Letter of Complaint to Six Flags Magic Mountain

Mr. B.,

My name is Kevin Z, and I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. My girlfriend and I went to a lot of trouble on the weekend of August 15, 2009 to drive down to Valencia to visit Magic Mountain. A one-way car trip takes a little under five hours from where we live. Given the amount of time and money that we invested into the trip, we were disappointed that our time spent in your park was characterized more by frustrating, unpleasant confrontations, than by fun and entertainment. I personally was greatly disappointed by the overall level of customer service and care offered at your park throughout the day. Mainly, I take issue with your park’s “loose articles” policy.

The ”Loose Articles” Policy

As I understand it, you have a policy that prohibits any and all loose articles from being placed on the boarding platforms of your rides. Loose articles such as backpacks and purses, for example, are technically not allowed anywhere near a roller coaster boarding platform. To “accommodate” guests who are carrying loose articles, you provide temporary storage lockers in front of most of your major rides and charge a $1 fee at each location. Alternatively, you provide locker storage space near the main entrance of the park for $11. I wouldn’t object to the locker prices if their use was voluntary, but I resent the fact that use of these lockers is mandatory for all loose articles, even including items such as your refillable souvenir soda cups, and shopping bags from your own gift shops.

Summary of Events

My girlfriend and I were confronted numerous times by park employees for merely walking through a line for a roller coaster with a gift bag and a souvenir cup in our hands. We were told time and again to either stow away our belongings in a $1 locker, or to get out of line. When we asked your employees why they wouldn’t allow us to simply set our belongings aside near the exit of the ride platform (as is custom practice at every other amusement park we’ve visited), your employees would invariably tell us that they were simply following “corporate policy”. For a while, we gave in and started using the temporary lockers at each ride.

After a while, we decided to save ourselves some hassle by stowing away the gift bag in an $11 locker, but still opted to carry around the souvenir cup. It was a hot day, after all, as it often is in that valley. One of the most upsetting and frustrating confrontations of the day happened shortly afterwards in the line for Scream. As we were nearing the boarding platform, the employee tending to the line asked us to stow away the cup in a locker. It’s frustrating to me that I’m not allowed to carry a drink while waiting in line for a roller coaster in the sweltering heat of Valencia. After some argument with your employee, my girlfriend grabbed the cup and simply placed it on top of the lockers and started to walk away. At this, your employee called out, “Ma’am, if you leave that cup there, then I will throw it away.” Thoroughly frustrated, I told him that I wasn’t paying a dollar to store the cup, and that he should just throw it away. We left the cup behind, and indeed it was nowhere to be seen once our ride was over.

Promptly afterwards, my girlfriend and I made a stop at your guest relations office. It was around 7pm when we decided to do this. At this point, I must mention that the young lady working behind the counter (her name is K) handled our complaint professionally, attentively, and with a much-needed dose of empathy. She listened to what we had to say and acknowledged our frustration. My girlfriend and I both commend K for being great at what she does.

K’s manager, on the other hand, seemed curt and disinterested. He didn’t see anything wrong with the fact that the employee from the Scream ride bluntly threatened us with an ultimatum to either pay a dollar or to have our property thrown away in retaliation for leaving it unattended for 10 minutes. This manager (I regret that I didn’t catch his name) ended the conversation by stating that the only thing we could accomplish that night was to basically issue a formal complaint against any of those rides whose employees did not strictly enforce the locker rule. Naturally, my girlfriend and I declined to complain about not being harassed enough while we stood patiently in your lines. Afterwards, K redeemed your guest relations office by offering us some courtesy and providing us your contact information.

Complaint

Mr. B., I was compelled to write you this letter because I strongly believe that Six Flags’ “loose articles” policy is not only unfair and abusive to your customers, but it also can hurt your company’s profitability in the long run. I know how obnoxious it can be to receive a complaint letter from a presumptuous customer telling you how to run your business, but I ask you to please take note of my arguments and to objectively consider whether operations and policies at your park (or parks) could be improved. My arguments are as follows.

1. Your “loose articles” policy deviates from industry standards in a way that falls well short of the common consumer’s expectations.

Every amusement park out there abides by the same golden rule: “The park is not responsible for any lost, stolen, or damaged property.” At any given amusement park, when I leave my belongings aside while I board a ride, I am fully aware that a stranger could potentially steal my property, and that I would have no legal right to hold the park accountable. In basically every other amusement park that I’ve visited, aside from Magic Mountain, I have been allowed to set my belongings down somewhere near the exit of a boarding platform when it has been my turn to board a ride.

I was both surprised and annoyed to learn that your park prohibits this very common practice. I resent being charged a dollar to stow away my belongings in a temporary-use locker each time I want to board a roller coaster. Yes, I do realize that there are $11 lockers available at the front of the park, but my preference would be to avoid that steep fee. In fact, it would be my preference to avoid all locker fees and to simply be allowed the option to gamble on the goodness of humanity when I leave my property unattended on a boarding platform. When I questioned your employees on why I was not allowed to leave my belongings unattended, I received one of two official answers: (1) “It’s for your own protection”, and (2) “It’s corporate policy”. I find neither answer acceptable.

When the average consumer enters your amusement park, he or she expects to be given a choice on whether to use your storage lockers. As soon as those lockers become a burdensome obligation, the consumer begins to suspect that your organization is deviating from industry practices solely in an effort to gouge your captive audience. I consider myself a cynical consumer with low expectations. When I enter a place of business as a captive audience member (places like amusement parks or movie theaters), I expect to be overcharged for amenities. I don’t balk at $4 bottles of water or $6 hotdogs, because, I know that’s all just part of the game. But being forced to stow away my possessions for every ride is unacceptable, given that most other amusement parks out there allow you to opt for convenience over the safety of $1 lockers at the entrance of every major ride. While it may be safer to lock up your belongings every single time, it sure feels a lot less fun when you’re being told to either pay a dollar, get out of line, or else have your belongings thrown away if you decide to do neither.

Your “Loose Articles” policy kills whatever joy there is to have in your amusement park.

2. Your policy on loose articles discourages customers from spending money inside your park. Generally, the policy can and will lead to a loss of sales.

The whole day, your employees hassled me for carrying around items that I had bought inside the park. I was told to stow away both my shopping bag full of souvenirs, and my refillable souvenir cup. Had I known ahead of time that your merchandise would become such a burden, I would never have bought them in the first place. Given how much grief I received very early on, I decided not to buy anything else aside from food strictly as a matter of principle. My girlfriend and I had intended to visit your park one more time on Sunday before driving back home, but we couldn’t stand the thought of paying your organization any more money than we already had. At the very least, parking would have cost us another $15. We decided instead to drive home first thing Sunday morning.

What frustrates me about my experience in your park is that I suffered abuse due to corporate policies that frankly don’t make any good business sense. What’s the benefit of encouraging your customers to buy souvenirs, only to make them regret doing so for the rest of the day? Your policies discourage people from playing games with large stuffed animals as prizes. Your policies made me regret buying those t-shirts. Your policies made me think twice about buying all of those useless trinkets that I would have brought back to my friends at home. My girlfriend and I had intended to make it a yearly tradition to drive down to Valencia to visit your park. After this miserable experience, our plans to return are indefinitely on hold.

I contrast my experience from last Saturday to my previous visit in 2008, which impressed me so much that I couldn’t wait to come back in 2009. Perhaps it’s not that distressing to you to lose business from an out-of-town tourist like myself, since you have the luxury to rely on a steady stream of local clientele. Please be advised that I spent all Saturday at Magic Mountain with two of my friends who live in Southern California, and they both were not very enthusiastic about returning to the park after everything we went through.

Perhaps your locker policy succeeds in squeezing out some extra revenue from customers in the short run, but your consumers remember things, and we have common sense. When people like me leave your park, we feel ripped off and exploited. You are discouraging people like me from ever patronizing a Six Flags park again. Please step back and view your company policies. Can you truly and objectively say that your organization is on the right track?

3. You are fostering a company culture in which employees think it is okay to issue ultimatums, throw away your customers’ property, and to cite “corporate policy” as an argument-stopper with frustrated customers.

The level of customer service I experienced last Saturday was unsatisfactory. On one hand, I do understand that your employees have an obligation to enforce company policies, even when the rules are not popular with the customers. On the other hand, I didn’t appreciate the authoritarian vibe that all of your workers were sending off.

I didn’t appreciate being issued ultimatums to either pay money or to step out of a line inside a park where I’ve already paid a steep admission fee. I also didn’t appreciate being told that my property was fair game for the garbage can if I refused to stow away my souvenir cup for a fee. Again, I stress the fact that Saturday the 15th was a hot day in Valencia. It’s irritating that I wasn’t allowed to carry my drink with me while I stood in your long lines in the oppressive heat. One of your workers even went so far as to throw away my $14 souvenir cup because I was too cheap to shell out that last dollar for the privilege to ride Scream.

Finally, all but one of your employees failed to offer me any adequate explanation as to why I was not allowed to leave my belongings unattended as I boarded your rides. All day, I heard employees tell me that it was “corporate policy” for all customers to stow away their loose articles. All of your employees merely took it for granted that I would accept that as an adequate explanation. I don’t mean to come off as a snooty customer service know-it-all, but one of the most basic lessons that I learned from my days as a retail clerk is not to tell a customer that something has to be done merely because it is “corporate policy”. It’s a cold, impersonal thing for a company representative to say, and it almost never satisfies a frustrated customer.

To your credit, you have found an able customer service representative in K. According to K’s explanation, in the past, too many customers were accusing Magic Mountain employees of stealing loose articles left on ride platforms, so the company decided to make lockers mandatory on all rides. If what K says is accurate, then I consider your new policy on loose articles to be a massive overcorrection. Regardless, I appreciated her taking the time to explain the policy to me. K’s manager, on the other hand, showed little interest in my concerns and ended the conversation without fully hearing me out. The company policy is what it is, and your manager on duty at guest relations wasn’t interested in fielding complaints about “corporate policy”.

No consumer goes to an amusement park and expects first class customer service, but I was thoroughly disappointed by this kind of treatment.

Conclusion

In short, Mr. B., I feel ripped off. In order to visit your park, I drove 5 hours down from the Bay Area and 5 hours back up to return home. I paid for two nights’ stay at a local hotel, and for two full tanks of gas, and I even bought season passes so that I could visit your park twice in the same weekend visit. I paid your parking fee, and I bought your $14 souvenir cup which all of your drink vendors pushed so hard to sell to me. I even bought some souvenirs from your gift stores. Amid all of that ill-advised spending, I barely had an opportunity to have any fun.

I went well out of my way to visit your park in Valencia, and I left for home unsatisfied. Although the rides at your park are unparalleled in the state, there are cheaper and more local alternatives available to me in Northern California. I probably would have had a much better time at Great America in Santa Clara, for instance, where they don’t hassle you for leaving your stuff aside to ride a two minute roller coaster.

Your policies, and the way that your employees enforce them, suggest a troubling corporate culture in which your organization cynically views customers as dollar signs to be exploited rather than valued guests with common sense. It was my intention to visit Magic Mountain at least once a year. Your policies and your overall approach to customer service, however, have greatly discouraged me from coming back.

I have to wonder whether your policy on loose articles is truly a corporate, nationwide rule for all Six Flags locations, or if it only applies to Magic Mountain in particular. I don’t know whether you have any control or say in the creation and enforcement of corporate policy, but I thought that you ought to know at least what’s happening in your own park.

Thank you sincerely for taking the time to read my letter,
Kevin Z

Update: I received a reply from the the Guest Relations Supervisor at Magic Mountain about a week later. You can read his response here.