March 15, 2004
Customer Service Hint (for Warner Mycal)
Here is a tip for Warner Mycal cinemas in Japan, and indeed any other organization struggling with how to deal with the move to online payment/booking etc: don't charge customers more for making your job easier!!
The amount in question here is only 100 yen, but here goes the rant.
Warner Mycal in Japan is a chain of multi-screen cinemas. The sound is great, the screens are great, and you get assigned seats (this contrasts nicely to the older-style cinemas here where people just rush in when the doors open, try to find the best seats, then put jackets and bags all over the place to make it impossible for latecomers to sit down).
Recently, Warner Mycal has decided to improve the lot of customers even more, by allowing online reservations with credit cards. You choose your seats online, you pay with your credit card, then at the cinema, you swipe the same card to get your tickets. Simple, painless, and efficient.
So why am I complaining? It's the 100yen they charge per booking for this 'service' that disappoints me.
Of course they had to invest in card-swiping machines to make this happen. They also had to revamp their web-page, and introduce card payment, with all the security and data protection issues this change brings. BUT SO WHAT??? That is nothing to do with me, the customer. As far as I am concerned, I have saved Warner Mycal the cost of the salary of the young lady who used to dispense us with tickets. They could get rid of the ticket booth altogether, and use the space to sell more obesity-inducing fast food, for all I am concerned. I have no idea how they came to the decision to charge customers more for managing their own purchase. Imagine if your bank charged you more to manage your account online than to go into the branch. Imagine if booking a flight online (doing a lot of the booking agent's work) cost you more than calling the agent or going into the airline office. It would remove the whole basis of a lot of e-commerce.
So, in a nutshell, Warner-Mycal, you are getting there, just please don't charge extra for online bookings.
It is not just them, TICKETMASTER and those online ticket places charge a nice fee for on line purchase and the fee actually says "convenience fee". You other option is lining up or driving to the venue to get your tickets,
With events in the states you print your own barcoded tickets.
THe investment in equipment is no argument for the theater because that is an expense that can be written off their taxes.
It is a tough call because I still like having a reserved seat at the theater, the places around my house in the US are still line up or good luck getting a seat.
Posted by: Paul at March 15, 2004 10:09 PMYou make one flawed assumption with your argument.
That increased automation will reduce the amount of staffing.
This is Japan after all. If anything, improved automation will increase the amount of staff.In addition to not getting rid of any ticket window staff (who now sit idly staring into space), you now must hire an E-seki reserve section staff, including bu-cho, ka-cho, kakari-cho, shunin, several floors worth of hira-shain, buch of OL's to make coffee, a few hundred more salespeople to advertise the cutting edge innovation, add extra staff to HR to handle the new department, maybe an extra security guard or two, oh, and get some guy who knows how to make webpages too. He might be useful at some point.
All that for just 100 yen,
Posted by: Kakyou at March 16, 2004 12:41 PMKakyou,
You are right. Silly me. I will change the title of the post to 'Bargain of the Century'!
I guess I'm already numb to 100 yen fees. I love the Warner Mycal online reservation service. I used it for my tickets to Return of the King. I either completely forgot, or didn't even notice the 100 yen fee. I guess I think of 1800 yen as such an outrageous fee for a movie that if I actually decide to go to the theatre I put money out of my mind.
I recently discovered that a bus from my station goes directly to the Warner MyCal cinema at Tobu-Nermina, so I'm a loyal customer when movies are finally released here. Of course it's tempting to just fly to Bangkok and see films for one sixth the price before the come out here. Any excuse to visit Thailand works for me though..