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Apalling Customer Service from the Ticket Office


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I recently made an enquiry to the ticket office about a season ticket for remaining games for myself as a senior and a student. I received what I felt was a very positive reply and posted on here as an example of the ticket office manager being helpful. I was not able to action the purchase this week as one of the actions requested by the ticket office was to provide evidence that the young person was indeed a student. Not a problem in itself but since we stay 40 miles apart, not practical in the time scale.

What I did do was to buy tickets on line as follows allocating these correctly for the age groups involved as shown on the website: i.e. One Senior - Me - Check. One Adult - 19 year old Student - Paid Full Price and two 12-17 Year Olds being my grandson of 16 and a young 17 year old. Check. All present and paid for.

Imagine my surprise then when trying to enter the ground that the tickets didn't operate the turnstile. A steward (very polite) said that he had been instructed to ask for evidence that the two 12-17 year olds were students! Not his idea. As he said - don't shoot the messenger.

Now the purpose of this seems to be quite clear in that for some reason my integrity was being questioned when in fact I had paid more than was nescessary by buying an adult ticket for one of the students since I had not been able to contact the ticket office with evidence of their studentship before purchasing on line.

Now - I take offence at this. 

Firstly - I had done everything abslutely correctly.

Secondly - I paid more than I needed in order to ensure that I had not contravened any rules.

Thirdly - I am a very successul, retired businessman, personally well set financially,with expertise in advising businesses much larger than the club on how to improve.

I will be in contact with the office manager seeking an apology.

Failing that, I will contact the CEO.

Failing that I will contact the Chairman.

Edited by St.Ricky
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Personally I understand why the club wants to check however I also understand you're disappointment. Feel we need a better system also as there was a long line of fans waiting for tickets. I thought to myself what if it was raining ? Would these people come back if it was raining ? The club needs to think about this.

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8 minutes ago, Isle Of Bute Saint said:

Personally I understand why the club wants to check however I also understand you're disappointment. Feel we need a better system also as there was a long line of fans waiting for tickets. I thought to myself what if it was raining ? Would these people come back if it was raining ? The club needs to think about this.

IOBS

If you see my posts on here, I am a very positive person. Not a complainer.

Not so - nobody else was being checked.

In addition to what I wrote, I was one short of youngsters and asked the Steward to give the ticket away if they could.

Simply put - this is apalling. No excuses.

The website is straightforward - it has age groups and prices.

These were fully adhered to.

Ps. Wish I could spell appalling.

Edited by St.Ricky
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9 minutes ago, St.Ricky said:

IOBS

If you see my posts on here, I am a very positive person. Not a complainer.

Not so - nobody else was being checked.

In addition to what I wrote, I was one short of youngsters and asked the Steward to give the ticket away if they could.

Simply put - this is apalling. No excuses.

The website is straightforward - it has age groups and prices.

These were fully adhered to.

Ps. Wish I could spell appalling.

Yir spelling is appolling :)

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40 minutes ago, St.Ricky said:

I recently made an enquiry to the ticket office about a season ticket for remaining games for myself as a senior and a student. I received what I felt was a very positive reply and posted on here as an example of the ticket office manager being helpful. I was not able to action the purchase this week as one of the actions requested by the ticket office was to provide evidence that the young person was indeed a student. Not a problem in itself but since we stay 40 miles apart, not practical in the time scale.

What I did do was to buy tickets on line as follows allocating these correctly for the age groups involved as shown on the website: i.e. One Senior - Me - Check. One Adult - 19 year old Student - Paid Full Price and two 12-17 Year Olds being my grandson of 16 and a young 17 year old. Check. All present and paid for.

Imagine my surprise then when trying to enter the ground that the tickets didn't operate the turnstile. A steward (very polite) said that he had been instructed to ask for evidence that the two 12-17 year olds were students! Not his idea. As he said - don't shoot the messenger.

Now the purpose of this seems to be quite clear in that for some reason my integrity was being questioned when in fact I had paid more than was nescessary by buying an adult ticket for one of the students since I had not been able to contact the ticket office with evidence of their studentship before purchasing on line.

Now - I take offence at this. 

Firstly - I had done everything abslutely correctly.

Secondly - I paid more than I needed in order to ensure that I contravened any rules.

Thirdly - I am a very successul, retired businessman, personally well set financially,with expertise in advising businesses much larger than the club on how to improve.

I will be in contact with the office manager seeking an apology.

Failing that, I will contact the CEO.

Failing that I will contact the Chairman.

I can understand your anger and disappointment.  However, with your experience , i`m sure you will understand not everyone is as conscientious as your good self.

What is to stop someone buying said tickets at the ticket office and trying to pull a fast one at the gate to sneak through half a dozen six foot four twelve year olds !!   

The steward for his part was simply doing his job , i dont think anyone was questioning your integrity. Your third point regarding your background & financial status ??  How on earth is a steward to know this ........ unless of course you were wearing a badge or something similar to point it out !!

As for you being checked while others weren`t  ? Havent you ever been pulled aside at the airport for a random check and thought "why me?"

By all means contact the club with your concerns, i`m sure if there are lessons to be learned and improvements needed then they will be.

Maybe one of the lessons that you and your party could be learn is carry your I.D ?

Edited by Callum Gilhooley
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1 minute ago, Callum Gilhooley said:

I can understand your anger and disappointment.  However, with your experience , i`m sure you will understand not everyone is as conscientious as your good self.

What is to stop someone buying said tickets at the ticket office and trying to pull a fast one at the gate to sneak through half a dozen six foot four twelve year olds !!   

The steward for his part was simply doing his job , i dont think anyone was questioning your integrity. Your third point regarding your background & financial status ??  How on earth is a steward to know this ........ unless of course you were wearing a badge or something similar to point it out !!

As for you being checked while others weren`t  ? Havent you ever been pulled aside at the airport for a random check and thought "why me?"

By all means contact the club with your concerns, i`m sure if there are lessons to be learned and improvements needed then they will be.

Maybe one of the lessons that could be learnt is carry your I.D ?

I already pointed out that the steward was very polite as I was with him.

I think you miss the point. The tickets issued wouldnt work.

They had been rendered that way by the ticket office.

There was no randomness.

I mentioned my background and financial status only to provide context.

If you read what I wrote you will see that I actually deliberately overpaid.

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Just now, St.Ricky said:

I already pointed out that the steward was very polite as I was with him.     I Never said otherwise

I think you miss the point. The tickets issued wouldnt work.     The tickets were flagged to check their eligibility (something , by your own admission you hadnt been able to do)

They had been rendered that way by the ticket office.     See above

There was no randomness.     

I mentioned my background and financial status only to provide context.   Was neither relevant nor pertinent to this situation

If you read what I wrote you will see that I actually deliberately overpaid.      Yes, but the turnstyle system and the Steward were not to know that 

 

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Just now, Callum Gilhooley said:

 

Please read what I wrote!

There was no question of eligibility regarding age! The tickets were bought based on age. The Steward did not question the ages.

Only regarding studentship and the tickets were not bought on that basis.

I actually overpaid.

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4 minutes ago, St.Ricky said:

Please read what I wrote!

There was no question of eligibility regarding age! The tickets were bought based on age. The Steward did not question the ages.

Only regarding studentship and the tickets were not bought on that basis.

I actually overpaid.

FWIW Bud , 

I actually have or rather ,had a bit of sympathy for your case till i came to the bit about your integrity being questioned and how everyone should make allowances for how successful and rich you are.

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4 minutes ago, FTOF said:

Couldn't you just have sent a complaint directly to the club instead of seeking attention on here?

Aye,, then he could be ignored that way instead of this :rolleyes: 

Why the f**k do fans get so defensive when someone reports they had a negative experience with the club. Shouldn't all customers be demanding better service and a better match day experience? 

For what it's worth I was at the game today and I had no issues with the club - other than the ridiculous situation of there being no pay at the gate access to the car park. And by and large I have no complaint to make this week. However I did overhear one customer asking a steward who she should speak to about the car park debacle. I don't know what her problem was but it does appear striking that the customer experience around the car park has become a major gripe. It was hard not to notice that Gordon Scott had his BMW parked in the car park, and others who have made the decision to push customers out of the car park were parked alongside him. Maybe if they too had to park in the street where even more of those "no parking an Saturdays when St Mirren are playing" signs appear to be going up they would understand why it's such a negative part of the match day experience at Greenhill Road. 

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4 minutes ago, Stuart Dickson said:

Aye,, then he could be ignored that way instead of this :rolleyes: 

Why the f**k do fans get so defensive when someone reports they had a negative experience with the club. Shouldn't all customers be demanding better service and a better match day experience? 

For what it's worth I was at the game today and I had no issues with the club - other than the ridiculous situation of there being no pay at the gate access to the car park. And by and large I have no complaint to make this week. However I did overhear one customer asking a steward who she should speak to about the car park debacle. I don't know what her problem was but it does appear striking that the customer experience around the car park has become a major gripe. It was hard not to notice that Gordon Scott had his BMW parked in the car park, and others who have made the decision to push customers out of the car park were parked alongside him. Maybe if they too had to park in the street where even more of those "no parking an Saturdays when St Mirren are playing" signs appear to be going up they would understand why it's such a negative part of the match day experience at Greenhill Road. 

What a f**kin bastard he is !!!  How dare our Chairman park his car in the club Car park !! this is a f**kin liberty......c`mon guys , lets storm the boardrom !!

Dicko , you really are a boring f**kin twat .

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8 minutes ago, Callum Gilhooley said:

What a f**kin bastard he is !!!  How dare our Chairman park his car in the club Car park !! this is a f**kin liberty......c`mon guys , lets storm the boardrom !!

Dicko , you really are a boring f**kin twat .

Feel free to ignore me. Being perfectly honest I find you utterly tedious too with your poor attempts to goad me with pathetic name calling. :rolleyes:

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21 minutes ago, rea said:

Check with ticket office and i might be remembering this incorrectly...but your tickets would not work due to a system random check that then makes the steward intervene and what they then should do is assess the situation and if viable let you in.
 

No the duplicate tickets had been issued to the Steward to await our arrival.

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A mate of mine had the same problem at the beginning of the season. Purchased season ticket, provided offer of acceptance to the course, but his course had not yet started so he did not have a student ID card yet. The card worked fine for a game or two and then he was locked out of a game. I Tweeted Tony Fitzpatrick, his reply was no St Mirren fan would be locked out of the game... I said well he was because despite paying a season ticket, he wasn't allowed in. No response.

The boy also contacted Tony as well, no reply. He ended up just asking for his money back.

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46 minutes ago, paul torfason said:

so did you not get into the game after paying??

Paul. The Steward understood that we had bought age related tickets and we were in.

He also recognised that we had in fact paid more than reqd if we had sent in the one student detail.

Edited by St.Ricky
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55 minutes ago, Callum Gilhooley said:

FWIW Bud , 

I actually have or rather ,had a bit of sympathy for your case till i came to the bit about your integrity being questioned and how everyone should make allowances for how successful and rich you are.

Incorrect. I ASK ONLY that everybody be treated with respect. It was sadly lacking and certainly not random.

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1 hour ago, FTOF said:

Couldn't you just have sent a complaint directly to the club instead of seeking attention on here?

I have sent an e mail to the club but have also raised the issue here for others to see and comment on - for or against.

The pity is that one of the young men is also the son of a very well known family in Abu Dhabi.

You know - the country from which Ethiad operate and where the owner of Manchaster City FC resides.

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57 minutes ago, Stuart Dickson said:

Aye,, then he could be ignored that way instead of how I should be.... 

jabber.... Jabbbbbbbber

 

Maybe if they too had to park in the street where even more of those "no parking an Saturdays when St Mirren are playing" signs appear to be going up they would understand why it's such a negative part of the match day experience at Greenhill Road. 

The street signs were CLEAR   and NOT at all negative. We parked EASILY on Murray Street.

other than the football and result. There was nowt wrong with the match day experience.

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2 minutes ago, antrin said:

The street signs were CLEAR   and NOT at all negative. We parked EASILY on Murray Street.

other than the football and result. There was nowt wrong with the match day experience.

You're f**king joking, right?

  • Poor value for money - one of the most expensive single match tickets in the Championship. 
  • Customers having to queue outside in unsheltered areas to buy tickets, or pick up tickets, before then having to queue again to get through a turnstyle all at a stadium that is at best a half to three quarters empty
  • Wheelchair fans having to sit in area's of the stadium where there is a poor view of the pitch, and where they are subjected to all elements. 
  • A PA System that doesn't work in one of the four stands.
  • A lack of any pre match entertainment. 
  • Rip off prices at the catering outlets where again customers can face lengthy queues
  • A real lack of available off road parking, despite the club having a sizeable car park on site. 
  • A shortage of disabled parking bays 
  • Poor customer service off car park attendants who issue woeful advice on where customers should park if not in the car park. 
  • An inability to buy replica kit in the tiny club shop which is hardly fit for purpose. 
  • A supporters bar only open to members of a club that doesn't have a committee, or a constitution, and where even members appear confused about admission policies. 
  • Customer Service that can only be described as utterly non existent. Complaints are routinely ignored. Staff are rude. And officials of the club are confrontational. 
  • And an Independent Supporters Association that doesn't appear to want to engage in communication with members who wish to question the running of the association. 

And that's just the ones off the top of my head right now. 

Take a trip down to stadiums down in the successful English leagues who have turned around their reputation for trouble with some solid marketing and with a great deal of focus on improving the match day experience and you'll see exactly what I mean. St Mirren are by no means unique in terms of Scottish Football, but there is a reason the game up here struggles to attract and keep new customers. 

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NONE of that was off the top of YOUR BLOCK-head.

 

it was a preprinted, pre- typed, mulled-over, inarticulate wrong rant that you've been hoping to fire-off since your last wank.

We drove to Murray Street from a local pub, parked, entered via an unbusy turnstile. Had an easy pee, or bought a simple pie, with no stress at any point.  

Sat and saw the match.

 

you need to get out more.  Not fantasise about going to games, or having sensible sons or being almost human.

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