This story of my trousers is slightly off topic for an Escape Room GM, but bang on for customer care ( but don't forget this post!.) Three months ago I bought some quite expensive trousers from Spoke - ones that I can wear for smart but still cycle in - Bulletproof they call them. Well, a few months later I noticed this weird spray like stain across the front of them, as if I’d splashed bleach or something on them. I was sure I hadn’t - but this stain would not come out, it was immovable.

I was pretty sure I hadn’t gone and poured bleach down me, in fact I’d been rather careful with these new trousers, but it did feel a bit hopeful sending them back and asking for their advice, with sort of gentle would you replace these, maybe there is something odd in the dye lot.

This was the reply I got back:

“So sorry to see whats happened to your trousers! It is unusual, which makes me think we should start all over again, and get you a nice new pair. If you get them back to us (with a print out of this email for our reference) we can get them exchanged for you, no problem.
I've attached a returns postage label and an exchange form, for your convenience.”

That to me was seriously good customer care - and one which on the face of it has cost the company as well. But as it happens I had been thinking about buying another pair of trousers, so I did so right away. In fact they now have my undying customer loyalty.

Does this translate to Escape Rooms? Well yes it does, especially where you have those slightly annoying bits where the customer is in the wrong, but you’re in the right. It’s always important to keep this concept of delighting the customer rather than just keeping them happy.

I’m probably preaching to the converted here - aren’t I? It’s just that I do hear from time to time of things that didn’t go that way. And I saw a thread in one of the Facebook escape room groups talking about a reluctance to give a family a discount where the kids were keen (if young - under ten years old), but the parents asked not to pay for the kids, just for the adults and a teenager. Myself I would always discount in cases like this for the reason below.

We used to run an candle -dipping activity at festivals around the country and we always used to offer discounts to people with large families just because we knew how expensive it can get paying for all your children to do something. My feeling here is that if the parents are polite, the kids are enthusiastic, and you sense that it's a genuinely hard decision about where they spend their money than it's not a bad idea to give them a family discount. You aren't obliged to repeat it, but it might attract business that you wouldn't normally get.

(Oh and the blog picture is a bit random - some of the other stuff I used to do at festivals before I'd even heard of Escape Rooms!)