We were all excited about watching Rock On since the reviews were so great. We made a group of about 5 of us forced some of the hesitant ones booked tickets online at the Vashi Fame Raghuleela. There were a lot of seats to choose from so my friend booking tickets choose seats furthest away from the screen and paid online.We reached well on time, picked up our tickets and walked into the cinema hall to find that we have been given front row seats!
The front row seats in the Fame Raghuleela are pathetic… I have seen a lot of movies on the front row but I have never seen such badly placed seats. I don’t know if there is a law on the mandatory minimum distance for the seating to start from the first row….but these seats were literally into the screen.If there is no law and regulatory agencies certifying theatres they should really have some norms on the minimum distance of the first row from the screen. The theater owners would keep on adding rows upto the screen to made money!
Well the girls in the group, were all eager to see “Rock On” with all the hot dudes on screen so adjusting as women are, we were ready to see the movie sitting on the first row….but the boys were indignant on being given the wrong seats despite booking well in advance.
So we too stormed out of the all in support of the boys and demanded for a refund.
We Spoke to the booking staff…they directed us to some other staff and then to the so called “manager” ..let us call him “Mr Rajesh C” who was suppose to be the unit head and he was extremely rude and unreasonable and started blaming us about being wrong and a loud argument ensued with him pointing figers at us and telling us how wrong we were and there are so many people who book tickets online and this has never happned!!
So much for customer service. We were already irritated and his attitude infuriated us!
All we were demanding was give us a credit note so we could watch some other movie. Mr Rajesh had some brilliant ideas. He wanted us to come back for a movie on any weekday Monday to Friday between 8am to 6pm! He looked at us as potential customers to fill his off peak hour slot!
After much loud heated discussion for almost half an hour…. Mr Rajesh finally agreed to give us a credit note which said you can redeem this for 5 tickets @ Rs 150 anytime.
We were royally pissed about our movie plans being screwed up and we walked out of the theatre in a huff with the credit note…but not wanting to look at the face of Fame Raghuleela again.
As we stepped out and met some college kids who wanted to buy 12 tickets for a movie on a Monday morning and someone form our group had a brilliant idea to give our credit note to them take our money and get out of the place so we don’t have to come back.We thought it would be a simple enough logical transaction…we had a credit note for 5 tickets @ Rs 150, so that would make a total of 750 and the kiddos wanted to buy 12 tickets @ Rs 70 each which totaled to Rs 840. So we though we would pay the difference of 90 bucks take our money and walk out and never have to come back again.
But lo behold…. Logical! (whats that!)
The credit note which was made 10 minutes back was examined in detail by the booking agents on the counter. They went into their back office area to find Mr Rajesh….but he had disappeared…must have been taking a rest break….after all fighting with customers who have come to have a good time at the movies can be very strenuous. So the credit note written on the back of the ticket was examined by three other people and finally after almost about 15 minutes , Mr Rajesh arrived and we heaved a sigh of relief…now we can finally finish our transaction and move on an rescue what was left of our evening out.
But lo behold...Wait..!! That was not to be…at least not so soon!
Mr Rajesh did not see the logic of the transaction required!!! (How duh!)
He said we could get 5 tickets in lieu of the credit note and not the amount!! And since the kiddos were buying morning show tickets which were cheaper tickets, they could take 5 tickets on the credit note and we would have to forfeit the rest of the amount!!If we were pissed earlier…now we got mighty pissed now!!!! The logic of 5 tickets in lieu of the credit not obviously did not hold true for tickets that were priced higher than what we had bought!!
We demanded to speak to his manager……we could not believe he was actually the person in charge there he was stupid! His boss…lets call him Mr John..was based out of Pune…we demanded to speak to him cause this man was acting ridiculous!
Our Hero called up his boss and explained the situation...I spoke to Mr Manager’s Manger…Mr John….not much use….he gave me some bullshit about the number of tickets matter….I told him that at this point of time I am an irritated customer…and this would effect not only me but 50 other friends of ours…but Mr Manager’s Manager…said he can’t do much…..
I passed the phone to my friend…who told him… "Ok thank you very much for your customer service…please remember to buy the mid-day tomorrow to check out the coverage” (Or something to that effect!) and we once again walked out.
We apologized to the college kiddo’s and told them to go ahead and buy their own tickets and these idiots don’t seem to want to see logic.
We were hanging around near the booking counter, contemplating what to do next and trying to find a group who wanted to buy 5 tickets from the counter for 150 bucks and make them use our credit note and get out of there and never come back!
Suddenly we see Mr Rajesh….coming running out to the booking counters and calling us inside! He was in a mood of a compromise…he did not want to loose us as customers…He was attempting to give us sales talk…and coming up with some stupid options…We told him…..If you don’t want to loose us as cutomers…refund our money….we are so mighty pissed now that nothing else will work….but Mr Rajesh….was unable to gauge our mood and persisted with the sales talk…” No Sir….(suddenly we were respected again!) if refund the money…you wont come back…unless we had to should at him and tell him cut the crap and give us the money back if you want to save face…get your booking counter to use the credit not in lieu of the next 5 tickets they sell…
I think it finally something struck him……(I think it was a return call from his boss)…and he came out an gave us our money back…not without saying… but it was actually your fault..and we are making a major exception your you!! Who makes people like time managers in a customer centric role!
We walked out of the place finally after almost two hours and a lot of argument…..with our evening all ruined…And I looked at Mr Rajesh’s card which had the Fame tag line printed on the back “Fame…Makes my day!” and we all laughed…..how ironical….
Bottom line: Honestly I don’t know who was at fault….but the way it was handled was pathetic…it was a case of horrible customer service.
Bottom line 2 : We missed the movie but ended up going to a new coffee shop had a nice time!
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