Waiting in queue for cinema

Herbalus

tykesi wrote: »

1600 posts on a money saving forum and you haven't heard of saynoto0870?

Wow!

Oh I'm only here to troll and complain....

Saynoto0870 is in my favourites bar. I was just making the point that there are disadvantages and hassles to every way of getting the tickets.

I sent off a complaint to Vue last night. I don't expect them to take it seriously, but I do think it's good business practice to serve customers efficiently, especially when there's a deadline and its your busiest evening of the week, and not take 5 minutes to make a latte! (Although who takes a latte into the cinema...?)

Will update with their response if received.

daytona0

Herbalus wrote: »

Oh I'm only here to troll and complain....

Saynoto0870 is in my favourites bar. I was just making the point that there are disadvantages and hassles to every way of getting the tickets.

I sent off a complaint to Vue last night. I don't expect them to take it seriously, but I do think it's good business practice to serve customers efficiently, especially when there's a deadline and its your busiest evening of the week, and not take 5 minutes to make a latte! (Although who takes a latte into the cinema...?)

Will update with their response if received.

Some people may consider it good business practice to have staff attentive to the needs of the customer they are serving at that time, ensuring that they get 100% attention. Add on the fact that the cinema probably makes a good chunk (maybe the majority) of money from their overpriced food and drink then you can see why the company would focus on this. I'd wager that they'd lose out more in missed food/drink sales than they would if one or two people at the back of the queue decide to walk out due to the queue length; most people who go to the cinema have specifically planned for it, and aren't that likely to leave the queue! Also don't forget that extra staff = extra costs, and cinemas have probably lost a lot of business over the years so it may be necessary for profit margins (although possibly more negligible).

So, based on that, I am curious as to your end goal of such a complaint letter. They aren't going to change the way they run their company so I don't think your comments will enlighten them. I think you're angling for some free tickets, as it should be relatively obvious as to why the whole thing is set up the way it is. THE ONLY legitimate point you could make is if the staff were purposely taking their time ie talking to each other, standing around etc. If that is the case then most of my post is moot, but you haven't expressed that as a point yet. I'm going off my experience which is that staff do take a few minutes to serve people, but they aren't slacking off - it just takes a while to prepare things!

Oh and I don't think you deserve any freebies, aside from maybe a 'fob off letter' (We have taken your comments on board. Thank you for using Vue and why not check out X Y Z films which are upcoming." I think it all boils down to the fact that YOU didn't plan far enough ahead, as the queues are to be expected. Hell, just look at Alton Towers as a prime example. You can't queue up for 2 hours to go on The Smiler (which I did, and not making any references to the recent tragedy) and then go on to write a complaint letter! You just know that you're in for the wait, so you've just got to do it! On a Saturday night you may find yourself queuing for a meal in a local restaurant (which is probably next to the Vue anyway)! If you don't want to queue in the cinema then either book online/phone or stay at home! If you don't want to be late then be early!!

Good luck with your complaint letter, though.

Herbalus

daytona0 wrote: »

Some people may consider it good business practice to have staff attentive to the needs of the customer they are serving at that time, ensuring that they get 100% attention....

I agree with most of what you wrote, and in theory you'd be right. Nobody wants staff to rush people through like cattle, trying to get as many through the door as possible.

But when faced with Saturday night crowds, you'd expect staff to be at least purposeful in what they're doing, not acting like it's Wednesday afternoon. At 4 minutes per couple, one staff member gets 30 people into the cinema in an hour, which simply isn't good enough (also from their own point of view).

I wasn't bothered by being late as I said, as there's adverts (and not angling for freebies either, I don't go to the cinema much, but I can see why you'd think that). But there were plenty of people behind me (I was fifth in the queue - the people at the end would've been in line for 40 minutes at their average speed) and there's a difference between serving the customer well and serving the customer needlessly slowly.

daytona0

Herbalus wrote: »

But when faced with Saturday night crowds, you'd expect staff to be at least purposeful in what they're doing, not acting like it's Wednesday afternoon. At 4 minutes per couple, one staff member gets 30 people into the cinema in an hour, which simply isn't good enough (also from their own point of view).

I'll bring up another point, but your initial post gave these figures:

Average = 4 minutes
N = 5 ("queue of 5")
Total wait = 17 minutes (which is very accurate)

So there were 5 in front of you and the total wait was 17 minutes, thus your AVERAGE should be 17/5 = 3.4 minutes (or 3m and 24s).

So I've already shaved off 36 seconds from your average! That's an extra 4-6 people per hour!! I could bring in the concept of 'variance', but suffice to say that it could go either way I COULD even be so bold as to say that the variance is 36 seconds (as you said 4 minutes, which is 36 seconds from the true mean), in which case on a bad day you'll wait 4 minutes (on average) and on a good day you'll wait 2m 48s on average! That's an extra 6-12 people an hour on a good day, relative to your 4minute prediction!

If we are to assume that you are basically saying that only 1 staff member was on this evening then you may have a point. If there were 2+ then I don't think your case is particularly strong because the difference between your 30 person prediction is greater when there are 2 or more!

I wasn't bothered by being late as I said, as there's adverts (and not angling for freebies either, I don't go to the cinema much, but I can see why you'd think that). But there were plenty of people behind me (I was fifth in the queue - the people at the end would've been in line for 40 minutes at their average speed) and there's a difference between serving the customer well and serving the customer needlessly slowly.

Maybe you should elaborate (hopefully done in your complaint) about why you consider it as "needlessly slowly". A 3.4 minute time frame to sell/select tickets for a couple, then prepare food and drink and finally exchange cash/tickets doesn't seem too out of this world. Did the employees have idle time (of more than about 20 seconds, you have to give min wage people a tiny bit of leeway)? If so then you have a legit case.

Sharon87

I used to work at a Vue ages ago, it may not be just the person behind the till that's slow, the customer may be slow as well! Fumbling with their bag for their purse, changing their mind on what they want, ordering a lot of food... the list goes on.

Little tip - the Ben and Jerry's stand also sells tickets.

When I worked at Vue we used to open up the box office on a Saturday - especially during the summer and sometimes on Wednesdays (when Orange Wednesdays were still a thing)

Cycrow

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

With Subway, it's not uncommon to only have one person serving and the procedure is generally:
1/ Take your order.
2/ Put on disposable gloves to start your sandwich.
3/ Take off the gloves to take another order.
4/ Repeat 1-3 half a dozen times.
5/ Complete making the sandwiches that are piled up.
6/ Wrap all of the sandwiches.
7 Start taking payment from all of the waiting customers with occasional breaks so that items 1-3 can be carried out as and when required.

Not just Trinidad, my local Subway does that too.

i never really understood the logic behind it. It doesn't speed anything up, the person at the back of the queue will get their food in the same amount of time, but everyone infront end up with a longer wait

Alidolly

DTDfanBoy wrote: »

Wow, you waited in line for an hour for McDonalds :eek:

No thankfully, just waiting for flight and people watching / complaining about the time they'd stood waiting to be served. Bought sarnies from a shop round the corner instead!

Ian011

daytona0 wrote: »

say no to 0870 happens to list:

Vue Cinemas - 0871 224 0240 - 0345 308 4620 - Customer Services

So there IS an alternative number for Vue Cinemas, but alas I have no idea what the charges are for each number!

Calls to 087 numbers incur an Access Charge between 2p to 12p per minute from landlines or 5p to 45p per minute from mobiles (depending on the provider used) and a Service Charge of up to 13p per minute (depending on the exact number called).

Calls to 03 numbers cost the same as calling 01 and 02 numbers and count towards inclusive allowances on landlines and mobiles. Most people call these numbers as part of an inclusive allowance. If you are paying a per-minute rate for these calls, you're probably on the wrong call plan.

Regulation 41 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 came into force on 13 June 2014 and requires post sales helplines for retailers, traders and passenger transport companies to use numbers starting 01, 02, 03 or 080. Breaches of the regulations can be reported to trading standards via the Citizen's Advice national Consumer Helpline on 0345 404 0506.



See also
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5219756
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5292529
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5298102
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5308737

Herbalus

daytona0 wrote: »

I'll bring up another point, but your initial post gave these figures:

Average = 4 minutes
N = 5 ("queue of 5")
Total wait = 17 minutes (which is very accurate)

So there were 5 in front of you and the total wait was 17 minutes, thus your AVERAGE should be 17/5 = 3.4 minutes (or 3m and 24s).

So I've already shaved off 36 seconds from your average! That's an extra 4-6 people per hour!!

Unfortunately for your maths I was the fifth person in the queue, so it was actually slightly more than four minutes per customer! But hey ho. And I noticed it was 17 minutes because I got there at 7:50, and was then watching the large clock behind the counter. When frustrated by people being slow one has a habit of noticing how slow. I think that's a plausible reason for noting such details.

You've come to the same conclusion as the complaint lady, which is to disagree with me that service was slow. The response was simply (plus the usual waffle about sorry for inconvenience) that "staff work very hard to be efficient and serve customers promptly", which ignored the entire point of the complaint that they were not working very hard to serve promptly.

So the complaint has been dismissed out of hand with a suitable "naff off" email and no addressing of the actual complaint, which was not that there was a long wait overall (I expected that on a Saturday night), but rather that staff were making no visible effort to do anything about the queues. I didn't expect to wait for 17 minutes when I was fifth in the queue - you don't get that in a supermarket even when the person in front is buying half the shop and wants the assistant to personally replace four items because they're broken!

But you'll be pleased to note I wasn't given any free tickets! :T

daytona0

Herbalus wrote: »

Unfortunately for your maths I was the fifth person in the queue, so it was actually slightly more than four minutes per customer! But hey ho. And I noticed it was 17 minutes because I got there at 7:50, and was then watching the large clock behind the counter. When frustrated by people being slow one has a habit of noticing how slow. I think that's a plausible reason for noting such details.

Aha that makes sense then My bad with the maths, one minor assumption can skew the results big time!

You've come to the same conclusion as the complaint lady, which is to disagree with me that service was slow. The response was simply (plus the usual waffle about sorry for inconvenience) that "staff work very hard to be efficient and serve customers promptly", which ignored the entire point of the complaint that they were not working very hard to serve promptly.

Sounds like they are backing up their employees. I respect that from the company. If they uphold your complaint (which is subjective anyway) then they have to make drastic changes, like re-training or re-hiring. Both cost money. As long as the employees are at a reasonable level they aren't going to care about complaints like yours, and you will be fobbed off. Sad truth.

So the complaint has been dismissed out of hand with a suitable "naff off" email and no addressing of the actual complaint, which was not that there was a long wait overall (I expected that on a Saturday night), but rather that staff were making no visible effort to do anything about the queues. I didn't expect to wait for 17 minutes when I was fifth in the queue - you don't get that in a supermarket even when the person in front is buying half the shop and wants the assistant to personally replace four items because they're broken!

But you'll be pleased to note I wasn't given any free tickets! :T

I did correctly predict the "fob off" email then! Can you tell that I have also worked in a call center on the "email team"?

As for the Supermarket analogy, what about a busy restaurant on a Saturday night or a ride in Alton Towers?! They may well put a 17 minute wait to shame!!! Queuing is part of a busy night in a popular Saturday night place.

Two options for you, in mu opinion:

1. Give up and accept that sometimes you'll need to queue up for a while longer

2. Get on the phone and call them to query the email. State your point of view and have an end goal in mind (ie free tickets or a free popcorn or whateve). Last thing you want to do is simply offer them "free advice" on how to run the company; I can assure you that the person on the other end isn't going to see the CEO any time soon to discuss current affairs/objectives for the company, so your "advice" will fall on deaf ears. Oh, and 8 times out of 10 the line "I'll pass your feedback on" is going to either not be done, or also fall on deaf ears!

Good luck on what you decide to do.