No Turn On Red

It is unfortunate that good customer service seems to be the exception, no longer the rule, these days. How about a tale of very good customer service from an unlikely place, Six Flags Great Adventure?

I am a huge theme park junkie. Christine humors me and goes to Great Adventure with me more than I am sure she would. The theme park opened for the season on Friday, March 31. We took a ride down that night to take a look at what work they’ve done over the off season and ride a few roller coasters. I love the park and I am exciting to see what happens with new ownership this year and so far, all of the talk has been positive and encouraging.

However, right from the start of the night, something was not right. As we went through the toll plaza to purchase our season parking pass, we were given a sticker/decal instead of the familar hangtag (to hang from the rearview window). I was told to put it on my windshield (which I immediately did not) and that was the new pass for the new year. To top this off, up until the week prior, Great Adventure was selling 2006 parking hangtags through the Jackson Outlet Mall. Where’d the stickers come from?

I was very upset about this. With the hang tag, you had the ability to transfer it between cars. Now, maybe this is against the “park rules”, but it was commonly done. Christine and I both have our own cars and we took each of them to the park an equal amount. I know plenty of families with multiple cars that were in the same boat. A family can purchase multiple season passes but really should only need one parking pass. Right? Apparently, wrong.

This new policy did not go over well. That night, forums about the theme park had plenty of compliants about the new parking system. On GADV.com, many users voiced their opinions on the new parking situation. User stew560 said:

I am 100% against this idea. I think it is just another way for the park to get more money out of us by forcing the families with multiple cars to purchase multiple passes. (Even though they will only be using one at a time!) If they are that concerned about people sharing the passes, then put the “P” back on my Season Pass and I’ll show that everytime.

Judging by the 100 replies on the topic, this was obviously an issue of concern for a lot of long time and new customers to the park. A lot of suggestions were made as to ways to work around the new policy, but it was clear that people were upset. You can also add me to the list of people who e-mailed guest services to voice my frustrations with this policy. But indications were that the park was aware of the guest’s concern and something was being done.

Now two weeks later, before the park has even hit it’s third operating weekend, they sent out an e-mail to everyone who contacted them in regards to this issue:

Since a lot of guests have had the same concerns you do, we have changed the procedure for the parking pass a little. You can affix it to the back of the season pass of the person who is going to come the most. If it is on your car and you are able to remove it, please bring it to Guest Relations and we will replace it for you.

Now how about that for quick, efficient and good customer service?

Great Adventure took their feedback and quickly made a wise decision - are they going to make more money keeping customers happy or are they going to make more money selling more parking passes? It seems like a no brainer, but often in our various industries, decisions are made based on short-term profit/gains rather than the long term, bigger picture.

Two weeks into the season and people are commenting across message boards about how good the staff is this year, in comparision to years pass.  Snyder has put forth a renewed emphasis on customer service.  It is very visible and people are reacting favorably.

As the park enters it’s 45th anniversary, under new owners, with new directions and policies, let’s hope that they learn from this first stumble of the season. It was such a simple and seemingly small policy change — switch to parking decals, who’s gonna care? — but it showed the power of the consumer and the power of good customer service. Keep the customers happy, make sure they have a good experience every time they walk into the park, and they will keep coming back. Keep them coming back and Mr. Snyder may be off to a great start.

Good job, Six Flags.

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