Look let's be honest. Sometimes things happen that are out of our control. Let's say you are planning a trip to New York to see a show and your flight is cancelled. Or maybe your Visa is denied and you are not allowed into the country. What happens to your tickets? Do they go dead? Do you lose all your hard earned money that you spent on the tickets? This is what happened recently to one of our customers. Back in July we had a young lady who purchased tickets to see the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera. Unfortunately an error occurred and her Visa had expired so she was denied entry into the United States. She immediately called us explaining that she would not be able to come to New York and asked if we could refund her tickets. As most of you know when you purchase tickets for a show or most things for that matter there is a strict no refund policy. Luckily for them every theatre has what they call a "Past Dating" policy. It states that you still may be able to use your tickets to attend a future performance. If possible "Past Dated" tickets will be honored on a Monday-Thursday. Please note that this is a courtesy subject to box office discretion and is not guaranteed.
Although upset we could not refund her tickets she was happy that if we could not sell them that hope was not lost. Well long story short the tickets did not sell but there was a chance that we might be able to get her into the show at a future date. We told her to let us know when she was coming into town again and we would see what we could do for her and her husband. Cut to two months later and she e-mails us that she will be coming to New York for a few days and wanted to try to "Past Date" her old tickets. As Phantom does not perform on Sunday we attempted to get her into the show for Monday's performance. While the box office sympathized with our customer's situation they said that although that night was not an option to try the following day. That is when things took a turn for the worst. We informed the customer of the situation upon her visit to our office and she became irate. She accused not only me but our entire company of not delivering on our promises and that we should refund her immediately. I told her that there was no reason to get upset as there was still a chance that we might be able to get her into the following day's show. Although still upset she realized there was nothing else to do but wait and see what happens.
Cut to the next day. After several attempts to try and get her in it was not going to happen. As I said before it is up to the discretion of the box office if they past date. It is a courtesy and there is no guarantee.
Now I pride myself on exceptional customer service. In fact all of us do at Applause. Sometimes situations work out. Sometimes they don't. All we can do is give 100% and hope for the best. If we do that then the rest is easy. After all I was just doing my job. A job which I love and am very thankful to have in this economy. I don't fault the people for being upset that they could not see the show. Like I said. There are some things we can't control. That's life. It's how we choose to live that life is what is important.
Applause Theatre and Entertainment
311 West 43rd Street
Suite 601
New York,NY 10036
212-307-7050 or 1-800-451-9930
http://www.applause-tickets.com/
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