Most for-profit skateparks understand that a significant part of their money comes from younger kids. These kids are brought to the park by the parents or the neighbor and these adults need to be pleased in order to get them back. Finding out what parents looking for in a skatepark isn't rocket science, and if you really want to know, ask them. Here are a few things that parents expressed to me wanting for their children.
1. Safe and clean- I talked with one park owner who said he never swept the course. Parents want a safe clean environment for their kids. When they come into the park they want to be able to watch their kid, understand that someone else is looking out for their safety, and not sit in a trashed place. True, kids are tough on things, but this has to be part of what you are offering to the parents, a clean environment. If you go to kid friendly places like those inflatable bounce houses or Chuck-E-Cheese's you see that the place is clean, orderly, not so comfy (easy to clean is often not comfortable), with people around to offer service. This is a big cost of their business, keeping the place clean and staffed, but this is why parents go. The bathrooms are clean too, and when a person comes in to your park, expect the bathrooms to be a selling point too especially if you are selling lots of soda and the people are there for several hours. Don't cheap-out on maintenance of your bathrooms. Having a chart of cleaning can be a good way of looking at this (freeing up someone on weekends and busy vacation time is a good idea). Safe and clean also refers to the way the place looks. With bikes and boards bumping things, you might need to paint more frequently. Putting plastic lumber up could be a way to keep the wooded areas from fraying. You can also get sheets of plastic from farmtek.com that are used to keep horses from destroying their stalls. If a horse has a hard time kicking through this stuff, a deck or bike will too. Small strips of this attached to key parts of waiting areas and ramp railings can keep your park looking good. Sometimes older skaters smoke too. If they do, don't let them hang in front of your door, designate a place to smoke that isn't the first thing that parents see when they come in. In addition make sure that you inspect the parking lot frequently. Sometimes people litter, and your lot can look really crappy quick. Again, with older skaters, alcohol bottles sometimes are left in your lot as these skaters don't feel like driving around with empties in their car. Clearly stating "no alcohol" is one deterrent, but in the end, you have to make sure that your lot is clean.
Safe is also a matter of controlling flow. If your park is too packed, value for the customer suffers. Consider limits per session. Make sure too that if you have people together, big people aren't bulling their way through. Code of conduct is printed on the back of lift tickets to deal with aggressive skiing and address the idea that maybe everyone isn't as considerate of others as they need to be to prevent injury. So posting a "code" can help remind people that you care and help you have conversations with some of the riders. Keeping little kids safe can also mean having a "grom" or little kid session so that parents know that these kids have only little kids around them. Public parks don't offer this, and it could be a real selling point for you.
2. Affordable. Not all parents are pinching pennies, but with multiple kids in a family, it becomes expensive quick to bring the family to the park. Family membership rates is a start, loyalty punch cards, sibling discounts, car-load discounts on slower days, packages (lesson plus...), etc can help. Don't give away the park by any means, but look at your pricing compared to other things the people can do. Baby sitters (sometimes we feel like them don't we), go for $6-10 per hour, movies are $12+ now-a-days, lift tickets for skiing are $50+, entrance to bounce houses are $8+ depending on location. Given this, ask yourself, how often do you need to get families in, how do you get the most from the kids that come too? I have written about other ways of generating income other than entrances, so refer to those posts as you look at affordability. Don't forget that you are looking at about 3% of the population, unlike movies and bounce houses, not every kid will be able or want to come to your park. But you still are competing for the attention of these kids and their parents with the other things they could be doing.
3. Service. Parents want the special things that a private park offers like supervision, answering questions via the phone and email, having people there for parties and lessons, having med kits, food, equipment, rental helmets, and the like. Having a phone protocol is important, this is first face of the business. Rude, impatient phone or in-person behavior will turn off some parents. Make a clear effort to answer every email in a timely manner, as well as updating any websites, flyers, and other means of communication. Having your staff off their own phones is necessary too. Since you are paying them, they need to be working, not chatting. Quick responses to things like spills, injuries, calling to follow up with rentals, sending membership letters every month, making the place clean, making things easy for the parents is key to your service.
In the end though why not ask people to fill out a survey? See what you are doing well and where you need to improve. Survey Monkey and poll everywhere are free and paper surveys are a fine way of getting feedback from parents as they sit looking for something to do while their kids are playing.
