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The Sinking Ship: (Un)Love Letters to Merlin

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I know I'm repeating myself, but the Smiler foundations were dug out during a period of exceptionally wet weather, that went on for months.
The new coaster groundworks were made in a period of better weather, and could use the lakes drainage down the valley as well (I presume).
Back on topic, not one but two lovely new coasters this year...aren't we a lucky bunch of enthusiasts then.
 
I remeber that wet weather period. Summer 2012 had some of the wettest weather in recent times. Especially here in Staffordshire. I remeber one Summer afternoon the sky went so black the street lights came on. Before extremely heavy rainfall. All of this, all summer. In the vacinity of Alton, when The Smilers foundations were being laid.
 
The Smiler groundworks were a mess up from both sides. TG Cruse clearly made a bit of a mess of it all, but they weren't too happy with Towers either. The whole project was planned appallingly and all of the blame for that has to be pointed Towers and Merlin.

:)
 
Thinking about cost-cutting and ownership and the constant thought of "park owner has closed my favourite or won't spend on doing this etc". This behaviour isn't unique to Merlin, read any theme park fan community and they will have complaints of cost cutting or new rides not being good enough or things closing.
Disney (in Florida at least) are trying to increase revenue through additional spend and there are constant forum threads (I ready WDWMagic) about new upcharge experiances, or changes in park hours, or other things the parks aren't getting right. One main difference is that staffing costs in USA are different so putting on extra staff to run an upcharge at Disney is still economical for them. Whereas staff budget is first thing cut in UK.

Basically you could have a huge company owning the park, but they still want to get every possible penny out of the guests. I don't think Alton Towers being sold would change it dramatically.
 
Disney fans are bloody weird though... The reaction to the first Starbucks in a Disney park was proof of that...
 
Benzin said:
Disney fans are bloody weird though... The reaction to the first Starbucks in a Disney park was proof of that...
Click to expand...

Oh the first Starbucks went largely un-noticed at Disney California Adventure. It was the main street one at Magic Kingdom that caused the Cinnamon Bun issue...
 
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I feel sorry for the customer service staff.
And wonder what comments will be written on TripAdvisor and customer questionnaire tablets.

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To me it's obvious why they've done it. Early queues for The Wicker Man will be through the roof, hence will result in people buying fast track tickets. The reception across Facebook and twitter has already been very poor, and I doubt Merlin will give a toss.

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delta79 said:
I feel sorry for the customer service staff.
And wonder what comments will be written on TripAdvisor and customer questionnaire tablets.

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I expect the usual spiel from Merlin that they have won a generic "excellence award" and that the parks are "moving in the right direction", and therefore "getting better than ever".

Their whole business is founded upon the bias KPIs they employ.
 
My response via twitter to this.
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WickerManiac said:
Their whole business is founded upon the bias KPIs they employ.
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Unless I've misremembered... My favourite is that "queueing spoilt my day" - one of the few questions on the KPIs that might actually bring some valid feedback - has its "acceptable" threshold of something like max 70% isn't it? So 70% of people thinking queueing spoilt their day is job well done as far as they're concerned.

Whatever the figure was, it was far, far more lenient than any of the others and biased hugely in their favour. Certainly Merlin's culture in my and others experience has been "come to a theme park, expect to queue, duh", not realising that you can make a huge difference with better operations.

You can mathematically minimise queues by having enough high throughput rides open in the park to cope with attendance and having them run well. But theyd rather lose any chance of that, by dishing out Fastrack and shutting high capacity rides.
 
electricBill said:
Unless I've misremembered... My favourite is that "queueing spoilt my day" - one of the few questions on the KPIs that might actually bring some valid feedback - has its "acceptable" threshold of something like max 70% isn't it? So 70% of people thinking queueing spoilt their day is job well done as far as they're concerned.

Whatever the figure was, it was far, far more lenient than any of the others and biased hugely in their favour. Certainly their attitude in my and others experience is "come to a theme park, expect to queue, duh", not realising that you can make a huge difference with better operations.

You can mathematically minimise queues by having enough high throughput rides open in the park to cope with attendance and having them run well. But theyd rather lose any chance of that, by dishing out Fastrack and shutting high capacity rides.
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I think the whole KPI set up is rigged.

They love suggesting that you fill in KPIs when you've had a good experience. When you've had a poor experience, they seem less keen to ask you to fill one in.
 
WickerManiac said:
I think the whole KPI set up is rigged.

They love suggesting that you fill in KPIs when you've had a good experience. When you've had a poor experience, they seem less keen to ask you to fill one in.
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I got the impression that when people with complaints filled in the forms on the iPads at the RBO that they didn't bother saving responses

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WickerManiac said:
I think the whole KPI set up is rigged.

They love suggesting that you fill in KPIs when you've had a good experience. When you've had a poor experience, they seem less keen to ask you to fill one in.
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Yup - I noticed this a while ago. Being selective about who they ask to fill in surveys in order to fix their KPI responses so they can justify what they're doing is a frankly disgusting tactic, IMO.
 
Pretty much any company is like that these days, it's not an issue completely unique to Merlin...

It's just the way they handle the data that is key...
 
I point miffed off people to a customer feedback tablet.

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It’s a frankly misguided business practice encouraged by the nature of the short term incentivisation of staff. It’s a practice driven from the top down.

In the long term there’s only so far you can manipulate KPIs before they’re worthless as a metric. In the short term they tell you nothing about the true performance of your business. All they end up being used for is a tool to beat staff with or an excuse to roll out in adverse circumstances.
 
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