Ster Kinekor - The pinnacle of Poor customer Service and Experience

Dear Ster Kinekor, I cannot imagine an organisation in he entertainment industry in South Africa that could possibly that could possibly provide a worse levels of customer service and I am not stating this lightly.

On Thursday 14 February I went to watch the opening of Alita Battle Angle - a long awaited experience that turned into a total misery. Firstly I took two hours off work to attend the 14h00 show (my children are to young to watch the show and there is no need to burden my wife with solitary child care).

Load shedding is scheduled for 16h00 but I am given the assurance by your staff that there will be no trailers and the movie will run its full course.

I sit down in the theater, all alone (pretty awesome) to be greeted by trailers - it might get tight but I am sure that someone somewhere calculated the trailer duration and we will still be ok?

Turns out that the movie is a 3D show - only your staff did not seem to be aware of this little fact - no problem, I rush out of the theater, manage to get hold of a staff member, buy 3D glasses and only miss the opening scenes - not a great start but I can overlook it.

I am joined in the cinema by two of your staff members - apparently only people who pay for tickets have to switch their phones off - yikes!

Approximately 20 minutes into the actual movie the show stops. Not sure what happened yet but later I figure out that one of your staff members thought the cinema was empty and decided to switch the film off!!!

Eventually the movie is restores and we are back on track but low and behold as we reach the apex point of the movie the power is switched off. NO HAPPY ENDING HERE!!! All your staff rush for the exits - they just could not get out of the cinema complex fast enough. No sorry we understand that this is an inconvenience, oops we messed up, absolutely nothing. After an argument with one of your staff members I am given a re-admission ticket. REALLY?!? That is the solution.

I decided to inform your complaint line about the state of affairs but that is of less than no consequence. I followed up with the only logical next best action - I decided to phone your head office. After 8 calls, 5-6 which where answered, the others just ignored I eventually managed to speak with your head of transformation (the lady was very polite and did of course win the unfortunate prize of speaking with a very irate customer) who assured me that someone would call back - of course this never happened .

A quick search of the internet reveals many complaints related to Ster Kinekor and sometimes these complaints can be unjustified but after my experience I have to say that I think you deserve every bit of bad publicity you can get.

If you are serious about watching a movie do not risk the experience by going to a Ster Kinekor theater the anger and disappointment of a poor experience is not worth the risk. I suggest you wait for the home release and cherish your experience instead.

Shame on you Ster Kinekor!