In June 2010 our company participated in a Groupon. We did some research and it appeared this could be a good avenue for our company to get some exposure for a new concept we wanted to launch in Chicago which was a murder mystery dinner theater. It was not our core business...instead a new idea we thought with the right traction could be a new addition to the theater scene in Chicago. I reached out to Andrew Mason on twitter about murder mystery maniacs and groupon would be a match made in heaven. He agreed. It took a few weeks but the deal was working its way to being solidified.
The deal...
We had the entertainment and scenarios locked down, we only needed to find a venue that could support the groupon. After some intial opportunities fell through, we found a venue on belmont called Cuna. It was a fairly new restaurant, but groupon approved and the deal was set to go. The day our deal went live we had no idea what was about to happen. Our Groupon rep estimated we would sell about 1000-1500 groupons....3300 groupons later the day ended. We thought we had some systems in place, unfortunately our company became overwelmed. The phone was off the hook & emails poured in to which we fielded to the best of our ability. I now have more respect for people that work at customer call centers than ever before. Most of the customers were fairly understanding as this wasn't anything new they had experienced before...a small business overwelmed by the phenomenon called Groupon.
The shows...
Venue. Venue. Venue. This is where we went wrong. Our partners at Cuna were in the midle of a transition when the deal occurred. They were transitioning from a restaurant into a sportsbar, which as you can imagine is not the ideal situation for a murder mystery dinner theater. Their clientel changed, the atmosphere was evolving, and the owner of the business did his best to accomodate us. Unfortunately, best isn't always good enough and our grouponers (groupon customers) let us know it on yelp. We worked tirelessly with Cuna and their team to get them up to speed on how to handle a large group. Including staffing our own on-site hostess and manager for the majority of the shows. Due to things out of our control the overall quality didn't meet our expectations, service got sloppy, and the overall experience got diluted. We wanted to go back to Groupon and find a new location, but we were told that wasn't an option. We were paid to offer 15-20 shows at Cuna from June to Ocotber...47 shows later ending January 25th, 2011 our Groupon Experience ended.
The outcome...
Our company had done our research, paid for additional systems to be created (www.mobmanager.com), and did what we thought was adequate due dilligence for our Groupon, but our efforts fell short. We should have been more proactive and done a better job messaging expectations to the customers. For this I apologize. As the CEO of murder mystery maniacs i should have noticed the red flags, but the appeal of doing business with the planets fastest growing company consumed me. Thankfully our team made it through the experience and can live to tell the story. We are now leaner, more efficient, and more prepared to meet and beat your expectations. We know you have a ton of choices for entertainment and appreciate the opportunity to serve you.
Sincerely,
David Wachtendonk | Founder
@wachtendonk