Sigurtà garden: a bad example of Italianity August 20, 2006
Update: be sure to give a read to the comments below.
I spent last friday with my family in one of the least known and most spectacular gardens in Italy: the Sigurtà garden. it extends over 125 acres and was built in 1600; it hosted ancients VIPs such as Napoleon the 3rd and is open to the public since 1978.
It’s really a jewel and since a few years we visit it once per year to be astonished by its treasures. We like to rent a golf-kart to go through the garden since its quite huge (more then 6 kilometers of drivable paths): it’s a enjoiable experience and the best way to experience the various sights the garden offers.
The cost of the kart is 12€ per hour and it can hold a maximum of 4 people (don’t ask me why, this is the park law).
After this long intro let’s go directly to the reason for this post (with a subject so unusual here on Yellow Line 
. We took the cart at 3pm and enjoyed a wonderful visit to the park (they use electric power and have a pretty poor top speed, so it’s confortable for a man follow the kart by feet).
We were 5 + Francesca (Barbara, my mom and dad, my sister and yours truly) BUT - for the last 500m - my father reached us on the kart and once of the park patrol immediately stopped us asking for one people to leave.
When we left the kart (it was 5pm) at the rental office they asked us an extra amount of 3€ per hour for the extra people the patrol reported driving the kart (I don’t want to go against this decision, we made a mistake and it was ok for me to pay for this. I made the sum and lend 30€ to the officer, but then he asked for other euros since - he said - we took the kart at 14.35 (I was sure - as previously said - it was 3pm since I had a call frpm Barbara in the very moment they gave me the kart keys, and my phone took the call at 15.02pm).
So we had to pay the extra half-hour EVEN IF we didn’t ejnoied it. 37euros against the scheduled 24€ (+6€ of ticket for our error) with no receipt from the park officer. I complainded strongly about this but no money was refunded.
This is my first effort to keep everybody aware of this (the park is plenty with foreign tourtists): keep track of the time you take the kart and double check it’s the same time they write on the voucher.
I’ll then forward this post to the park director citing the name of the employee who asked for the money.
Thankyou for your attention. Now back to the usual topics on user experience, cameraphones and eyetracking.
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5 Responses to “Sigurtà garden: a bad example of Italianity”
Egregio Sig Matteo,
ho letto quanto ha scritto in Inglese per la verità …..non è la mia lingua ma penso di aver capito.
Sono dispiaciuto di quanto è accaduto, e come spesso accade, credo che la colpa non stia mai da una parte sola.
Con questo non le rispondo per emettere una sentenza ma semplicemente per scusarmi se il mio personale non è stato cortese nei suoi confronti.
Il marca tempo è uno strumento con un ora e una data e il tempo viene calcolato in base ad esso e non importa se è 20 o 30 minuti avanati o indietro dato che poi viene riusato lo stesso marca tempo al ritorno. Per cui se per il nostro marca tempo sono le 14.30 e sul suo orologio le 15 quando lei restituisce il cart sarà l’orario del marca tempo ad essere utilizzato non frodando nessuno.
Per quanto riguarda invece l’extra che le è stato fatto pagare ritengo sia ingiusto ed è stato fatto senza una precisa disposizione. E’ per questo motivo che le chiedo l’indirizzo per poterla omaggiare di due ingressi e due ore di golf cart.
Lei ci fa sembrare come “truffatori” di turisti mi spiace deluderla ma non siamo tali….. ritengo invece che sia un gesto di grande signorilità ammettere quando si sbaglia e io l’ho fatto ………..lei??????????? Sul blog scrive eravamo saliti in cinque solo per pochi metri, ( comunque in torto), è come se sulla A4 facesse guidare uno dei suoi figli senza patente e fermato dalla polizia rispondesse….ma solo per pochi metri………
Ritengo doveroso spiegarle il perchè non si puo’ salire in 5 , perchè l’assicurazione in caso di guasto del mezzo e incidente non risponderebbe e saremmo noi costretti a pagare cosa che io non desidero fare….
In attesa di poterla conoscere personalmente nella sua prossima visita al Parco la saluto cordialmente.
Conte Giuseppe Sigurtà
Let me give a small summary from Mr Sigurtà (yes, his family name names the park) so my foreign readers can follow the discussion:
I’ve privately replied Mr Sigurtà since I find email is “more polite” in this specific case but - as I’ve done with my post - I want to keep everything public so here below a small summary of my reply.
I was surprised in a positive manner of the timely reply and of the unrequested offer for the free tickets ride (to be sincere I didn’t expected it, so I’m not sure I’ll use it on my next park visit).
When I complained of the wrong marked time I asked the time shown at that precise moment and it was the same I had on my phone. So something must gone wrong on this Mr Giuseppe. And the way I was treated by the employee hasn’t helped to solve the problem.
I’m sorry that the fact I admit our error (to be 5 on the kart) wasn’t perceived by Mr Sigurtà as sufficiently stressed. I underline it here: we knew it was forbbiden to use it in 5, so we were on error.
I also noticed that when I speak of the euro we paid I’m not stressing enough the amount of the ticket we were charged with, so I’m gonna fix it in the post.
I think this is a brilliant case were a positive and polite customer management could help to retain customers EVEN IF (as in my case) they’re strongly complaining about the offered services.
Nice move Mr Giuseppe!
It’s common in this often stupid Italy to get surprises like that.
I hope that a national intiative like the one promoted by the government ( http://www.turistiprotagonisti.it/ ) could also keep track of the bad italians stuff like the one happened to you.
I invite you to post it to the website reported above.
Daniele pls give a read to the previous comment since they formally complete my post.
I think that at last this was a positive customer experience, not a negative one.