Ask anyone who works the front desk of an escape room, a trampoline park or a laser tag arena what the phone and inbox are full of, and you'll hear the same list. What does it cost? Do you have anything free on Saturday afternoon? How many people can play? Is my eight-year-old old enough? Where do we park? Can I buy a voucher for my brother?
None of these questions are hard. They're just constant, and they arrive at the worst moments: while a group is checking in, while someone is resetting a room, or at 10 pm when nobody is there to answer. Each unanswered message is a guest who might book somewhere else. That's exactly the kind of work an AI chatbot on your website is good at, as long as you set it up with care.
The questions that come up again and again
Before you switch anything on, write down what guests actually ask. The list usually looks something like this:
- Prices: per person or per group, weekday versus weekend, what's included, whether there's a surcharge for an extra player.
- Free times: “Do you have a slot for six people on Saturday?” This is the one that turns into a booking, so it matters most.
- Group sizes: minimum and maximum players per room or session, and what to do with a group that's too big for one room.
- Age limits: from what age children can play, whether they need an adult with them, and what parents need to sign.
- Getting there: address, parking, public transport, which entrance to use, how early to arrive.
- Gift cards: which vouchers exist, how they're delivered, how long they're valid.
If a question appears on this list every week, the bot should be able to answer it. If it comes up twice a year, it probably belongs with a person.
What the bot needs to know
A chatbot is only as good as what you give it. The useful split is between facts that live in your booking system and facts that only live in your head.
Games, prices and free times should come straight from the system you already run your bookings in. That way the bot never quotes last year's price list or offers a slot that's already gone. When a guest asks for Saturday, it looks at the real schedule and suggests the times that are actually bookable.
Everything else you have to write down: parking, age rules, accessibility, what to wear, whether pets or food are allowed, your cancellation terms in plain language. Keep it short and factual. A few good rules of thumb:
- Write one fact per sentence. “Children from 10 can play with an adult in the group” is better than a paragraph about family-friendliness.
- Use the words your guests use. They ask about “parking”, not “mobility options”.
- Say what you don't offer, too. If there's no food on site, say so – otherwise the bot may guess.
- Keep it current. When the opening hours change for the holidays, update the text the same day.
From question to booking
The real value isn't the answer, it's what happens next. A guest who asks “Do you have something for five people on Friday evening?” is ready to book. A good chatbot doesn't just say “yes”; it suggests two or three concrete slots and, once the guest picks one, books it right there in the chat, while the interest is still there.
The same goes for changes. A guest who needs a later time or can't make it after all shouldn't have to wait for office hours: the bot can move or cancel the game in the chat, under the same rules that apply to every other booking.
The same goes for gift cards. Someone asking “Can I buy a voucher?” in late November wants to buy it now. If the bot can sell the gift card right in the chat, the guest doesn't have to hunt for the voucher shop. Example: a guest asks for a present for a couple, the bot suggests a €50 value voucher or an experience voucher for two, and the purchase happens in the same conversation.
When a person should take over
A chatbot that never lets go is worse than no chatbot at all. Decide upfront which conversations go to your team:
- Complaints. Moving or cancelling a game under your rules is routine work for the bot, but an annoyed guest wants a person, not a script.
- Large groups and company events, where the details, the budget and a personal offer matter.
- Exceptions: a wheelchair user asking about a specific room, a group that wants to bring a cake, a special request for a birthday.
- Anything the bot isn't sure about. “I'll pass this on to the team” is a perfectly good answer.
The simplest signal is the guest: when someone asks for a person, the conversation should go to your team straight away. The handover only works if someone actually picks it up. Make sure these conversations land where your team already works, and agree who looks at them and when.
Don't pretend the chatbot is a member of staff. Let it introduce itself as an assistant, so guests know what they're talking to and still get a quick answer. For anything outside your rules – a price for a big group, a goodwill refund, an exception – the bot should hand over to a person.
Keeping the answers honest
AI can sound confident even when it's wrong. You can reduce that risk a lot with a few habits:
- Let prices and free times come from the system, never from a text you typed once.
- Tell the bot to say “I don't know” and offer the handover instead of guessing.
- Test it yourself: ask the ten most common questions the way a guest would, including the awkward ones, and read the answers carefully.
- Repeat that test after every change to your prices, rooms or opening hours.
Measure which questions come up
A chatbot is also a free research tool. Every conversation tells you what guests didn't find on your website. Read through the conversations regularly, at least in the first weeks, and look for patterns:
- If many guests ask about parking, put the parking information on your booking page.
- If people keep asking whether a room is scary, add a short note on intensity to the room description.
- If a question keeps going to the team, write the answer down so the bot can handle it next time.
- If the bot gets something wrong, fix the underlying fact, not just the one conversation.
Over time the list of questions gets shorter, your website gets clearer, and your team gets back the minutes that went into typing the same answer for the hundredth time.
In Leisbase, the AI chatbot runs on your own website and knows your games, prices and free times from the booking system. It books, moves and cancels games right in the chat: guests pay on site, or choose “Pay and confirm”, which holds the slot while they pay online. It also sells gift cards in the chat and hands the conversation over to your team when the guest asks for a person. All conversations land in the inbox, so you can see what guests ask and step in at any time.
