Amex Catering reached a shocking unacceptable low yesterday-Club please read

[JCL666]

Can't be arsed reading all of this thread.

East Stand catering was shit yesterday. It's usually slow but it was f***ing APPALLING at least 45 minutes prior to kick off.

HOWEVER I don't care as WE WON 3-0

 

[Return of the Rev]

It certainly would. Nobody would be able to get out of the station & folk would be falling under trains!

Actually Unc, I'm pretty much in complete agreement with your view of the catering shambles. The club should pay top Dollar for more experienced, efficient catering staff (particularly Managers) to get the queues moving. As I see it, if you pay peanuts - you get Chimps (or worse still, absolutely nobody behind the counters at all). They could do much worse than to get the women who served on the Roach Coaches at Withers. At least they were quality (which, admittedly, was more you can say for the stuff they served).

The guys who ran the corperate catering at withdean seem to do a great job! And albion fans i would have thought?

 

[les dynam]

I agree. Very different to slagging off the team.

exactly. spending money at the ground is a habit... and loads of people have already gotten out of the habit of using the kiosk and spending money. nobody is vitriolically slagging of anybody and certainly not the catering staff. surely the club would like our feedback on this issue, as well as the feedback they must be receiving from Azure, as they want the stadium to be as successful as possible.

 

[Storer 68]

Amex Catering reached a shocking unacceptable low yesterday- someone from the club please read.

The service was shockingly slow taking about 2-3 minutes per person. Therefore at the back of the queue if you are lucky it is taking 20-30 minutes to reach the front, maybe longer. Because of this you are LOSING paying customers, revenue for the club and profit is walking away with a dissatsified potential customer.

Because it is now so BAD a lot of people don't even bother anymore. Does the club know that lots of people have decided to give up eating at the ground and are stopping at the burger bar at the station instead ?

I have noticed his queue's are getting much larger each game at the burger bar. I don't know how you get a licence but there is a golden opportunity to print money there. It is LOST money for BHAFC.

The quality of the food was shocking. The Christmas pie was an abomination and was only chosen as the Steak , Chicken and Ham, Balti and even Vegetarian pies had all run out by 2.45 pm.

Also Harvey's had run out and the only choice was Fosters, horrible. The Harvey's stand alone kiosks, normally 3, were nowhere to be seen.

You need to sort this out and FAST. If 2000 people a game do not bother now at an average spend of £ 5 a head , thats £ 10000 a game and nearly a quarter of a million pounds lost revenue each season for the club.

The staffing is, sorry, very poor. It is mainly students and people with NO catering experience or customer service levels or bar experience. You need some older and wiser heads to run the show, maybe a catering manager for each area who has experience and can organise each area to run smoothly and efficiently by directing the staff and prioritising what needs to be prepared ready for drinking and consumption.

The Amex stadium and experience is wonderful but this is a MAJOR dropping of the ball by BHAFC so can someone who is in charge of this aspect get to grips with this problem NOW.

Many thanks.

The length of the queue is surely nothing to do with the service. You can't stop people just joining a queue if they want to.


2-3 minutes per transcation is pretty average for choosing, sourcing, serving, and paying in a transaction. Problem yesterday was 20,000 people turn up all wanting the same thing at the same time. You cfan't compare this witha normal restaurant service

 

[ROSM]

There is an element of 'complaining about the traffic when you're sitting in your car' here.

I would suggest its more like complaining about the traffic on a toll road whilst you are sitting in your car.

There is a simple option which is to not use that road - the situation here would be not to use the catering. But until the club let me bring in a 3 or 4 pint of harveys then I will likely always have a need to use at some point (especially as children arent allowed in Dicks Bar), the catering being offered by the club within the concourse.

I know you've had elliott from Azure on your programme and I know you've been involved in sampling the new burgers (which havnt yet seen the light of day I believe) but at this stage the only likely improvements in queues will be delivered by less people using the facilities rather than improving the methods of getting to them. I did email azure in early November but did not receive a reply.

As I said;

- the mobile harveys units in the east stand started at 3 for the Donny game had diminished to 2 and then 1 for the Burnely game and finally reduced to nil for yesterday. That clearly isnt good service.

- The pie choice at the family stand end was a big fat sero at 2.20. That clearly isnt a good service

- One of the hot hold areas was not working at all which led to my friend purchasing a cold pie at 1.50. That clearly isnt good service.

As I said the turnaround when I bought my harveys was better. That was a good service.

 

[Return of the Rev]

The length of the queue is surely nothing to do with the service. You can't stop people just joining a queue if they want to.


2-3 minutes per transcation is pretty average for choosing, sourcing, serving, and paying in a transaction. Problem yesterday was 20,000 people turn up all wanting the same thing at the same time. You cfan't compare this witha normal restaurant service

When i got a cuppa we both stood there while the tea was pouring then after an age we completed the finacial transaction then she had to give me directions to the milk.
Which was wrong,walked 3/4 of the wsu before a helpful fan told us where there was milk! LAST EVER PURCHASE

 

[Twinkle Toes]

The guys who ran the corperate catering at withdean seem to do a great job! And albion fans i would have thought?

Yes. Yes they did.

 

[Bozza]

The most shocking thing on this thread is the "students are still on holiday so we had to get agency people in" comment from a catering manager.

The club, Azure and Elliott are all well aware of the early season problem and, on the Albion Roar, Elliott acknowledged the problems with staff turn over and the need to have a regular crew who know the products, the processes and the tills etc.

Surely, based on this, efforts would have been made to ensure a significant number of staff were locally based and, as such, not disappearing off at holiday times of the year. Some reliance on the local student population is inevitable, of course, but there must be awareness that it is vital for a decent proportion of the staff to be consistently available to provide an ongoing decent service. If, say, 75% of the staff are locally based all year round then some infilling could occur, placing the new staff in less critical positions where inexperience is less likely to hinder customer service, throughput and satisfaction.

This should just be basic stuff, shouldn't it?

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

The length of the queue is surely nothing to do with the service. You can't stop people just joining a queue if they want to.


2-3 minutes per transcation is pretty average for choosing, sourcing, serving, and paying in a transaction. Problem yesterday was 20,000 people turn up all wanting the same thing at the same time. You cfan't compare this witha normal restaurant service

Disagree. It was completely disorganised. Basic organisation from someone who knows what he/she is doing by operating the show would speed the service up 10 fold, get people served and happy and keep the queue's down , filling the tills up with cash quicker. It needs someone in charge of specific duties with an experienced manager in charge of it.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

The most shocking thing on this thread is the "students are still on holiday so we had to get agency people in" comment from a catering manager.

The club, Azure and Elliott are all well aware of the early season problem and, on the Albion Roar, Elliott acknowledged the problems with staff turn over and the need to have a regular crew who know the products, the processes and the tills etc.

Surely, based on this, efforts would have been made to ensure a significant number of staff were locally based and, as such, not disappearing off at holiday times of the year. Some reliance on the local student population is inevitable, of course, but there must be awareness that it is vital for a decent proportion of the staff to be consistently available to provide an ongoing decent service. If, say, 75% of the staff are locally based all year round then some infilling could occur, placing the new staff in less critical positions where inexperience is less likely to hinder customer service, throughput and satisfaction.

This should just be basic stuff, shouldn't it?

100% correct Bozza.

 

[Billy the Fish]

Looking at this objectivley, are the club actually losing money? I seem to remember Azure paid the club quite a bit upfront for this contract, so any slow service will be out of their pockets.

On the staffing issue, it must be pretty difficult to get regular people to do this job. I'd guess it would be a bit on the side for most people, 7 hours on a saturday once every two weeks and nothing in the summer isn't very much. If I was looking for work I'm pretty sure I'd only take that if I was desperate, I'd want something a bit more regular.

From an Azure point of view, there will be a trade off between the extra wages of more staff against the productivity those extra staff can offer. The flip side of what they've got now is 10 extra staff in each kiosk, quicker queues, happier customers but they might make less profit.


All that said, I use the North Kiosk at the west end and it's always very good, the staff know what they're doing and it's usually the same ones. Could be quicker if there were more of them, but I understand why there isn't.

 

[les dynam]

The most shocking thing on this thread is the "students are still on holiday so we had to get agency people in" comment from a catering manager.

The club, Azure and Elliott are all well aware of the early season problem and, on the Albion Roar, Elliott acknowledged the problems with staff turn over and the need to have a regular crew who know the products, the processes and the tills etc.

Surely, based on this, efforts would have been made to ensure a significant number of staff were locally based and, as such, not disappearing off at holiday times of the year. Some reliance on the local student population is inevitable, of course, but there must be awareness that it is vital for a decent proportion of the staff to be consistently available to provide an ongoing decent service. If, say, 75% of the staff are locally based all year round then some infilling could occur, placing the new staff in less critical positions where inexperience is less likely to hinder customer service, throughput and satisfaction.

This should just be basic stuff, shouldn't it?

Indeed. Or they could have treated us with more respect, and paid a few quid to properly train these new staff - rather than shoving them straight onto the tills and hoping for the best. Still don't understand why they don't have 2 people per til, a fetcher and a till person.

 

[Storer 68]

The guys who ran the corperate catering at withdean seem to do a great job! And albion fans i would have thought?

Corporate catering is a totally different operation to kiosk catering. And in the BUPA lounge, it was very good for the u.18 game.


But thousands of people who all arrive around the same time all wanting the same thing will always present supply issues for caterers (and I have done just this type of work at Gatwick Airoport so I know what I am talking about!!)

and , yes, sometimes you will just run out of stuff. Pies are , unfortunately a finite commodity.

 

[Billy the Fish]

The most shocking thing on this thread is the "students are still on holiday so we had to get agency people in" comment from a catering manager.

The club, Azure and Elliott are all well aware of the early season problem and, on the Albion Roar, Elliott acknowledged the problems with staff turn over and the need to have a regular crew who know the products, the processes and the tills etc.

Surely, based on this, efforts would have been made to ensure a significant number of staff were locally based and, as such, not disappearing off at holiday times of the year. Some reliance on the local student population is inevitable, of course, but there must be awareness that it is vital for a decent proportion of the staff to be consistently available to provide an ongoing decent service. If, say, 75% of the staff are locally based all year round then some infilling could occur, placing the new staff in less critical positions where inexperience is less likely to hinder customer service, throughput and satisfaction.

This should just be basic stuff, shouldn't it?

Something I've touched on in my last post. It seems pretty obvious to anyone that what you've said is correct and is the way things should operate.

The problem is, do these local people actually exist? Crap hours and not many of them, low pay, not the greatest job to say the least. Can't imagine there's too many applicants and the good people will probably move onto something better at the first opportunity

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Looking at this objectivley, are the club actually losing money? I seem to remember Azure paid the club quite a bit upfront for this contract, so any slow service will be out of their pockets.

On the staffing issue, it must be pretty difficult to get regular people to do this job. I'd guess it would be a bit on the side for most people, 7 hours on a saturday once every two weeks and nothing in the summer isn't very much. If I was looking for work I'm pretty sure I'd only take that if I was desperate, I'd want something a bit more regular.

From an Azure point of view, there will be a trade off between the extra wages of more staff against the productivity those extra staff can offer. The flip side of what they've got now is 10 extra staff in each kiosk, quicker queues, happier customers but they might make less profit.


All that said, I use the North Kiosk at the west end and it's always very good, the staff know what they're doing and it's usually the same ones. Could be quicker if there were more of them, but I understand why there isn't.

I don't think there would be a problem finding staff in these times. I would not consider it desperate and would do it myself as I am looking for some part time work. I worked on the tills at Tesco's Last Xmas and let me tell you, that was hell.

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

The most shocking thing on this thread is the "students are still on holiday so we had to get agency people in" comment from a catering manager.

The club, Azure and Elliott are all well aware of the early season problem and, on the Albion Roar, Elliott acknowledged the problems with staff turn over and the need to have a regular crew who know the products, the processes and the tills etc.

Surely, based on this, efforts would have been made to ensure a significant number of staff were locally based and, as such, not disappearing off at holiday times of the year. Some reliance on the local student population is inevitable, of course, but there must be awareness that it is vital for a decent proportion of the staff to be consistently available to provide an ongoing decent service. If, say, 75% of the staff are locally based all year round then some infilling could occur, placing the new staff in less critical positions where inexperience is less likely to hinder customer service, throughput and satisfaction.

This should just be basic stuff, shouldn't it?

In fairness, the Club have tried to ensure they employ as many people with a BN post code as possible, I think 90% of Amex employees have a BN post code. How they pick out which ones dissappear in Summer is a bit more problematic, do they just outright turn down anyone attending University?

 

[Gritt23]

Personally, I found yesterday the smoothest of all, albeit, I did put that down to me changing my routine slightly to avoid the busiest times, rather than testing whether teh service was any quicker at peak times.

Arrives 1.50, and was in a queue of no more than 4 people for our pre-match pie, pint, kids meal, and was served by teh most charming and smiling member of catering yet (WSU, middle kiosk). Food out of the way early, that meant any other drinks were from the little mobile fellas, which is always pretty quick. Then stayed behind after the game for another drink, and the concourse is fairly clear, and queues virtually non-existant so it was back to the kiosks for that one.

Not saying the catering is perfect, but sometimes you just have to change your habits a little bit.

 

[The Large One]

I know you've had elliott from Azure on your programme and I know you've been involved in sampling the new burgers (which havnt yet seen the light of day I believe) but at this stage the only likely improvements in queues will be delivered by less people using the facilities rather than improving the methods of getting to them. I did email azure in early November but did not receive a reply.

Actually, that's something that hasn't happened...

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Got to WSU at 2-15 very busy, got a couple of pints from Harvey's kiosk and then queued for no more than 5 mins to get my sons burger.

 

[Twinkle Toes]

The guff that Azure spout on their website makes for interesting reading. I particular enjoyed this heartfelt passage:

"At Azure we understand what our clubs are all about & in every case they mirror our own driving principles: People; Passion & Pride".

ps We're evidently SO important to them, we fail to get a mention on there.

http://www.azurecatering.co.uk/football_clubs.html