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Multiple employees have been extremely rude the last two times I've been in there. This is the main reason I skip this place even though I used to go everyday, sucks because it’s the closest poker room to my house. Where are the customer service skills from all of the staff? These people make money from tips. Why are all the Supervisors sitting and staring at their phones all day while dealers are constantly making errors? Does the new ownership not care that they are losing money?
First and most irritating are the dealer errors and their constant need to talk down to the players. I watched a dealer get emotional because she made a common mistake (she makes mistakes basically every down she deals to me but still has a job somehow). Instead of being calm and listening when corrected by the players, the dealer got emotional, flustered, and then acted like the players were ganging up on her (everyone was rarely calm in my opinion, crazy right?). After arguing for 2 minutes with everyone and suggesting solutions that made no sense for a cash game, the new player had had enough and felt so unwelcome that they decided to leave without playing a single hand and go to the cashier (all because she couldn’t handle her emotions). I had never seen the guy, probably a new customer that’s not coming back to play poker.
Second, there are two particular cocktail waitresses, they both have dark hair, who will not take players’ cards to redeem comps while we’re sitting at the poker table playing. As a paying customer, we shouldn't get attitude from the servers and have to get up while we are gambling and paying rake (aka making the poker room money). Also, what about all the old people? Let's make them walk extra all the time and slow down the games.
I’m not going to name these employees as I would never purposely try to take money out of someone’s pocket, but as a fellow business owner, if I were in charge of this place and somebody brought these complaints up to me in the customer service industry, I’d let these people go in a heartbeat as they are costing you money long term are are habitual offenders.
The rationale that we need to excuse ourselves as paying customers to take a break from gambling because the cocktail waitresses are "two busy," their words not mine, doesn't fly. While I understand that the room may be busy at many times, that doesn't excuse them from not running our cards and for dealers constantly being rude to us for their mistakes when they get corrected. I think I speak for a lot of previous loyal Derby customers when I ask that the ownership / management team please get everyone on the same page. Three simple customer service fixes any competent ownership team can implement below, if the employees don't follow it replace them:
1) Make sure your dealers are running the games fast instead of chit chatting (more hands = more money for Derby). They don’t run the games at all, the players do.
2) Make sure the cocktail waitresses are being courteous to customers and not constantly telling the players “they’re too busy” to run a simple comp on their way to pick up orders. (More money for derby because I’ll be sitting in my seat gambling). I hear them say it every time I’m there to someone. It’s not that busy anymore unfortunately
3) Make the supervisors do spot checks and watch the dealers deal the games instead of sit around all day. You’re paying them to supervise not stare at their phones.
