My girls got RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 this past Christmas. It’s a great little simulation game where they get to create and run their own amusement park, but there’s more to it than just building rides. By playing the game, they are learning the basic tenets of business management and coming to understand the delicate balance that is required to run a successful business.
For instance, they get to set the price of admission to the amusement parks they build. If they charge too much, nobody comes; if they charge too little, they don’t have enough money for maintenance and expansion. They have to hire handymen to empty the trash, maintain the lawns, and keep the paths puke-free (I kid you not). They have to hire mechanics to keep the rides running. And they can even hire a guy in a large panda costume to walk around the park and entertain the people who are standing in line.
But if they don’t hire enough handymen, the park gets gross and people leave. If they don’t hire enough mechanics, the rides break down and people leave. And if they don’t hire the guy in a large panda costume, people get bored standing in long lines and leave.
And in the user manual it really emphasizes the importance of good customer relations:
Caring for Customers
The satisfaction of your park guests is probably your most vital concern. Happy visitors stay in the park, spend more money, and (through reputation and word of mouth) draw other guests to your site. Unhappy guests leave with cash in hand.
How do you know what your visitors are thinking and feeling? As manager, you have access to powerful polling and reporting tools that let you monitor the thoughts and actions of every guest in your park.
The other day, I walked into the office and Emma was engrossed in one of her amusement park creations.
“Hey, Emma, whatcha doing?”
“I’m just making sure everyone in my park is happy.”
That’s my girl. In many ways this type of game was tailor-made for Emma. In any activity, she always makes sure that everyone is feeling included and having a good time. She’s caring, conscientious, attentive to other people’s needs. She is my little Customer Service Representative.
And as I watched, my little Customer Service Representative used the Guest Summary Window to gauge the happiness level of all of the guests in her park. She then used the Mini-Map to zoom in on a particularly disgruntled fellow standing in line for one of the roller coasters.
She clicked on the Grab tool, picked up the unhappy patron up by the scruff of the neck, and carried him over to the small lake that housed the rowboat rentals.
Then, without the slightest pause, she let go. The dissatisfied customer landed in the water with a splash, bobbed on the surface for a few seconds, and then went under.
She then went back to the Guest Summary Window and started scanning the crowds again.
“Wha…what in the world are you doing, Emma?”
“I’m getting rid of all the people who are complaining.”
“But,” I sputtered, “I think the idea behind the game is that you’re supposed to find out why they’re complaining and then solve their problems.”
“Oh, I know why they’re complaining,” she replied.
“Why are they complaining?”
“They’re complaining because there are no bathrooms.”
“Then why don’t you build some bathrooms?”
“Well, I had some bathrooms, but I had to demolish them to make some room for a new ride.”
“Then why don’t you build more bathrooms?”
“I can’t. I used up the last of my money to build the ride.”
And so I watched as my little Customer Service Assassin made her way systematically through the park, looking for anyone else who had the gall to be displeased by the lack of facilities. And after the summary execution of about a half-dozen more urine-engorged malcontents, there wasn’t a single dissatisfied customer in the park.
I had to hand it to her. With a clear mandate to keep her customers happy, but without the budgetary resources necessary to meet their needs, she’d found another way to achieve 100% customer satisfaction.
22 Comments
As someone who has recently entered the public sector of my profession I can sympathize with Emma. There are many disgruntled residents that I would prefer to simpy drop in the lake rather than deal with their constant complaining. And as Emma has discovered, it would save the tax payers loads of money.
Oh, god. That’s too funny! Of course my boys discovered the exact same trick. They also decided it’s fun to build an island and strand people there with lions and tigers (entertainers), or build a launched rollercoaster and see how high you can get the cars to fly off the end of the tracks. heh-heh.
It’s exactly how I feel every time I go to BestBuy. They are soooo conncerned that we all have a great buying experience with them. They of course have omitted friendly sales people, but as Emma has done they’ve figured out how to get rid of us. Just ignore us and we’ll leave!
Delightful.
A true milk-out-the-nose moment.
That’s hilarious! What an efficient little businesswoman.
mother of pearl! that’s a heck of an idea. i gotta try that sometime………
I think I’m with you, Erik. I worked retail (the ultimate stage of customer dissatisfaction) long enough to decide that sometimes there was just no method by which those customers were going to be made happy (other than taking out the cash register drawer and dumping its contents into their purse or other receptacle). And having one of my experiences be at a location that, as one of its many services, a Western Union terminal (
My Mom just read the entry (laughing the entire time), and then commented, “Well, whatever works.”
I have been through very similar observations with Amy. She discovered that people seemed to flock to rides that had something scary or death-related in the name. She had a shrub maze named “Get Lost In Here And Die”, and a ferris wheel called “The Wheel of Death”, and my personal favorite, a SUPER tall roller coaster called “Afraid of Heights NOW?” Her “Death Park” was the most succesful one any of the kids made. No she is not “Goth”
Kate, I agree. It was a particularly nasty holiday season that made me realize that a long-term career in retail was not going to cut it. The peak of the madness involved me having mall security REMOVE a nasty patron from my Radio Shack who was yelling and screaming about a return. I can now picture them calling on their radios outside the store: “OK Clyde, lower the Grab Tool”
ha! my daughter does the same bloody thind, thought i had a sociopath in the making on my hands. glad to know i no longer have to sleep with 1 eye open.
My sympathies, Neil. When I worked retail (long ago) I worked at a all-year Christmas and higher-end “collectibles” Gift store (where we did complimentary gift wrap) AND the aforementioned place with the Western Union terminal where we did gift wrap for a price as well as UPS packing and shipping, etc. I had both jobs for TWO HOLIDAY SEASONS. I lived in a perpetual gift-wrapping nightmare (I was a pretty damn fast wrapper, though, let me tell you). It was like all the Scrooges in the world would do their Christmas shopping at the store (and god forbid we RAN OUT OF SOMETHING even though it was a small boutique) and I wrapped everything and personalized their damn ornaments (and dealt with the ENORMOUS LIFE-THREATENING CRISES like “Joseph’s staff is DAMAGED so I want the store to give me a million dollars” – even if Joseph’s staff was perfectly fine when it left the store in the first place) and then went to my second job and wrapped packages non-stop for hours and hours and packed and shipped and intermittently had the Western Union crazies personally insult me if their money didn’t arrive when they expected.
It made me a little ON EDGE. One festive holiday season day I went out to my car (oh my hell – the PARKING at the mall during that season was enough to cause on-the-spot coronaries) and some IMBECILE had boxed me in so tightly that I had to crawl into my car from the passenger’s side. Mind you, there was plenty of room for them to park NICELY, but people just screached into spaces all the time without any consideration whether they were actually taking two spaces or they were BOXING THE REALLY EXHAUSTED RETAIL WORKER WITH TWO JOBS in. I am ashamed to admit this (I really probably shouldn’t admit this) but I actually key-scratched the offending car. I AM a nice person but I had just reached my boiling point. I did feel bad (a little, anyway). Yes, I was a petty criminal in my younger days.
Correction/Apology: Yes, it should be “Screeched” and boy oh boy please forgive my prize-winning (should be prize-winning) verbosity.
One Christmas (surprise!), some lady called over her shoulder as she was stalking out of the framing store (where I was slaving away 12 hours a day), “Well, you’re a snotty little thing, aren’t you?!”
After a few seconds of open-mouthed astonishment at the audacity of some shoppers, I then and there decided that every human being should be required to work at least one holiday season in an understaffed retail establishment before being allowed to take any other job. Period.
Or better yet, let’s put those minimum-security prisoners to work at the Customer Service desk!
1.) They’ll be contributing countless valuable hours of community service, and
2.) The number of snotty/guerrulous/flat-out-rude/insane customers will decrease in direct correlation with an increase in the number of felony assaults and/or death threats.
My one concern: I hope that Emma’s water-sources don’t connect to the city drinking-water-supply at all. With all of those folks with distended bladders and loaded colons floating in the water…I shudder to think…
I wish I had access to that tool! Then I could use it to remove idiot drivers in Utah County that piss me off or can’t seem to negotiate the northbound curve in Lindon. Seems every day it takes me an hour to get home because idiots can’t drive. The tool would be perfect!
THE LINDON CURVE! What is it about that spot of the freeway? It’s the Bermuda Triangle of Death (without the “triangle” part). There’s NOTHING ever there to be slowing people up, and yet it’s always like the Village Idiot parade. I feel your pain, Todd. From now on in Lindon, I’m going to pray fervently for a Grab Tool miracle.
Sounds like Emma may have a future in the Bush Administration.
And Jenny, do I detect a certain potty-obsession pattern in your comments?
Probably. I’m an absolutely poopy, stinky role model for my children. Honestly, even the only joke whose punchline I can consistently remember is a potty joke:
Q: “How long was the Indian under the outhouse?”
A: “MANY MOONS!”
(*tee hee!*)
I have a joke potentially right up your alley to add to your collection, and as it happens, it also involves Indians.
An Indian boy was asking his father how people get their names. “Well, son, when a child is born and the family emerges from the tipi, we look for the first thing we see. It was raining when your sister was born, so she is called Thunder Cloud.
And that is why your cousin is called Soaring Eagle.
Why do you ask, Pooping Dog?”
HAH!
I’ve gotta write that one down…
One snowy Christmas Eve a young man heard an unusual sound. He looked around to find Santa and his reindeer landing the sleigh on top of an outhouse. The young man was confused and decided to investigate. He snuck up to the outhouse only to hear Santa yelling at the reindeer “I said the Schmidt house!”
*laughing and crying*
The best part of that game is that there is no punishment (if I remember correctly) for drowning/otherwise killing park visitors. Not even negative park feedback or anything of the sort. People just.. vanish. You know where this is all headed, right? Do you see it? The answer is: Communism. You own all, you control all, you eliminate those who stand in your way. Ahh.. sweet control.. all at the tutelage of video games..
Yes, communism would also solve our holiday woes, I agree: everyone should be forced to work at one point in retail and/or fast food and/or trucking or some such..
A variant I heard of the Indian naming joke had the punch line: “Why do you ask, farting buffalo?”
if you really think I’m a communist, you misread me, though you do properly read my sign..