Wachovia Center web site stinks, for buying tickets

Well, good news and bad news.

The good news: I was able to get a pair of section 9 tickets, on the floor, in row 10, for the George Strait concert at Wachovia Center in October.

The bad news: the process of purchasing them, and of printing them, is proving to be a pain.

First, when I was presented with the tickets, I saw no seating chart that showed me where my seats were located. Yes, their web site does have a generic seating chart for center stage concerts. However, George Strait uses his own specific arrangement, and the generic chart didn't show my section 9. Why can't this web site be like Ticketmaster (not that they're perfect lol), and give us a link to a performance-specific chart? That we can determine if we like the ticket locations or not.

Second, I still haven't gotten my email with the tickets. I did get an earlier email telling me to watch out for a second email. That earlier email also suggested I check my spam filter just to make sure. But, it never told me what address the email would come from, so I could pre-authorize that address.

Even worse, even though the email said I could log into my Wachovia Center account, the web page has no easily locatable link for "sign in."

So, in summary:
- please add performance specific seating chart
- give us a way to sign in easily

Stop leading us down the garden path (no operator available)

I just called a Inova Hospital, outside Washington DC, with a question about a bill. The automated system told me that if I wanted to talk to someone, I needed to press a certain key. After I did, the next thing I heard was "sorry, the office is closed. Please call back during normal business hours of ..."

This practice annoys callers, because it leads them down the proverbial "garden path." Instead, can you do the following:

- (better option) program your telephone system so that it "knows" when you are open and when you are closed. Then, depending on the time, either offer the "live person" option, or withhold it.
- (alternative option): elaborate on your "live person" option, and tell the caller when that option is available, e.g. "If you want to speak to someone, and your are calling between ___ and ____, press 0."

Thanks.

Tell us the effective date of our hardcopy timetables

SEPTA publishes on its web site, and announces on its phone system, train schedules. Please add this improvement: before announcing the schedule for a line, please tell us the effective date of the schedule. If I already have a hardcopy, and I hear that my copy is in fact the most recent, then I can hang up the phone and be on my way.

Thanks.

give us a local reference in your directory listings

Companies will list their locations on a web page. Please make things easy for us local folks. Please list more than just an address. If this location is in an urban area, how about telling us the nearest cross street? For example, don't just say "xxx Fifth Avenue." How about saying "xxx Fifth Ave., at 34 St."

In the same way, if the location is known by an alternate name, give that alternate name. If you're a car rental company, don't just give the address of a rental location. If it's also a service station, tell us, for example, "Larry's Sunoco."

Thanks.

Please supply fax number in addition to phone

Enterprise Rent a Car: your web site has great information. The site would be even better if, when giving details about branches, you could give a fax number as well. Thanks.

Acme Markets,
You know those self-checkout systems? You have two rows of them, one row on the left and the other on the right. Can you put a sign or put up barriers to tell customers to form just ONE line for the two rows, NOT one line per row? It will be so much faster. Thanks.

Airport airline and terminal signs

In Philadelphia and in Washington (that is, Dulles), the signs that tell motorists airline information is organized by terminal number, not by airline. In other words, the first sign you see is for terminal A or 1. On that sign is a list of the airlines that arrive and leave from that terminal.

Having this information certainly helps. However, how could this information be improved? Easy--instead of organizing the information by terminal, do so instead by airline. That is, instead of showing a sign for each terminal, have a sign, or signs, on which airlines are listed alphabetically, and then give the associated terminal number for each airline.

Think about it: if you're going to the airport, you probably don't care who else leaves from a terminal. All you really care about is your own airline. If the signs are organized by airline, then motorists won't have to look in multiple paces to find their airline.