Searcy 8 VIP Cinema — Attraction in Searcy

I am writing this to express my extreme disappointment with the customer service provided by Searcy 8 VIP Cinema Theater. Saturday, April 5, myself and several friends had tickets to take our children to see a movie, however, our city was significantly impacted by flooding, resulting in multiple road closures and an official emergency alert instructing residents to remain indoors for their safety. Consequently, attending our scheduled movie was too dangerous to risk.

We contacted the theater to request a voucher or refund due to these unavoidable emergency circumstances. Between 3 different families, no one could get anyone from Searcy Cinema on the phone. We each sent messages as well, not receiving a response until late in the day, but ultimately our request was denied. This lack of understanding and flexibility during a crisis is deeply concerning.

What makes this situation even worse is how they ultimately responded to worried customers. Instead of addressing the high call volume (likely due to similar situations faced by others), they posted a passive-aggressive message on social media telling people to stop calling and messaging. This is particularly frustrating as they consistently failed to answer our repeated phone calls, as well as the calls of my friends.

When I respectfully commented on their Facebook post, suggesting they improve their phone communication and customer service, our comment was deleted, and our account was then blocked from their page. This act of silencing legitimate concerns is unprofessional and further highlights their lack of concern for their customers.

In a time when community support and understanding are crucial, Searcy 8 Cinema has demonstrated a complete lack of empathy and disregard for the well-being of this community. I love supporting local businesses, but our family will no longer watch movies there. Searcy deserves better!! Update: After messaging them again through their website, I pointed out how unprofessional this was, I got a response the next day claiming that they do not run their social media page. That it is instead run by volunteers and they are given full reign to remove "any disrespectful comment that goes against our policies." The message also claimed they do not do any customer service through social media, that I'd need to call or message through their website. I do not believe this for a second, what owner has a social media page but let's random volunteers run the page and then proceed to block customers who ask them politely to answer their phones? They have no customer service, otherwise they'd answer phones and messages and respond to people's needs. They didn't want to deal with everyone's concerns so instead they made a post on their page asking people to stop calling them. Do not give this place...

I was disappointed in my experience today. I ordered my 3 tickets online. Over $40 for matinee prices for me and two kids. No big deal. When we got there, we spent $40 on small drinks, the bucket refill (that we shared), and a candy for each kid. I was surprised by the total, but that is not my complaint. Imagine the price if we had all gotten our own popcorn. The movie experience was good. Theater worked great, seats all worked, no issues there. When we were finished, I asked for a refill on my bucket and was told that they do not do that. That they stopped doing that during COVID. When I stated that COVID was over, I was told that for a while they only did refills on Wednesdays and now, they do not do refills at all. When I explained that I had spent over $80 on me and two kids to come to a matinee, and that it would be nice to take some popcorn home for those prices, the manager got sassy with me. She explained that a large popcorn is over $9, (which only saves me about $3.00) because filling up the bucket is now $5.75 instead of $4, which I was originally told when I bought the bucket at the beginning of the year for $25. I asked the manager then, doesn't it only cost you about $3.00 or less to refill this bucket when I spent $80 on this experience? She then ignored me and started talking to someone else. So rude. No appreciation for my business was demonstrated at all. I was completely dismissed. No popcorn for me to snack on later either.

I feel like for those prices, I should go away with something. A refill of popcorn is all that I wanted. Never in a million years would one popcorn refill per customer who buys the bucket bankrupt this business, compared to the money they make on every family, and blaming it on COVID is a lousy excuse. To me, this is price gouging. They know they are the only Theater within 40 minutes and they are using it to their advantage. Bring back refills and this single mom would feel a whole lot better about spending so much of her hard earned money on a fun experience for herself...

If you enjoy giving the respect due to the filmmakers, cast, crew, musicians, etc. who put in the time and effort to bring to the screen a movie for your viewing pleasure or if you enjoy listening to the music during the credits because perhaps you studied music or are just interested in the 'different from feature' music the credits have to offer or even if you simply want to get your money's worth because this theater no longer offers half-price ticket nights... this is not the theater for you. After years of going to this theater instead of traveling out of town for more and better options, we were rudely told to leave before the credits had ended. The first entrance of an employee came before the mid-credits scene had even started, they graciously left at this point without saying anything. Then they came again to tell us that the title character would return and that's all we needed to know. Then we were yelled at from the hallway that the movie was over and said worker had another job to get to. If you are going to show a movie... show a movie and all it's parts and know what the runtime is so that you don't overbook yourself and lose patrons. If you have another job to get to, your ability to get to this job is not the responsibility of the patrons paying to see a movie. The least you can do is let them use the facilities after they have paid your inflated prices for your mediocre snacks, not yell at them.

The seats are better than they were 10 years ago, but the surround sound does not surround. Instead of sound "all around you" it's just...