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 random closing times are the best way to alienate customers. You can't plan an afternoon, you can't arrange to meet friends, you can't use the soft play as a treat for children, what is the point?

It's not up to customers to check facebook pages. I check a website to see the opening hours, why would I also need to check facebook/twitter/instagram and try to guess on which social media the managers might put some updated information if they feel like it.

We had a soft play place near us but I stopped taking ds there. A couple of times he got excited about going only for us to turn up & find it closed for a private party. It was unreliable & I wasn't going to get him excited for no reason

You shouldn't have charged her anything for 15 minutes..

Your post comes across as hard, unsympathetic and money-grabbing tbh. £4 for 15 mins is just mean!

I have so much sympathy for the poor customer, she's a regular so has handed over plenty of money before now, and her little boy must have been gutted. Small children can't control their emotions like we can, 3 year olds dont feel disappointed, they feel rage. Surely you can empathise? Not every one will heck the fb page and she'll certainky have been looking forward to him expending some energy at soft play. Soft play is my DS's favourite place, so this situation would be horrendous for us.

It would have been nice to let him play for the fifteen minutes for free. Irrelevant that she's a regular customer. All should be treated the same.
Do you make more with the private parties than you would from multiple families visiting with their child or children?

yanbu to close early, however yabu to have made her pay in full for 15 mins, as they where not getting value for money.

The LO would of kicked up a stink at the end of the 15 minutes anyway

Absolutely.

And if I were in charge, no would I set a precedent of letting people in for free shortly before closing time. Before you know if you'll have loads of people coming in and begging for free entry 15, 20, 30 minutes before closing time.

Call me cynical

• no WAY would I set a precedent.

I don't think YWBU not to let her in for free but can see why she was frustrated if your closing times are variable.

How popular are private hire parties? Could you not always close at 4pm and offer private hire from say 4:30-6:30? That way your regular 'pop in and play' customers know each week that you close at the same time.

On the weeks that you don't have private parties booked you could always run a special ticketed event to generate additional income i.e disco nights, themed nights (Disney / Christmas etc.). You could probably get other local companies on board to add value and make your events more interesting. So for a Disney night, do you have a local company offering look-alike princesses that could attend? It's good advertising for them so they'd probably do it at minimal cost.

'Do you make more with the private parties than you would from multiple families visiting with their child or children?'

I doubt it, plus that is not a regular dependable income. You look after your bread & butter, your regulars as a priority. That's good business sense, also you respond quickly and well to bad reviews, whether that's to apologise and resolve or to refute.

If I had seen a review like this when I was still using this kind of place, or been the mother turning up expecting it to be open for a reasonable time to find it closing early with only 3 days notice, I'd have taken my business elsewhere permanently.

For the sake of £4 you've not only lost this customer but potentially quite a few others.

I think your employee made a foolish judgemental call on this. She shouldn't have charged her. I used to work as a receptionist in a hotel and did the evening shift, when the other managerial staff had left. Occasionally, I'd get a complaint about a room being chilly, or something. Depending on the situation, I'd give them a free upgrade, or glass of wine, or reduce their food bill.

I always informed the manager and his attitude was that it was simply good business practise - you want to keep your customers, then you keep them happy.

The soft play place near me does exclusive hire, but not until 4.45pm or so which is probably a time when few people turn up. If you are going to do exclusive hire it would probably be best to do it at a later time when people aren't likely to turn up to play and be disappointed. Or put 4/4.30 as your normal closing time then state that it can be booked for exclusive hire from that time. I am on Facebook but wouldn't expect to check the soft play Facebook page every time I go.

It probably would have been a nice gesture to have let her in to play for 15 minutes for free given that she couldn't have been expected to know about the closure. If someone turned up before the normal fixed closing time expecting to play for free or a reduced rate then maybe this would not have been appropriate.

It seems like a fair review of the service she received irrespective of whether she was a regular or a first time user.

I agree that the only way to get past this is to reply to her apologising and offering a free visit etc.

Resounding YABU then OP?

I agree it would have been decent to let her son play. But I didn't think it would be EXPECTED.

No need for the bad review. We should have let her play, it would have been kind to do but not expected.

I'm guessing I'm not allowed put the review on here? It was very harsh.

Thank her for bringing this to your attention. Say that you are the manager and apologise on behalf of your staff. Say that this is the first time this has happened (staff charging children for 15 mins play) and you have now briefed your staff on what to do in such situations. You'd like to offer two free play sessions as a good will gesture.

Then brief your staff not to be such scrooges.

Soft plays near me have parties going on at the same time as paid for customers - if they closed randomly for parties people would just start going to a different one.

I can't imagine how much you must charge for a party if you get sole use!

I disagree that a 3 yo would have kicked up a fuss anyway. The kid already had his shoes and coat off, so was ready to play. A 3 yo might not be happy to leave at any time, but it's completely different to be banned from playing completely when they are looking forward to do it.

Leaving early and not playing at all are not the same, especially for a 3 yo.

For the posters who think it's setting a bad precedent to do something as a gesture of good will when the business is in the wrong, then maybe the business should set up regular closing hours so its remaining customers know what to expect.

'No need for the bad review.' Really? bet you'd not be saying that if it were a glowing one.

You set up for customers to review you take what you get.

No need for the bad review

I agree with the poster above, it's not a bad review but an accurate one. You might disagree and fail to understand your customer point of view, but she is at least entitled to describing the fact (which in your OP you agree are completely accurate!)

Customers don't expect to play for free, they expect your place to be open for the duration of your advertised hours. Can you blame them?

Is there no way you can do parties and still let the public in?
I think closing at 3.30 on random days is bad business sense
I don't blame her for the bad review
I think you need to reconsider your opening hours

I don't blame the staff member because she's just following the rules (as you've said yourself, she isn't in trouble). I think it was the wrong thing to do, but not her fault. She should be told to call a manager next time, who has discretion to bend the rules and they should have let him play for free for 15 mins as you were closing early. If this invalidates your insurance in anyway, then 'for a coin'.

I think the Mother needs to have a think about her own & her son's reaction to this. There are times when things don't go to plan a simple 'Oh dear it's closed, we will have to do something else fun today & come back another day' should be fine for an NT 3 yo. At 3 you don't always know they have SN, but you orobably suspect it or realise that your child's reaction to tha NH's is not similar to their peers and accept that it's just how it is (i.e. Not blame the venue for being closed).

However, all that said, I think the main thing to be learned here is that you have created a problem with your customers.

People don't check Facebook before they go to soft play, why would they? At various times I've been a 'too bloody regular' softplay customer and I'd be really annoyed if I didn't know you changed your hours for private bookings - it should either not be done or be well advertised enough that I'd know to check before heading there.

My advice would be to keep your hours fixed and offer private parties outside of these hours, but if you really don't want to do that then make it well known at the venue and on ALL social media that your opening hours are subject to change due to private bookings.

IF you think you have already done that and this is a one ff, then let it go. Write a nice reply to her complaint and offer some compensation.

I don't think you should start handing out freebies either. If you advertise on FB and outside the building that you're going to be closing early the last thing you want is people rocking up 15-30 mins before closing time on those days expecting a free play.

The child was likely to kick off anyhow. 15 minutes in softplay is nothing, he wouldn't have wanted to go home, and who is to say mum wouldn't have been sat saying "just 5 more minutes" for another half an hour?

If you expect people to show goodwill towards to, you need to show some goodwill to customers. Simple

You can turn the review system off on facebook pages or if you advertise with yell. I know afew businesses that have disabled the review system.