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.

ChocolateWombat: I don't think she was particularly defensive. She seemed more bewildered and worried to me.

And the customer did not have to pay full price for 15 minutes. The options were don't use the service because it is closing in 15 minutes as advertised, or pay the minimum price. It was up to the customer. The one thing she couldn't have was a discount, which is fair enough, as the business had done nothing wrong.

Technically no, but I think it would have come across as more understanding to let the child play for 15mins either for free or for a fraction of full price. Toddlers are difficult and anyone with a 3 year old would understand how disappointed both child and mother would be after driving to the place without knowing it would be closing early. I do think she could have asked this while she was there (or even the dreaded "ask a manager") instead of writing a bad review.

MummyStep123: True, but the employee didn't have the discretion of the manager, and it's not necessarily a precedent you would want to set as a business owner.

Unreliable opening hours would put me off.

You are obviously a very unprofessional establishment if you change your weekend hours on a whim. You need set opening hours and do parties after or during with other people.

Op wasn't there when this event happened. General employees do not have discretion to allow discounts.

I don't think op is being unreasonable. After working in customer service for so long chancers who kick off annoy me. Customer is not always right.

anon1900s: It's not on a whim - the facilities are available for private hire, just like pubs, restaurants and other amenities. I have looked at several soft play sites in my local area and they are all available for exclusive hire. It is perfectly standard and inevitable, when people want to hold parties at different times, that this will have an effect on opening hours.

Our local swimming pool states that some Sundays mornings the children's pool is closed for private hire so at least we know to do swimming around this time to guarantee we can go in. I think random ad hoc closes for private use will make people who have to travel not bother unless they are in the area for another reason which isn't good for business.

I agree £4 for 15 mins is pricey but also letting the little one in for free would set a bar and then more people will expect it 20 min before then 30 etc.

The idea to offer a free session is a good idea to compensate and I would review the policy for random closures, especially as after 3:30 is when most kdis are out of school and maybe do set days eg Sundays?

No there's no signs saying we sometimes close for parties but we do say that on our facebook page. We have a website but it isn't updated with changing opening times.

How desperately unprofessional.

LadyVampire: Only allowing parties on Sunday's could actually lose the OP money overall. It depends how much of her income comes from parties. Organisers expect to be able to hold them on Saturdays, surely?

Trifle, you are weighing the nitty gritty rights and wrongs of it. When businesses do this and insist they are right, when things they have done or failed to do have contributed to a bad outcome for a customer, they care coming to it from the wrong angle.

Yes, the Op did post the unusual closing time for that individual day on FB and stick a note up 3 days before. That wasn't enough info to reach the disgruntled woman and wouldn't be enough for many people. Closing early was a massive inconvenience for the mother - the failure to fully acknowledge this as the root of the problem,as something the business did which caused a problem, but instead to place the blame for the customers reaction to a situation the business caused, is the wrong angle.

The business didn't have systems in place to deal with the problems caused by closing early with insufficient info. It wasn't prepared to let them in for the short period for free or a nominal fee or to offer a conciliatory gesture there and then. The person on the till might not have had the authority to do that...again a failing of the business to either tell the employee what to do in such a situation, which was hardly unforseeable.

Businesses can close early on a whim or for whatever reason they like.....but it won't be popular and will have an impact. That makes it a problem which needs sorting....and customers appeasing rather than blaming for not liking it.

I hate it when soft play centres close early for private parties. It would be good business sense to offer a discounted rate after a certain time. Your employee obviously had no discretion but you should think about this for the future.

Yeah, only changing your FB page and not your website is incredibly unprofessional. At the very least you need a statement on your webpage saying that you have variable opening times, and to call or check the FB page (with link) for today's hours

Is the venue big enough to run parties alongside public opening or does it have to be one or the other? You would lose a lot of party hire if you couldn't offer them during the day at weekends. I suggest only offering exclusive hire after hours, but running smallest parties without closing to the public.

ChocolateWombat: I agree that the impact on her business is what the OP needs to consider, not who is in the right. But this thread is about who is in the right, isn't it? And she is. The customer service may not have been flawless but when the customer turned up the available information was up on the door - the place was closing at 3.30pm. At that point the customer could have turned round and gone home. Instead she took her child inside and let him get ready (odd decision) and is now blaming the business for doing what they had every right to do. I think that is quite silly. I don't see that they should need to conciliate anyone, but if it happens to be the case that the possible impact on the business justifies doing so, the OP should obviously do that.

Smaller not smallest.

Hutch blue, I totally agree.

New businesses need to woo repeat customers and if to do that, the odd pisstaker has to be allowed to take the piss, it is well worth it. It's all about taking the long view, not becoming caught up with the rights and wrongs of an individual scenario.

People worry about setting precedents....such as lots of people wanting to come in last minute for nothing or next to nothing. Just because one customer is allowed in unusually, as a response to a business decision which has messed them around and messed up their day, doesn't mean everyone will turn up 10 mins before early closing. And of course, the business could think through how to make this better too - last entry times easily avoid this, but so too, do regular opening times. So this customer wasn't trying to swing the lead and take advantage and looking for a bargain deal....she was trying to come for a full session of soft play at the time when the centre was normally open - not a piss taker at all.....but left feeling the business were unprofessional, inflexible and uncaring. So she voiced it, and will probably continue to do so. I would too.

Instead she took her child inside and let him get ready (odd decision) and is now blaming the business for doing what they had every right to do.

Is there any possibility she didn't see the sign do you think?

If my local co-op closed early I wouldn't think they had every right. I would think they were a crap business which had put me out. Especially if they were in there and didn't unbend enough to sell me a loaf of bread. And I would go elsewhere the next time rather than check.

I also think people are being a bit daft about the regular opening times thing. The OP clearly said they occasionally shut for parties in the day but it's always at 3.30pm. It isn't completely random.

Every soft play Ive been to stayed open to the public during parties.

They just had a separate room for the actual eating part. Can't you get some stud walls put up somewhere to create a small party room for eating?

Thanks for reporting, we're taking a look at this one

YABU, If you arrive a whole hour before closing at my local soft play they only charge you £1 because there's only an hour left and most of the fresh cakes are sold out! There's no way they'ld charge for 15 mins!

Its on you to train your weekend staff in the importance of good will, people will go elsewhere, I used to go to another soft play nearby until they took on some new (GRUMPY) staff.. their previous staff were lovely, I don't go there any more.

Really?

Some people need to get a life.

slenderisthenight: Of course there is a chance she didn't see the sign, but I don't know how much more the OP can reasonably be expected to do. She's not going to phone the woman to let her know personally, is she? She advertised the alteration to the opening times and the woman didn't see it. Bad luck.

And supermarkets operate a totally different business model to small, independey owned companies. I am not going to kick off because the local cafe owners decide to take a holiday and I have to buy breakfast elsewhere, or because the pub puts on a Ruby wedding anniversary and I have to get a pint down the road. It is nobody's fault. Just one of those things.