The new TVs were nice, but there’s no free lunch. We didn’t have access to the rink offices, so I can just report what I was told. The new DirecTV boxes were in a locked room behind the front desk and only 2 people had keys to that room – Todd and Mad Max. There was a phone app to change the channels, but Todd refused to give me access. He did give Kyle the Bartender access to the app. Even if Todd didn’t like me and wanted to make my life miserable, not giving me access was stupid. I was in the rink more than anybody, more than Todd, more than Kyle, more than Max, and I couldn’t change the channels on the TVs.
I guess when you have a monopoly, customer service is not necessary. The local hockey team owned just about all the rinks in the metroplex and I understand they had noncompete agreements with all the coaches so the coaches couldn’t meet their students at a cheaper rink to help them save money on practice ice. So eventually most of the outside rinks closed or were bought out by the local hockey team. I’m telling you this because a good manager with customer service in mind would have trained their people on the new process of changing channels on the new TVs. Even if it’s not their job to change the channels, they need to know what the process is. Customers go to the front desk and the bar to get their favorite game or program all the time and Todd knew that. Yet he didn’t train his people.
Now that I couldn’t change the channels, I had to send all the customers to the front desk for channel changes. Many customers expressed disdain, as they hated to have to deal with the young smart-ass men working there. I felt their pain but couldn’t help them. (As a side note, in the 2.5 years I was there, I was shocked at how many customers came to me with questions about the rink, stating those people at the front desk didn’t know sh*t.) Since the front desk people had not been trained on the new process, they would send the customers back to me telling them the boxes were behind the bar and we had to change the channel. That was the old process, so I had to send the customer back to the front desk. People got so angry, and I don’t blame them. It’s ridiculous to be sent back and forth. So when I finished with my customers I would go to the front desk with them and try to tell the workers to get Max or Todd to change the channels. They didn’t believe me and wouldn’t do it. This went on for weeks because Todd wouldn’t own up to the process to his own people. Finally, the coach who was head of the figure skating program came to me, pissed as hell. Why was I sending these customers to the front desk for channel changes? I got her to sit down at one of the tables in the lobby and I explained the new process to her. I took her behind the bar and showed her that the old DirecTV boxes were gone. Finally, someone saw the light. All Todd had to have done was tell his people that channel changes were now to go to Todd or Max. How hard is that? Why wasn’t it handled after the first misunderstanding instead of weeks later? And all this poor customer service and anger never would have happened.
If I didn’t have a customer, I would go to the front desk with people to ask for a channel change, just to save time and anxiety. If Todd and Max weren’t there, nothing would happen. Todd’s employees refused to contact him if he wasn’t in the building, which was quite often. So I started emailing Todd when people wanted channel changes. He had email on his phone and could change the channels where ever he was. Especially when people wanted to watch the local hockey team’s game and it wasn’t on any of the TVs in the local hockey team’s rink. How stupid is that??? Todd wasn’t happy that he had to get out his phone and change the channels (sometimes late at night), but this was his process. He could have given me the app on my phone but he chose not to. Kyle could change the channel when he was working, but he was an hourly employee and I was not going to ask him on his days off. Kyle’s time off is his time.
I don’t even know what to say about this. It’s so ridiculous I still can’t believe it really happened. I don’t know if the local hockey team hires the most incompetent people they can find or they just don’t care.
Learn From My Mistakes 