Singing Experience www.singingexperience.co.uk

Horrendous customer service. Endless amount of emails that received no reply. Please avoid booking with this company unless you are happy to waste your hard earned money.

I would like to disagree with some comments here the singing experience team and experience was absolutly fantastic , i read the review here and was anxious,

I was overhwelmed at how good it was, My daughter said it was by far the best party she ever had,

I only review on here as i nearly cancelled my party when i read these so thought best to leave my experience

It worth noting that the team were so pleasant and really enjoyed there job. We already booked next year and all her friends are booking aswell. There facebook is 2000 likes and reviews to match so i would advise this is the best party ever (my dausghter sand best song ever!

I hope the team see this review and remember crazy 8d!)

I bought a voucher for this Singing Experience through Groupon, who have always been great so did it good faith.

It was a Christmas present for my daughter and as we've recently moved to the area I thought it a great way to ask some girls from school to get to know people.

I rang the Singing Experience to book, I was asked to do it online.

I went on line to book, it wouldn't accept my code so I emailed the Singing Experience as when I rang it went onto answerphone, they promptly responded and asked for my voucher code, which I emailed back. They then sent me a link and code to book it.

I found a date and booked it. Contacted 8 parents to ask if their girls were available and filled in all the information. At which point I was asked for all the full names of the attendees and the parents email addresses. I then had to contact all the parents again for email addresses.

A day later I got a call from the Singing Experience saying that slot had been double booked so I had to change it (no apology, just their having problems with the new system. I agreed, then contacted all the parents for the 3rd time and told them that the date was changed. My booking was deleted so I had to complete it all again.

On the second time the consent forms had been sent to all the parents the wrong date was on them (the date from the initial booking completion). This further confused the parents who contacted me to confirm which date it actually was. They were starting to get a bit tired of the process by this point!

I emailed the Singing Experience and explained that the initial date had been put on the consent forms and asked if it could be changed on the system. I also wanted confirmation that the second date I had booked was the actual date of the booking. No reply so 2 days later I rang to check. They said they couldn't change the date on the consent forms but the second date was definitely there.

The parents all completed the consent forms for a second time, I logged in and checked and everything was completed so the booking could go ahead.

I then (2 days later) got an email saying that unless I completed my booking it would be cancelled. I replied to the email saying it had been completed and all the consent forms signed. A day later I got another email again saying unless the booking was completed it would be cancelled.

Ar this point I wrote a detailed email explaining all the above and got a response saying. "Yeah your booking has been deleted of the system so you need to do it again!"

I tried calling and emailing for 3 days with no response, I had left several messages on their answerphone.

Up until this point I had been very reasonable and understanding, but as I was aware that all the parents would have to complete the forms again for a third time, I responded with. "Are you joking?" I've been trying to get hold of someone for several days, the experience is at the end of the week and it means all the parents have to complete the forms again?"

The response I got from the Singing Experience was "seeing as you are being so difficult and unreasonable, I have no option but to cancel the booking as you're not prepared to complete the booking again, so I see no other option!"

This made my jaw drop. I responded by saying I had been more than reasonable and although it had been a catalogue of errors on their part up until the last email I had done everything they had asked, been very accommodating and not complained once. I also said it would break my daughters heart and all her friends would be ever so disappointed as they were all so excited about it and it wasn't fair to let them all down when we had done everything asked of us. I said I was upset that's he'd responded the way he had and I didn't want the experience cancelled due to the upset of the girls.

He replied with "you have left me no alternative but to cancel. I can't see anyway we can move forward on this so it will be cancelled"

The next day I rang and asked to speak with the manager, he wasn't in, I was told a different name for the manager. I eventually spoke with the manager (whether it was or not I don't know) and he when I said I had written a number of emails and kept the responses, he replied with "Yeah I've read all the emails, do you want to cancel your booking or not?" I replied by saying I'd been told it had been cancelled and I've told all the parents. Can I just say that the customer service for your business is appalling. He replied with "well to be honest, your just 1 person and from a marketing view, what does that matter, we've got plenty of bookings. We'll give you a full refund" at that point I thanked him for his help and said goodbye as I was at a loss as he clearly didn't care at all.

I emailed him to confirm that he had said he would give me a full refund (although I didn't think he could as he had no details and I'd booked it through Groupon),no reply.

I contacted Groupon for a refund and they said that the Singing Experience had redeemed my voucher and said I had had the experience so I then had to prove I hadn't. Groupon were very good and sorted it out for me.

I would NEVER EVER use or deal with the Singing Experience company again. Gobsmacked at how horrendous they are!

what's that saying... 'TO GOOD TO BE TRUE'. I booked the experience through groupon, then tried to make contact on a number of times to book and find out information regarding the food choices. Each time I actually got through I was brushed off and spoke to with a cant be bothered attitude. I was told that the website had all the info even though I couldn't get through to the info I wanted.

My husband and I have decided to take our custom else where, we don't want to have our daughters birthday spoilt.

I wouldn't recommend this place as we felt uncomfortable and let down before we even booked her session, also the times are no good when the children are in school. If I had known this information I wouldn't of bought the experience off groupon in the first place.

This experience need to take a look at their policies....

~Posted by an annoyed mum~

Ordering off Groupon was easy.

WARNING>>>

The pre-experience hassle is immense. They express the need to have parents consent to their kids attending. Some parents didn't have email addresses and I explained this but they don't have forms which is odd. You can't just have one system for all. The parents didn't have email addresses because they didn't have home computers.

So be warned that you WILL NOT be able to attend unless you spend considerable time contacting the parents of kids you hardly know to get their consent. It's not easy when everybody works different shifts.

The number of emails you receive from people prior to the experience is crazy. Lots of badly written rules. Absolutely terrible grammar and spelling!

You will be told that several adults need to be present before you can attend. Well, I drive an MPV and took seven kids. Parents weren't able to bring their kids. So we turned up with just two adults (myself and my wife - the party girl's parents)

On the day, you'll turn up at the venue not knowing if it's the right place because they tell you in advance that you are looking for a building with two big grey doors. That's odd because they are not grey at all...they are black!

The experience itself was good and the kids will love it. Nice studios, friendly staff (although you'll be told to be quiet a lot - odd really - telling kids at a party to keep the noise down)

You just know that you're building up to a big HARD SELL towards the end of the day. We sat there without anybody telling us where the toilets were nor were we offered drinks. After three hours of being on our feet we were hit with the sales patter.

Two people on the day told us we had "24 hours to order" their expensive photo prints and then "the gallery goes offline" as they (Singing Experience) get charged. I've used photographyorders.com myself for storing images and they do not charge you after 24 hours. You pay for a certain amount of storage. So what singing experience do is tell you that you have 24 hours to order before THEY are billed for webspace, which is not true at all as I said. It's called pressure selling. They do tell you that if you like you can give them £100 as a deposit to guarantee that your images will not go offline. I told my wife this was nonsense and that those images stay on line until somebody hits delete at their end. Again... it's pressure selling. Hey presto... I'm sat here over a week after the experience and the images are still online. I'm so glad that I didn't put £100 of my hard earned cash in their bank!

By the way... images cost from £15 ( which cost less than £3 at Asda Print). But they tell you several times on the day about how good value it is going for their top package of £399. I bought my daughter this as a £49 gift for her 13th birthday...not as a £399 experience. And let's face it, who want to spend £399 on images for a birthday present? Kids want iPads don't they...not paper!

I used to run another green screen and studio experience on Groupon, so understand the importance of upselling. I know how this works. I know the commission structure and understand that after they've taken a commission you're running at a loss. So I understand the need to upsell. I used to sell showreels, but if nobody ordered I'd lose out. It was always a risk. But I asked the customer once on the day and then contacted them once afterwards, that's it, because I didn't want to run the risk of spamming them, losing future custom or coming across desperate for a sale. I've been called by Singing Experience EVERY DAY FOR A WEEK and have been emailed too. If you don't reply then

they will pester you. Seven emails, seven calls and emails to all parents too when I said on the day I'd speak with them and get back to Singing Experience is rather excessive.

ALSO...I gave them the emails of the parents for parental consent ONLY, not for sales emails. Yes you guessed it...the reason why they don't want paper forms is because they don't capture email addresses. So take note...when you give them email addresses, ALL parties will be contacted daily until a sale is made. I'm already getting parents asking why they are being contacted so much! It's kind of embarrassing really.

When I sent a very brief email saying thanks for a great day, but you do send a lot of spam I received a very defensive email back. Another very badly written email which had two email signatures in it from two different people, so I had no idea who sent it. I do know that THREE OTHER PEOPLE had been calling me during the week and emailing...so thats five staff bothering me. Is that what you guys want? I was told that I had deflated the staff by sending my constructive 20 word feedback. How very sad really.

Feedback shouldn't deflate anybody no matter how negative. It should be taken constructively in order to improve the service. I always welcomed comments about my green screen experience and took on board every comment, without the need to send defensive emails. It's all valuable feedback.

I cannot cope with the amount of hassle, pressure selling and awfully written emails Ive received from these guys.

It's all a shame really because the experience itself was ok...its just the pre and post experience things that will send you in to deep depression.

I booked the singing experience through groupon, i through that it would be straight forward and a different thing for my daughter to do on her 8th birthday party, ohh how wrong could i have been i have had problems from start to finish with this booking. Firstly i rang the singing experience before i booked the party on groupon to get some information i spoke to a guy that seemed quite helpful and he said that it was straight forward to book the party so i went ahead and bought it off groupon, at no point did the guy i spoke to say anything about the extra charge of £55 for prime time slots which is most of the time slots available i rang back to complain about this and the staff were very unhelpful, my daughter was very upset so i decided to pay the extra £55 which i was told did not have to be paid until 10 days before, all bookings had to be filled out online so i started filling out the form which stated that the £55 had to be paid immediately at the end otherwise the booking would be invalid, not only this the form stated that i would need consent forms filling in from all children's parents and emailed back to them which was impossible because i hadn't even sent the invitations out and it also stated that i would need 4 adults to be with the children also impossible as i didn't know what children were coming or who could come with me. I am very annoyed as noone from the singing experience explained any of this to me even after ringing several times and nowhere on the groupon ad did it say any of this. I rang groupon who were helpful but said as it was after the 14 days i couldn't have a refund so iv lost £50 iv got 1 week to organize something else for my daughters birthday and she is very upset as she has told her friends at school about her party at the singing experience very annoyed

I took seven 11 year olds for a party experience for my daughter's birthday. We were greated immediately and made welcome tea/ coffee and juice. Every step was explained and the girla had a fab time making the pop dvd, they even had time for a photo shoot! We had a sneak previews of the video and now cant wait to see the final ediy!

Hi

Just wanted to write this review because I feel so let down by this company. They are offering parties for children with very little expertise and skills around children. I'm guessing they haven't even been CRB checked.

We arrived for the party and it seemed like we surprised them as I don't think they were expecting us. Sat us down and didn't even offer us drinks even though they have what can only be called a piece of wood with a fridge next to it. I think the room is purposely dark so you can't see the Mic cables being held together with insulation tape...

Food I believe is prepared early in the morning as the sandwiches can only be described as cardboard. The crisps were nearly out of date and obviously the not so nice flavours left in the bottom of the multipacks that get left!

The CD took an age to arrive and the quality was incredibly poor for a professional studio.

Won't be going back ever!

The whole thing form start to finish was brilliant ,we have been 3 times as all the other kids from the party keep choosing to go for there Birthday!

I think as one direction used the studios it make the kids feel like real stars , we got to see footage of them working in the studio as well which was fab!

We got a great deal it worked out at £15 per head and i could not get that even if i took them to the cinema and a pizza

fully reccomend

Singing Experience Party :

The idea of the party is great, choose a song, get the children to practice the song and turn up to record their very own single.

Problem is it didn't quite go like that....

What should happen is the following:

Book Online

Choose Song

Sign child protection form

Practice song with Children

Turn up and sing in the studio

Take some photos

Mix song with staff

Leave Happy

The reality is that the following happened:

Booked online - They were in the middle of two systems and the booking system booked us in on the wrong day. Never received confirmation email.

Chose Song - Sent multiple emails without reply. Only got back in contact with two weeks to go before event

Turned up to studio - Greeted by a rude member of staff who said we missed our party the day before. Even if we had they should have rang us. Finally fitted in two hours later but we had to entertain 11 children for two hours at our own expense.

Singing the song - Finally arrived and sorted out the recording space. Studio is barely big enough for a couple of adults let alone 11 children. Microphones were held onto the equipment by electrical tape and the headphones were second rate.

Photos - Well actually this part went without hiccup. The photos look great and the children had fun. (will come back to this later though!)

Mixing the song - We then went to the mixing desk again which was quite good and we were looked after.

To summarise 2 members of staff were OK and 1 was very poor.

We certainly didn't think the experince lived upto it's promises. We were offered a copy of the single on the day as an apology but we have since learned that this is really just a ploy to get us out of the building. We did say we would follow it up and we have done.

We wrote an email complaining about our experience which was followed up by a reply stating that they would call us to discuss. Shockingly this email contained internal discussions between the staff stating that these issues happen quite often.

In a phone call to follow we were offered all the pictures and music FOC by their manager. A decision that was the over turned by the Director of the company.

I have had no other choice now but to instruct my solicitor to deal with the matter on my behalf.

Poor show guys....