MoviePass Boss On Customer Service: Wants To Ensure That Members “Are Being Heard And Cared For”

In the wake of a weekend where MoviePass subscribers learned they couldn’t buy Red Sparrow tickets depending on where they lived, MoviePass today said it’s stepping up the customer service experience by partnering with TaskUs, a customer-care solutions firm that has worked with such startups as Tinder, Periscope, Hotel Tonight and Hootsuite.

In addition, the monthly movie ticket service has tapped former TaskUs Senior Manager of Client Services, Jake Petersen, as MoviePass’ VP Customer Experience. TaskUs specializes in delivering optimum customer service operations across social, phone and chat, while scaling support systems and increasing the bottom line, per MoviePass’ press release.

This is a vital step for MoviePass: As they are intent on crossing 5 million subscribers by 2019, customers have railed the company on social over various snafus, from sudden cancelled memberships to debit cards failing to arrive in the mail after months of being signed up. In early February, just as MoviePass clicked past 2M subscribers, several on Reddit and Twitter cried that their memberships were revoked for misuse of the MoviePass debit card. MoviePass responded to the situation by stating it’s watchful of cases where members tried to use the debit card to buy large-format tickets or concessions. However, many subscribers said that wasn’t the case.

“We want to ensure that all MoviePass subscribers feel that they are being heard and cared for,” said MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe. “We’ve been overwhelmed with the amount of interest shown in MoviePass these last few months, and the TaskUs partnership is a continued step forward in our customer service capabilities. Improving the customer experience is one of our top priorities as we continue developing as a company. We’re thrilled to have Jake Petersen on board to lead our internal customer care initiatives, in addition to managing the TaskUs partnership, as Jake brings a wealth of valuable experience in the field of customer excellence.”

In his role at TaskUs, Petersen over the last three years was responsible for building and running customer experience operations for a number of hyper-growth companies. Before TaskUs, Petersen served as Head of Professional Support and Acquisition for Houzz, where he helped grow the service team to more than 60 members while the company grew from 5 million-40 million users.

In addition to the $9.95-per-month unlimited plan, MoviePass also offers a one-time-fee annual subscription plan amounting to a monthly fee of $7.95. Helios & Matheson, the parent company of MoviePass, was trading at $4.66 as of mid-morning, off 1.5%.