Customer Service Rant No. 94

Fate has decreed that I must follow the fortunes of Heart of Midlothian Football Club. As fellow blogger Adullamite will testify whenever Hearts are concerned it's a case of expect the unexpected. With one notable exception - customer services. The week after next Hearts are due to play Dunfermline Athletic in a League Cup tie that isn't covered by one's season ticket. However, Hearts have displayed, with some prominence, on their website that season ticket holders had until 5.00pm on Saturday 12 September to purchase a ticket for their existing seat. For convenience, Hearts add, why not try the all singing, all dancing official website and purchase your ticket on-line?

A grand idea, I thought, so I tried on-line this morning to reserve my seat. Having struggled with the Hearts website before it was perhaps inevitable that it wasn't showing as available. So I telephoned the ticket hot-line....

Thank you for calling the Heart of Midlothian Ticket Centre. Please choose from the following options:

Press 1 if wish to be kept on hold for ten minutes

Press 2 if you wish to be thanked for your patience

Press 3 to be told all our ticket operators are busy right now but someone will speak to you as soon as possible

Press 4 if you want a patronising message stating you can purchase tickets on-line at http://www.cannaebebotheredansweringthatbloodyphone.com/

Press 5 to speak a less than helpful sales person who didn't appear to be working from Tynecastle and gave the impression she didn't know where it was.

Me: I wish to buy a ticket for my existing seat for the Dunfermline game next week. I sit in the Wheatfield Stand.

HoMFC: The what stand?

Me: Wheatfield.

HoMFC: Weet?

Me: No, Wheatfield. Shall I spell it for you?

HoMFC: No, it's okay, I've got it.

I gave the girl with the English accent my seat details.

HoMFC: No, that seat is not available. I can give you one four rows away.

Me: What do you mean my seat isn't available?

HoMFC: It's been sold.

Me: Sold, eh? Your website states season ticket holders have until five o'clock tonight to buy their own seats. So why has mine been sold?

HoMFC: It's a case of first come, first served.

Me: So you lied on your website?

HoMFC: No, I didn't lie. I don't make the rules...

Not for the first time Hearts have shown complete disregard for their supporters. The seat I do have a ticket for isn't a million miles away from my own seat but this isn't the point. Heart of Midlothian FC have stated one thing and then gone and done another. Hardly likely to encourage fans to go to Tynecastle during these difficult days of recession.

It seems to me that customer service skills at Tynecastle - or wherever the ticket sales office is based (I have my suspicions it isn't Gorgie) are like goals from Christian Nade.

In short supply...