It’s common in the customer service business to be asked “how does service and customer satisfaction affect the bottom line of a business”. The answer is undoubtedly that it affects each business differently, but it certainly has an impact. Entertainment destinations such as theme parks and cinemas prove to be an interesting case study in the correlation between customer satisfaction and the bottom line.

Service is often overlooked in the world of entertainment destinations. A common afterthought when marketing, product delivery and maintenance take hold of most internal spending. Staff training is geared at getting people in and out, keeping lines to a minimum rather than bonding with guests. You rarely if ever hear of someone jumping from one attraction to another because of service or a particular staff member like you might see in a restaurant. However, staff training and service can still have an immense impact on the bottom line. To understand this we first need to get a grasp of customer satisfaction scores and what they mean in real terms.

In the 90’s Harvard business review published a study on customer satisfaction scores which revealed what will keep customers loyal. Nothing has changed to this day. Essentially on a 10 point scale, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest the study shows that only customers who are extremely satisfied (9-10) will remain loyal to your brand or business in the face of different promotions, prices etc. The important part is how this connects to the entertainment destination world.

In my experience working with this type of business there is one certain fact. Customer satisfaction is driven by the entertainment experience not service. Let me give an example everyone will understand. You go to see a movie at the cinema, stand in line forever for your tickets and your pop corn, staff aren’t friendly but eventually get your junk food and proceed to see the best movie all summer. Your experience at the cinema will be great. One might even say you’ll leave satisfied. This is ultimately where the problem lies. This type of experience in spite of the poor service will most often yield a satisfaction score of 7-8.5. Overall this is pretty good, but it won’t keep your customers loyal when the new mall with a new cinema opens up down the road.

The only thing left to fix in this whole experience is the service. If that same Cinema patron didn’t wait in line and received friendly service where staff engaged them and potentially even had someone quality check the temperature in the theatre. I would be willing to bet that when that new cinema opens down the road that customer’s spend won’t be moving. Even if the screens are a foot wider.

The moral of the story is that while customer satisfaction is product driven its service that breeds loyalty. That’s a fact!

Ryan McMaster,
Service Quality Consultant
Ethos Consultancy