iBounce Trampoline Park - Exeter — Attraction in Exeter

I'm sure you are aware of what has happened this evening but I thought it would be beneficial for you to hear from a customers point of view.

I am extremely disappointed with the experience we had this evening at your Exeter ibounce. I was dealing with your deputy general manager, Dieter who quite frankly should not be anywhere near management and is an embarrassment to your facility. Since coming here a while ago I did not know the change in iBounce specific socks and at the time of booking it it did not say that it was mandatory however I accepted this and paid for additional socks. Next issue was the food. I emailed ahead of booking and asked if you had a menu and whether you did food and was meant by a blunt reply stating that yes there was food. I asked if the cafe area was open and whether they were serving food and was met by dieter with a very unhelpful response of I'm not sure I'll have to check the stock! Surely if you advertise that you have food you should be manning the coffee shops and serving food. We then went to bounce and the children enjoyed it however we were then told that I wasn't able to sing happy birthday to my daughter with a cake. By this point i was getting a little bit frustrated and again I spoke to dieter and he said that we could sing happy birthday but not have the cake which was fine and understandable.

The food was horrendous and not great but I didn't realise one.id the children refilled his slushie. I was then confronted by dieter again and ordered to pay £4 additional right in the middle of cutting my daughter's cake. Some of the other parents were disgusted by this and said that we didn't realise that we couldn't refill. He stood there for quite a while and didn't really have any response to anything we were asking.

The most upsetting part of the whole evening was that dieter came to me and said that due to his staff being confronted he would put us on a blacklist. I was completely calm and went up to him to ask for an explanation to whom he stated that another member of the public was being rude to him, not anything to do with our party. We new the adult and child in question and explained that the parent couldn't change her socks immediately as her autistic son was bouncing and couldn't leave him. Dieter then left and by this point I handed her my socks for her children. I thought you offered SEN sessions to accommodate neurodiverse people like this?

I know the booking wasn't a party booking but I'm sure you have lots of people who just turn up and use the venue for a party.

As a manager myself and a teacher of children I would not advise anyone to come here with a child with needs. The child was told off for running in the corridor however he was having a meltdown so I do think some further training for the staff would be advisable.

I understand that some of the points I have mentioned are our own doing and I do accept that but dieter was not accommodating or helpful in anyway and to be honest not a good example of how to manage a facility.

It is such a shame and extremely disappointing for my daughter who left feeling very upset and myself very embarrassed about what the other parents...

We visited here at the weekend and after entering the bathrooms my new coat which I had received for Christmas got caught on a screw which was hanging out of the door and not even screwed in.

This ripped a hole in my coat but could have easily been a child’s face. I instantly contacted the assistant manager here who inspected the coat and defected screw and informed me he would call head office.

Head office came back and said if you had done this in a local park it would be no different and they wouldn’t be paying for the damage caused.

As they are aware this isn’t the same situation and this damage is 100% their fault for not keeping their faculty in order. I have since on the assistant mangers instruction emailed the head office direct with all the photos but not surprisingly not even had an reply.

Out of pure principle I will now in the coming days issue a small claims court judgement on them for this matter however also advise others to think what would happen if something was to happen to there child at this centre and think if you want to be dealing with a dreadful company who will take no responsibility for there own mistakes.

Customer Service is everything when dealing with issues and this company have none !!

Avoid Avoid Avoid

Update I had this email even though they clearly stated already that they were excepting no blame for the damage.

Hi Steve,

I believe this situation was escalated to our Head office late on Tuesday, and you have reviewed on google and informed you are progressing with legal action, early on Wednesday. This is not a reasonable time-frame for a complicated complaint to be handled. iBounce is a small independent business without a large head office infrastructure and it wouldn’t respond to an issue such as this overnight. It is a unique complaint and one that the business has not experienced before. For these reasons it wouldn’t be realistic for the team on site to offer cash on the day as some kind of compensation without a proper investigation etc, or some kind of proof that this minor tear happened at our premises. Several thousands of people come through our door each week, and the business would be seriously open to fraud if it didn’t investigate such unique circumstances.

In light of the fact you have progressed to writing the review and moving the matter to court, we consider the site level involvement in this closed. We are sorry that we couldn’t resolve this in a way that you are happy with.

Regards

Jon

My reply was if you are happy to look at this I will be happy to get this sorted in a fair way.

No reply as I suspected which just proves this was a rub salt in the wounds email which is agin disgusting from...

I suggest reviewing cctv before responding to reviews. Your staff member explaining they were at the desk at 12:04 is entirely inaccurate. In fact we had alerted the staff at the soft play that the reception was unmanned 3 times. Before alerting the lad on the trampolines a further 3 times. And then the poor lady from the beauty studio offered to alert someone too. It was 12:13 by someone even attempted to man the desk. My partner had mentioned the box of ibounce wristbands just laying on the desk in full view. The radio was also left unmanned. We walked into ibounce at 11:53. I'm not bothered by having to pay 2.50 for socks. I just want the full hour I pay for. It's not cheap. And we lost out on 15 minutes of our allotted hour due to lack of staff.

You'll say that it's 15 mins. But I paid 30 quid for 45 mins. In these times when everything is costing more. I would expect to get that full hour.

Having been to iplay several times I think it's run pretty well. But it feels like the trampolines are neglected. When you insist on the two being entirely separate, at least do them each well. Rather than a half arsed job. One person to open the cafe (which surely was already open being that it was lunchtime) that same person having to man the desk. And manage the lad supervising the bouncers. Yes I lost my temper at the man this afternoon. But we'd been waiting for an excessive amount of time (certainly for 4/5 year olds). I apologise for my frustration. But it's already stressful taking two kids out for an hour. Don't make it harder.

Ps. your website states to book online for guaranteed entry. No mention that that is the only way to gain access. I suggest the wording is changed to reflect that booking online is the only option. And that you cannot pay on the door.

Also. Invest in a kettle and a mop! Cafe floors were disgusting. And not offering hot drinks... Are you kidding? Send someone out to buy a five...