Lego Store Response Did Not Impress Me
My son and I love Legos. He loves to build them, and I love to help. Plus I love the different scenes you can build and I’m especially impressed with the Hobbit and LoTR sets. We just bought the Smaug set and had a blast putting it together. Now Smaug can fight the Indominus Rex from Jurassic World and we’ll finally know which is more powerful—dragons or dinosaurs. When we bought the Smaug set, we were sent a survey asking us what we thought of the purchase process. So I filled it out. Our local Lego store is in a mall, and is like what I imagine most Lego stores are like—crowded and a lot of fun. So I gave them, primarily, 4 and 5 star ratings. But one of the questions asked what I thought of the store’s online promotions. I had to honestly give that a low rating (1 or 2 stars, I forget now) because the promotions have always been a source of frustration for our family. This low rating got me a reply from the store manager asking me what my specific issue was. I replied:
It’s not so much your store, as the emails I get promoting it. I am in the VIP program and so far I have never once been able to sign up for an event after receiving an email. Once I opened the email within minutes of receiving it and yet still when I went to sign up EVERY date was filled. So from my perspective either people are given early-access to the sign up slots or there are not enough slots for demand. I know my 7-year-old would love to attend some of those events, but we can never seem to find out soon enough to get a slot. I’ve been a VIP member for over a year, and I’ve given up trying as I’ve never found one slot available. The one time I found an available day it was at the Bellevue store and at a time when we couldn’t attend.
I didn’t think this would result in much more than the response I got, but the response was not an impressive one. Basically, he replied to tell me that “yes, they fill up fast” and gave me the time when the posts are sent out. Specifically:
Hi Jennifer, Thanks for your additional input. There is indeed a high demand for this event and spots can fill up quickly! The signups for Minibuilds are open on the 15th of every month at 6am PST. The first few months, the date and time jumped around a bit while the company worked out the logistics for the event nationwide. We have been told at this point that the 15th will be the regular signup day and the registration opens at 6am for our region. One alternative option for the Minibuild would be our monthly CLUB Meetings which are held on the 3rd and 4th Saturdays of the month. Signups for this event begin on the 1st of the month prior to the event. So, we just opened CLUB signups for October. The event costs $10 per child and the children receive the same set as our Minibuild events along with a box of Pick A Brick of their choosing as well as in-store building activities. The event is from 9-10am in our store and have 25 spots per day. These tend to fill up at a much slower pace and are a great way to encourage creative building in our store. I hope this information helps! Thanks again for taking time to reply to us! Jeff
From what I can gather from this message, Jeff is telling me that I should head over to their site at 6am on the 15th and maybe I’ll get there in time to sign up for their free event. Or, I could, of course, sign up for the (much less popular) paid event they hold every month too. I’d be willing to bet that the same people come to the free events every month. If they are so popular, isn’t there some other way to ensure that more kids get the chance to do it? How about a waiting list? Or maybe just a long sign up sheet where parents can sign up their kids and when they get to the top of the list they are invited? Or perhaps the people who got into last month’s session cannot sign up for next month’s? Clearly while Jeff wants his store to get top marks, he’s not willing to do anything to get them. Writing back to me to tell me the time when the sign ups start and about a paid event that I already know about is just lame, not helpful. And now I want to go back and lower his overall store rating. Oh well. I guess I’ll go back to my dino/dragon face-off. That’s more fun anyway.