Email about Phipps Santa

frlcb · September 2011

I emailed them about my displeasure with their new system and this was his reply:

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. We can not go back to the old way because of the overload to the system. Last year in one hour I had over 1000 e-mails complaining about the crash in the system. We spent the first half of the year trying to find a new appointment system that would work with our process and unfortunately it is not out there. I did not trust the service we are using to open up at midnight and hope that it works.

ebearwife · September 2011

The Phipps Santa has no incentive to deliver anything even close to resembling customer service. People will go to him regardless of the PITA level.

gigiB · September 2011

I actually didn't think it was bad. I wanted an appointment before December on a Saturday night. I got one for 745PM, not ideal but we can do it. I figured if I couldn't get an appointment that worked for us, I could go somewhere else. It looked like they had a good bit blocked off to open at a later date. Nothing is going to be ideal but I think this is better than the mess from last year. People were going nuts when the system crashed!! This year I made and confirmed my appointment in 5 min. Last year I spent hours!

yellowtulips80 · September 2011

They won't even respond to me. LoL.

frlcb · September 2011

gigiB:
I actually didn't think it was bad. I wanted an appointment before December on a Saturday night. I got one for 745PM, not ideal but we can do it. I figured if I couldn't get an appointment that worked for us, I could go somewhere else. It looked like they had a good bit blocked off to open at a later date. Nothing is going to be ideal but I think this is better than the mess from last year. People were going nuts when the system crashed!! This year I made and confirmed my appointment in 5 min. Last year I spent hours!

No, they didn't block off any dates for later emails. I asked him about that in a follow up email and this was his reply:

Unfortunately the appointment system we use does not allow us to hold back appointments. We have to set the schedule for the entire season before the first appointment is booked. I agree every year we have to look at the system and try to improve it.

Thank you for the feedback

Mrs.Guz · September 2011

You'd think that with as much money as they make each year (especially now that they charge just to make an appointment) they'd be able to afford to upgrade their system so they have less worry about it crashing. I mean, ticketmaster has thousands upon thousands of people on their site the moment the ticket window opens for a high demand concert. And even though its often slow when that happens, I've never known of it actually crashing.

I do like this system better than last year though, although their seems to be no realy rhyme or reason to it. But this year I got my 2nd option, and last year I had to settle for whatever was available.

ally-cat · September 2011

I am satisfied with my appointed date/time. But, I was lucky to get a 3pm slot (the only daytime slot available on a weekend). We couldn't have done it on a weekday without taking off from work (and not even the REAL santa is worth that), and they only had evening appt. after 7pm. on other weekend nights. Max is in bed by 7:30, and I could only imagine the pic we'd get with him up at 7:30-8 with Santa...

JulesDiane · September 2011

I emailed them also. I really wanted to say some pretty heated words to Santa, but I didn't think that would be good karma. I had really wanted an appointment Thanksgiving weekend because my niece is going to be in town, and we did pictures together last year. I guess my threat to find another Santa was strong enough for them to wiggle me in a spot on Thanksgiving weekend. I really do hope they find a better process next year. I get that they didn't want to have people crashing the system again,but there has to be a better way, doesn't there?

slwprincess · September 2011

I'm sorry, but this is not rocket science. DH is a programmer and even he said they could have done this SOOOOO much better if they would just hire a team/service instead of trying to do this themselves and buying a program "off the shelf." It is obvious they are trying to save some cash and its really pathetic considering what they charge! I got the time that I wanted but I'm really odd and we LIKE to go after work on a week night. That's part of our tradition. But I understand that other people really need a weekend timeslot and I think it's just stupid that they wouldn't have blocked out some dates for those who got later invitations.

Email about Phipps Santa

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