We recently caught up with Tom Parslow from Buzzshot to talk about something every escape room operator will know all too well: quiet days. While an empty booking diary can be frustrating, Tom explores how it can also be a useful opportunity to step back from the day-to-day and focus on the things that can help your business grow. In this guest blog, he shares some practical ways to make the most of those quieter periods.

There’s nothing particularly enjoyable about looking at your booking system and seeing an empty day ahead. It can feel like lost revenue. Worse, when you’re paying Games Masters to be there too, it can feel like you’re spending money while achieving very little.

But think about your busiest Saturday. Rooms need resetting. Customers need greeting. Something has broken. The phone is ringing. A member of staff needs help. Somewhere in the middle of it all, you remember the ten other things you’ve been meaning to do for months.

Busy days leave very little time to work on the business rather than simply in it. A quiet day gives you that time.

So, rather than treating an empty booking diary as a wasted day, what could you do with those hours to improve your business now – or help make the diary busier in future?

Understand why today is quiet

Before trying to generate more bookings, understand the bookings you already have. Look at your booking data over the past six or twelve months.

• Which days and times are busiest?
• Which are consistently quiet?
• Which rooms perform best?
• Are there seasonal patterns?

You may confirm things you already suspected, but you might also spot opportunities.

Perhaps Sunday mornings rarely sell. Maybe Thursday evenings perform surprisingly well. Perhaps one room consistently outsells another despite receiving similar reviews.

Once you understand where the gaps are, you can start thinking about why they exist and what you might do about them.

Look at the customers you already have

Getting more bookings doesn’t necessarily mean finding completely new customers. Your database may contain hundreds or thousands of people who already know who you are:

• How many have played one room but never returned?
• Who has played everything except your newest game?
• Who left a five-star review but hasn’t visited for a year?

Think about these as different groups rather than one big mailing list. Someone who played their first escape room with you six months ago probably needs a different message from an enthusiast who has completed four of your five games.

You can then communicate with them about things that might genuinely interest them – a new room, another game they haven’t tried, an event or simply a reason to return.

Quiet periods are also a good opportunity to set up useful email automations, such as birthday messages, post-visit follow-ups or re-engagement emails. Once created, they can continue working without somebody having to remember to send them.

See your venue through a customer’s eyes

When was the last time you experienced your own venue as a customer? Walk through the whole journey, from arriving at the building to leaving after the game:

• Is the entrance welcoming?
• Is the briefing clear?
• Is anything looking tired?
• Is a puzzle less intuitive than you remember?
• Are props beginning to show their age?

When you see the same environment every day, it’s easy to stop noticing small problems. Your customers won’t. Quiet periods give you the opportunity to find and fix those details before they start appearing in reviews. The same applies online.

Check your website, Google listing and social media:

• Are the photographs still representative?
• Is the information correct?
• Are your opening hours accurate?
• Is it obvious who your games are suitable for?

And when was the last time you responded to your reviews – including the negative ones?

Create the things you never have time to create

Good photographs and videos are difficult to produce when you’ve got customers arriving every hour. An empty venue changes that.

Take photographs of your rooms when you’re not rushing. Get the lighting right. Photograph the reception area. If your Games Masters are available, use them as players to create more natural images.

You can build a useful bank of photographs and videos for your website, social media and future marketing rather than desperately trying to find something to post when you’re busy.

Make better use of your team

An empty booking diary doesn’t mean your team has nothing useful to do:

• Could someone learn basic maintenance?
• Could an experienced Games Master train somebody newer?
• Could the team test a puzzle, practise customer scenarios or suggest improvements to an existing room?

You may also have useful skills within your team that you’ve never thought to use. Someone might be a photographer, illustrator, actor, video editor, carpenter or particularly good at social media.

The aim isn’t to invent jobs to keep people occupied. It’s to use available time to make the team, and therefore the business, better.

Do the jobs busy days don’t allow

• Not everything needs to generate another booking:
• Fix the temperamental prop.
• Deep-clean the neglected corner.
• Update the Games Master notes.
• Review your procedures.
• Organise the workshop.
• Check stock.
• Look at how efficiently rooms are being reset.

Individually, these are small things. Collectively, they can improve the customer experience and make your venue easier to operate when you’re busy.

What could make the next quiet Tuesday busier?

Not every quiet period can, or should, be eliminated. Saturday afternoon will probably always be easier to fill than Tuesday morning. Instead, think about where realistic opportunities exist.

• Could you develop your corporate offering to generate more weekday bookings?
• Could partnerships with nearby hotels, restaurants, attractions or other businesses introduce new customers?
• Could you improve your visibility among tourists?
• Is there a local audience that doesn’t know you exist?
• Could previous customers be encouraged to return?

These are difficult questions to answer properly while simultaneously running a busy venue. That’s precisely what makes quiet time useful.

A quiet day isn’t necessarily a wasted day

There are two ways to look at an empty booking diary. You can focus on the bookings that aren’t there. Or you can see several uninterrupted hours in which you can improve your rooms, develop your team, understand your customers and work out how to generate more bookings in future.

You can’t always control when customers want to play. But you can control what you do with the time when they aren’t there. So next time you open your booking system and see an empty Tuesday ahead, ask:

What can we improve today that will make the business better – or the diary busier – tomorrow?

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Buzzshot an all-in-one platform for escape rooms covering bookings, waivers, player marketing, and team photos. If you’d like to find out more, visit Buzzshot.