Mother left bad review of my business because of how we treated her 3 year old

[user1480264682]

I run a soft play centre in a small town. It closes at 6pm weekends but sometimes it closes at 3:30 for private hire parties.

Last Saturday it closed at 3:30pm. We did put that it would be closing
On facebook and on an A4 piece of paper outside the door of the centre. I We put the notice up three days before the early closing.

At 3:14pm one of our workers saw a young mum and her 3 year old arrisve excitedly for soft play. She took his coat and shoes off and handed over her £4.00.
The worker told her that the centre would be closing in 15 mins.

She was upset and said that her son would not understand why he couldn't go In and she had travelled half an hour to get here.
She told him that soft play was closed and he didn't understand so she asked if he could play for 15 mins. My worker said that if she wanted to play for the remaining 15mins she would have to pay full price. She said she couldn't afford £4.00
For 15 mins as she would have to occupy her son for the remaining hours afterwards so would need to take him somewhere else.

She said okay and was nice not annoyed. She never said she was upset at the time. She then left with her son who started screaming crying saying he wanted o go in soft play and she had to pick him up screaming crying. The worker didn't see or hear him crying but another who was outside did.

The mother has since gone on to write a bad review on out facebook page. She used to visit our centre up to three times a week and she has said it was very mean not to let her clearly disappointed son play for 15 mins as he was so excited to play and at his age did not understand it was closed. She also said she was willing to pay just not full price.

She has said she will never be returning and her son cried for an hour on the way home trying to run back.
I would have done the same as this worker and she is not going to be in trouble for this as you have to pay full price no matter what time you arrive.

AIBU? It may have been nice to
let him play for 15 mins but shouldn't be expected. In hindsight we may have considering the circumstances but we feel it shouldn't be expected.

Seems there's a bit of a problem with the communication with your staff if you personally felt you would have let the customer have 15 mins free but the member of staff didn't feel able to give that.

It's part of modern business to have an online presence but also to have to deal with reviews and the damage they might do. I would certainly do as others have suggested - apologise wholeheartedly and offer something to this customer - it's a crucial opportunity to show your business in a good light.

And on the daysout with the kids website it always advises phoning ahead in case the venue had closed for whatever reason.

I don't think it is bad that you close early because that happens in life. You plan to go somewhere and find it is closed. Not everyone checks Facebook but you had a sign up.

I do think though, that for 15 minutes I would have charged £1 if anything and not the full price. If she explained how she travelled to get there then I couldn't turn them away like that.

I think these things should be off the grid and is a good gesture. I'm ignoring the fact that she is regular. I guess if people started doing this all tbe time then I'd put a stop to it and have a notice up for that but in this situation I would apologise and say on the page that the charges are in place (so not to alert everyone it will be £1 if they come late) but you'd really like to make it up to them and give them a free session.

Just amend your website to say you usually close at 6pm on a Sat unless you are booked for a private party and advise the customer to check your FB pg for details of that week.

Thus forcing any customers/potential customers to open a Facebook account that they might now want?

So for the sake of £4/15 mins free play/cost of a couple drinks/5 mins doing a decent response to the review the business has lost AT LEAST £1500 pa not including the money lost from others reading the review/her arranging to go elsewhere with friends/family.

A conservative estimate I reckon it's actually cost the business around £5000 can it afford to lose that?

Why not have early closing 2 days a week and only book parties on those days?

*not want

Our softplay stays open when there are parties on. The party room is separate, and then the kids all come out and it matters none that there are other kids there.

I think charging the full price for 15 minutes is rude.

I also think it's unreasonable to expect people to stay on top of when you choose to close, because, presumably, you have "regular hours". Well, I know that I personally only take notice of regular hours. Having form for shutting down randomly is really not on.

I don't get why you are so upset over one review. Surely businesses get lots of reviews??

Your getting rather invested with me though aren't you Matching? Your investing in my comments - a total strangers on the internet and have decided to single them out in spite of many other regular posts from other people.

Have you never read the desperate posts on here by DM who have had enough at the end of their tethers? You have no idea what this womans life is like or her struggles generally, maybe she doesn't have any, maybe she does, but writing this off as no big deal? You cant make that call.

I wouldn't apologise, just reply explaining the situation. As you seem to live in an area with not much playcentre choice then I very much doubt others will be put off coming.

The mother seems a little OTT in her emotional response. I would absolutely be overly emotional if one of my children was ill or hurt or being bullied or similar. But because we couldn't get into soft play?

I thought that too Hack, op has taken this very personally and still not the slightest care or worry about this customer more about her pennies.

Op if the other soft play is 12 miles away then sadly I am sure you can get away with more mean behaviour and still make money from parents desperate for a few hours peace

How lovely 'idiotic staff'. That's nice. Hardly the staff's fault. It's not up to them

Kali The post read "How idiotic that staff.....etc". There is a difference between calling the act, as opposed to the staff, idiotic. I think you know that, but perhaps chose to misquote in order to have something to attack.

And yes, it was actually the staff's fault. Firstly for failing to communicate early closures in an efficient and effective manner, and then by making a poor business decision when a customer was caught out by those failures.

Worra, I did initially suggest a 'latest news' part of the website. But then lots of people said they'd never think to check the website. I'd never set off on a half hour journey without confirming the venue was open.

I also don't consider 12 miles not that far in terms of competition. My next town along is 11 miles away and is where most people from my town go to shop, have a coffee etc and I say that as a non driver, to a driver it's nothing - especially for customers for whom THAT soft play place may be actually nearer.

We probably have about 9 or 10 within 12miles of us. But what this means is that they all have to be spotless, varied and fun with excellent food, coffee and meal deals and lots of parking otherwise they don't last long.

None of this pokey, grubby type of place with a crap cafe and no parking.

I hated hated hated ad hoc closing of places I took ds to when he was younger. As Bogeyface says if places want to money grab for private hire then make it a set 1 or 2 days a week to close early. And as for this mum leaving a bad review, she had a bad experience why the hell shouldn't she say how she felt, it is now up to you to make amends, not for her to retract. If you can't deal with bad reviews or customer care after something goes wrong instead of wailing "woe is me" then get out of the service industry IMO

I think that when this woman's dc is climbing the walls at home and pleading with her to go to the soft play he so dearly loves, the '15 mins drama' will go out the window and she'll be back there before you know it.

That review wouldn't put me off going to a soft play centre.

The "bad"review was deserved. Word will get round, she'll tell her friends, you should do all you can to put it right. Your staff were wrong and your attitude is off too.

If you randomly close at 330 you will get more than just her giving bad reviews.
You should perhaps have free entry for the last 15-30 mins on days like this to avoid bad feeling from people who have travelled a long way.

Yeah Winter, it almost implies 'how dare the customer review me this way'. Bizarre response to a pretty valid upset rather than maybe responding to the customer and doing something about it

What would I have done then (so what I think should be your policy) - charge for entry but say "obviously 15 minutes is far too short for fun so I'll get a "free entry" pass written up and give it you when you leave for the next time you come."

The advantage of doing it this way is she's far more likely to leave on time as if she annoys you she'll lose her free pass.

What would I do now? Apologise and offer a free trip plus a coffee. Explain about parties and say how you had told people plus say you realise this isn't clear enough so come up with some more ways.

I would say that the OP has to get used to stroppy people posting negative reviews on social media. It happens all the time. Sometimes they are warranted and sometimes they aren't.

It is problematic to close 2.5 hours before closing time on an ad hoc basis, even if put on FB or the door. People do travel and small children won't understand. OP needs to rethink that approach.
It is up to her whether they charge people when there is only a short time left. The best thing would be to say last entry 30 or 45 mins before close....therefore no entries after that time, but also no reduced rates either.
Given the situation, I think damage limitation would have been the right response. Regardless of whether the customer was right or wrong, it's good to keep goodwill. A comment such as 'we regret that X was disappointed today and was unaware of our intention to close at 3.30 today. As a gesture of goodwill, we have offered free entry for their next visit. We advise all customers to check our website before leaving home to check the closing time of the day they wish to visit.'

i think MrsHathaway has it.

If she was a proper regular, she would know the place can and does occasionally close at 3.30pm on a Saturday, and would have the sense to check before travelling half an hour, if it was open until 6 or closing at 3.30.

I certainly always check ours before going, and i would never give out a bad review over my own failure to make sure somewhere is open before travelling.