Andy Munro makes a fruitless attempt to part with his cash.

Birmingham (and particularly the ICC) obviously still has a lot to learn about customer care if my recent experience at the venue’s box office is anything to go by.

In what turned out to be a fruitless attempt to secure tickets for the Who concert in December, I decided to try the ‘human being’ route rather than the intricacies of the web. I was hoping to save the extortionate booking fee that’s added to a ticket price that’s already high.

Strolling into the ICC, I was pleasantly surprised to see no queue at the box office but my hopes were soon dashed when told by a young bespectacled gentleman behind the glass screen that he couldn’t help me as ‘they’ were nothing to do with the NIA. I could understand that if the Who were at the NEC but this seemed a prime example of a lack of a joined-up approach, especially in this age of computers.

As the non-assisting assistant had a computer in front of him, I asked if he could kindly give me a phone number, which met with a blank refusal for the same reason. I then asked him where the relevant box office was and his retort ended with “It’s closed anyway.” When I asked when it opened, he said “Only when there’s an event on.”

Exit one dissatisfied customer. ‘