Sandbox VR — Attraction in Austin

Good afternoon! Me and my group of five played Deadwood Valley, hosted by Cyrus and UFL hosted by Mel. I’m going to start with our session playing UFL. Mel had the absolute worst attitude at Sandbox VR. He has no customer service skills and in a place where me and my friends should feel welcomed and joyful, we felt disrespected and out of place. While we were suiting up, he talked down to us and did not seem to want help or be there at all. When we got into the game he skipped the tutorial without warning and left us to attempt to figure out the game by ourselves. He raised his voice whenever we would step off of our spots. Whenever the actual matches between players began, whenever one of the players would go into a match it would cause hiccups in the game, screen tears and all around frame drop for all players. The first few matches that he played we called for Mel and he did not pause the game for the first two times we froze, effectively wasting our time. He told us to yell “Mel we need help” whenever we had issues and he stated that he would immediately be able to respond and help. Whenever we would call out for help from our host Mel, we would get either no response or would not know what’s going on due to either a lack of paying attention or a lack of knowledge of his job and station. Regardless it was an effortless attempt at a solution from Mel every time we had an issue with the session. When the person in our group went into the ring and had issues the first two times we got little to no help; after the third time of calling for Mel, he responded and paused the game claiming “The total game time will pause.” We believed him and let him work his magic. He fully reset all of the systems and the game but he continued to lag for the last 20-30 seconds of the match. We paused the game with 15-12 minutes left in the total match and whenever he unpaused the game it continued with 10-9 minutes. After the fourth and final time the player had issues with the lag he again paused the game, this time we were at around 8-7 minutes left in the total session. He took off the players headset, walked away with it, looked in it a few times, brought it back and put it back on. Once resuming the game we were left with around 3 minutes left. After the whole match we attempted to explain that we lost total session time but Mel tried to say we did not and we had all the time we normally would have. He didn’t listen when trying to explain further and instead went and got his manager, Jay. Jay also claimed we did not lose any time. Jay ended up giving us a refund for the player that had issues even though we lost total session time and the player didn’t get to play almost at all.

Our session with Cyrus was wonderful. She was very attentive to our needs and listened to us whenever we had concerns. She was very discrete and fixed an issue with one of the players that had issues with his headset without any of the other players noticing or hindering our gameplay. Cyrus was very friendly and helpful. Very incredible customer service and impressive control of the game...

The VR experience in and of itself is very enjoyable and very cool. It’s incredibly unique and I like the games and experiences they have. However, I’ve subtracted a star because the customer service and experience could be improved.

I’ve gone twice to SandBox VR, and each time the service is incredibly hands off which is surprising in my opinion. For an experience so unique and new to most people, I think there is a huge potential and opportunity to provide a better, customized, and personalized experience. For example, when first entering the facility, associates should greet guests and provide a hands on experience from start to finish. The 2 times I arrived at Sandbox, I was told to simply fill out the forms and was left on my own until the start time. An opportunity here would be to have a guide assigned to each group and each hour for the experience. Associates should take the opportunity to get to know the guests and make them feel special during their time there.

During the game, our group was essentially left alone as the associate was on his phone and while I had raised my hand as instructed to do so if i needed help, he was distracted and did not fulfill the request. I tried to follow directions and not touch the headset, but after waiting 30 seconds, I had to take it off and find the guy on his phone to fix the issue.

Lastly, as the game finished, the guide did not point us in the direction to go to see our videos and movies. Instead, we had to figure out to go to the TVs ourselves. As we waited, none of the associates understood what we were waiting for and didn’t help us see our videos until after us asking. Again, the guide could easily provide an exceptional experience if he simply walked us over to the TVs and begun the videos

Anyway, it is a fun and unique experience. I just wish the management team would see the opportunity to improve the overall...

Update after 2nd experience - 5 stars: we came back to play Squid Game and had a much smoother experience. Awesome game and we had a really great time!

First experience - 4 stars: The overall experience was fantastic once we got into the game, but the set up was really rough. The initial sandboxVR representative we met with was quite gruff and seemed to be having a bad day. It was our first time at SandboxVR, and we didn’t know what to do when we walked in, and were gruffly pointed to sign in, as if we should know to do that. After that, one of my children were having difficulty with the screaming in the venue, since the game areas are not enclosed and there is no sound absorption, so it was painful for my kiddo due to their noise sensitivity. The rep asked if she was “special needs”, which we agreed to based on my kiddo’s sensory issues to loud noise, and he told us we should have seen the information on their website and my kiddo probably shouldn’t participate. It was extremely insensitive and ableist the way that was said to us. I checked the website on my phone on the spot and found no such warnings for people with special needs on the website. We proceeded anyway since we asked if the noise setting could be adjusted for my kiddo and he agreed that it could. Once we got into the experience, everything was fine and we all had a wonderful time. There was no reason my kiddo would not have been able to enjoy the experience. I get that we all have our moments, but we have to do our best to make a good experience for others when working in customer service, especially when customers are paying a lot of money to...