Last weekend, I was in Montreal for a two day whirlwind visit centred around a Nick Cave show at Metropolis.
Nick Cave was phenomenal, by the way, thanks for asking -- but this post is about our approximately 20 minute headache inducing visit to the Bell Centre.
The Bell Centre occupies a central downtown spot. It is the home of the Montreal Canadiens, of whom Montrealers are inordinately and justifiable fiere. (insert your own accents, I can't find them quickly).
The Centre itself is not a beautiful building. It's pretty bland, with "Bell Centre" in extruded letters high up on the front and a full side of building-height photo of a Canadien player--probably a famous one. I dunno. I didn't see any flashing digital screen or promotional signage to promote upcoming events. Pretty bland.
So the Centre carries two brands: Bell and the Canadiens. Bell, rightly, defers most of its branding to favour the Canadiens.
What I want to know is, whose brand values include "ignoring the customer", "arguing with the customer", "allowing the scalpers to be the first point of contact", "difficult to access", and "frustrating".
We had a mission. Neither the fella nor I are super duper sports fans, but we have a good friend who is, and he made us a request that we go to the Bell Centre and buy him a Canadiens lighter. Simple enough. Sure, it probably would cost more there than is reasonable, but hey, he's a good friend.
Approaching the Centre, we were accosted by four scalpers. "TICKETS? TICKETS?? TICKETS??" We demurred. The front of the building we were approaching had lots of words and arrows pointing to the box office. Presumably somewhere there was a door these led to, but I never did see it. There was a door to a restaurant. But there didn't seem to be any sign of a gift shop or merchandise store. Okay.
We went down one side, towards the Hall of Fame. Found that (cleverly tucked away near the back, facing a parking lot and some construction). Went in and found a wee kiosk type gift shop. It didn't seem to have any lighters, but we didn't get to ask because the two staff were busily engaged in arguing with a customer who had missed the building tour. He claimed he had been there and no one had called the tour. They said there were 40 people, and gave him that 'you're a lying scammer, but I'm too polite to say so' look. Clearly, someone's watch was off, but in my customer service experience, the only right thing to do would be to give him another tour or his money back. No goods had been consumed, no cost to the company, and let's face it, tours are about building goodwill. ...? Bad brand experience. We slunk away.
Because we had seen people swirling around with Canadiens bags we knew there was somewhere with a fair amount of merchandise. (I tried to ask someone where they had bought the stuff, and the man pulled away, aghast, as if I were a virus-carrying homeless beggar trying to give him the leprosy. "NO ANGLIS. NO ANGLIS." Yeesh, okay.)
We tried the other side of the building. We found where we could purchase penthouse condos! (Yes, frickin really. Ugh). But no easy to spot merch store. Hint, Canadiens: Maybe you could help tourists find stuff and sell more if you had a big "Canadiens Magasin" sign somewhere obvious.
We were harangued by more scalpers. We finally gave up in disgust. We bought lighters at a tourist shop in Vieux Montreal and it was a delightful experience.
The whole thing reminded me of my experience as a Bell customer -- 'customer service on our terms, you just show up with your money and shut up.' Some maybe the Canadiens brand isn't prominent after all.
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