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.

I think occasionally closing early is shit, tbh. I'd be frustrated too and probably wouldn't bother going back. Can't you do private hire on a day you're normally shut?

I'm on the fence about letting the boy have free 15 mins, as he'd still be upset at having to leave so soon.

This exact situation happened to me a couple of years ago. I didn't make a scene, didn't ask to be let in for free (though if it had been offered I would have been very impressed). I simply nodded, left, and never went back. I used to spend approx £15 a week there.

It's your prerogative to operate your business like that but IMO it is short sighted and will lose you loyal customers, and therefore money, in the long run.

All the smaller soft play places round here offer exclusive hire for parties and close early when it all booked - exactly as you say you do. All the regular users know that and would definitley check before travelling. Id also always check the opening hours if I was travelling to a new place - so for this bit I think YANBU.

The not letting them in for a quick play/paying full price sounds a bit jobsworthy though I also think that it's not your fault that her 3 year old kicked off fitness not getting things his own way.

Yabu and abit mean op. Free visit to mum and child i think. £4 for 15 mins is alot. The member of staff should gave apologised and said the place was closing.

You should put up a sign and on any website etc saying "we sometimes close for private parties, please check facebook before setting off".

My local play centre shuts completely for private parties and you are not aware unless you check their facebook page before hand.

It is annoying when this happens and i think it would be better to not shut the play centre for a party.

However really and truly you should of offered her a free play voucher or free drink on their next visit after declining them entry. I wouldnt of given them the option of a 15 min play at full price or a discount price but would of offered the voucher thing as i mentioned above.

Tbh this was handled badly, especially if we are talking about a regular customer. If these are your instructions to staff, you should consider giving them more leeway to issue a goodwill gesture.
If the child had only 15 minutes it wouldn't have hurt to let them in for free.

I don't think she should be charged and think you need to change your procedure for closing during a party as obviously your current one isn't working.

The customer didn't apper to be unhappy as didn't complain but she told staff she wasn't happy. Do your staff have good training in customer service? It might be good to come to some decision taht works during party time and relaying the procedure to your staff as this doesn't seem to be working either.

I'd have written a bad review tbh and probably written to the business owner/ head office with some suggestions as to how this wasn't good business practice.
I think you should publicly offer her a free session and assure it won't happen to other customers who will see the review.

Agree Chicken. OP, you have to advertise the fact that you close early on some days if you're going to continue doing this, and make that clear on your website rather than relying on people to like your FB page and follow them - I certainly don't follow businesses on FB as I don't want to be inundated with posts that I'm not interested in 95% of the time.

Oh, they all say they're regulars.

3 days notice is too short imo. As a pp said it should be at least a week.
Charging her for 15 minutes was silly. He shouldn't have been let in at all.
I think an offer of a free session is the only way out now.

I agree, its rubbish to close occasionally early and not good business sense, I wouldn't check FB before going and would be annoyed at having a disappointed child. I would also not return to that soft play. Agree with others you should offer a free play to make up for it and review your operations.

Yes I think for the sake of good pr you ought to offer a free session and maybe review how you close with little/no notice to people who aren't on Fb at different times

It's crazy that you shut on random days for private functions. That would greatly piss me off and I'd probably not visit again if I'd turned up to find you closed/closing. Our local soft play does it's private functions after closing at 6pm.

My local soft play closes early ad hoc for parties. However your worker was VV unreasonable for charging and then telling her she only had 15 minutes play. I'd feel very scammed, not everyone reads signs on doors. Offer a refund and a couple of free play sessions

I agree that you should have just let her pay a lower rate to get in, however I can see why you could have been reluctant to.

If the mother had decided she didn't want to go after 15 minutes how would the OP have made her leave in time for the private hire time? I've known people to come in before closing to ''grab just one thing'' and spend ages browsing - there is no way to chuck them out except saying ''we're closed now.'' but you can't make them leave.

Although if you regularly close early and she is such a regular customer she should have known not to come at that time.

You can delete reviews at your own discretion OP.

I agree, its rubbish to close occasionally early and not good business sense, I wouldn't check FB before going and would be annoyed at having a disappointed child. I would also not return to that soft play. Agree with others you should offer a free play to make up for it and review your operations.

I don't think closing for private hire is unreasonable, most of the soft plays where I am do this occasionally for parties or SN friendly sessions.

I think the only thing that the staff member did wrong was say she could pay £4 for 15 minutes, I can see how that comes across as greedy. I think as a pp suggested you need a defined final entry time, say 2.30 for 3.30 closing, and stick to it, no exceptions. I bet if you'd let her in for a free 15 minutes she wouldn't have left promptly and would have tried to drag it out.

Whose 3 year old would play for 10-15 mins and then be happy to leave?
My 2 year old would be happier with 15 mins than 0 mins!

I think you were being unreasonable OP. If you don't want to set a precedent for letting people in for free just before closing then charging a token £1 would be reasonable - expecting £4 for 15 mins is not.

Also as pp have said it should be really clear that you sometimes close early. Put a warning up next to your opening hours and a prominent sign of upcoming dates where you will be closed early.

It sounds like a fair and honest review rather than a bad one.

I can understand the weekend worker not feeling they had the authority to let them in for free, but it would have been better customer service to have just let the child play until you closed.

I wouldn't offer a freebie. People chance their arm for freebies all the time, but I wouldn't randomly close for private functions, either.

YABU - very poor business sense or customer service.

YABU. You were closing your doors early so the reasonable thing to do would be to have let her in for free for the remaining 15 minutes and apologise profusely for the early closing time. Or to have given her a free voucher for another time....her choice which she wanted.

I agree with other posters who have said you need to have set opening times and ensure these are communicated clearly so there is no misunderstanding.

In the meantime, respond to her message on the review site with an apology for the inconvenience and offer her a free visit and drink at a later date.

If you want to give customer satisfaction give a free £4 session and a voucher for another visit. In reality it gives a good impression and what would it have really cost you?

Thing is a bad review is what it has cost you which will cost you a lot more, tbh you have been silly and short sighted.

I call reverse too.

Otherwise, fair play to get for giving you a bad review..you deserve it.