Alton Towers’ staff are renowned for their friendly and helpful attitude – when you are at the park, that is.
What is quite different is the level of service and care guests receive after they have visited.
Take a look at tweets mentioning Alton Towers, or public comments on their Facebook page, it will not take long before you come across people asking when a response to a question or complaint is likely to be received.
So when staff seem so genuinely interested in your experience when you are at the park, why is it so difficult to get a response after your visit?
The pessimistic suggestion might be ‘why should they care now that you have been and paid your money?’
Whatever the reason, it seems apparent that the park do not employ sufficient staff to be able to answer all of the emails they receive.
In fact it is notoriously difficult to find the direct email address of any of Merlin Entertainments-operated theme park.
As well as this, only a fraction of queries posted to Alton Towers on Twitter and Facebook are ever answered by park officials.
As Merlin has now entered the big time arena of the London Stock Exchange, it is time for the company to up its act in looking after those who have already paid to visit its most popular theme park.
Perhaps those guests might then be more inclined to visit again in future, and not tell their friends and family negative things about their experience.