those and make a purchase? I don’t care if it’s just a twenty cent purchase – that’s just asking for trouble.
Now I’m on the Foxwoods site. I’ve got three numbers: one is my total points balance which is 10.74 points. Then it tells me the points that are available for cash rewards: 9.00. Then it tells me my cash rewards balance is $4.50. I don’t get it. At all. Maybe I’m too lazy to figure it out. But I shouldn’t *have* to figure it out, should I? Maybe if Foxwoods was the only joint in town, I’d make more of an effort to care. But since Mohegan Sun is around, and everything they do makes so much more sense, I don’t care for Foxwoods’ style. I’ve been spoiled by Mohegan Sun and its simplicity and friendliness and cleanliness and up-to-date-ness and great customer service.
