I have never been more disappointed in an experience in my life. . In all fairness, I never made it past the girl who answered the phone - but that's a HUGE problem, and I hope if the owners of this company read this, they do something about it.
I have heard great things about Gentle Goodbye's services and their vet, so when it came time for me to have to put my dog down, they were my first call.
My dog is incredibly sick. He has cancer and it has moved much faster than we even thought it would. For context, I lost my husband to cancer, my boyfriend now has cancer and my other dog also has cancer. So, yes - there's ALOT going on in my world, which is why I wanted to use this service for my one dog who isn't doing well because we NEEDED compassion. We NEEDED empathy. We NEEDED help.
The first lady who I walked to there was nice enough. Not overly compassionate. I told her I just wasn't sure yet so I asked what to do when we were. She told me to call back and they would get somebody out as soon as they could, but added in that since my dog has a tumor in his spleen, it could just "explode" before then and he would "bleed out" but not to worry - that wouldn't be painful.
I think I was mostly in shock by what she said - but I ignored it. I have never done this before, had no idea what to expect and remember, had referrals.
A few days later (Sunday), we woke up and the dog was in bad shape. I was upset and crying. I did not want to call them because I knew that this time, I would have no choice but to make the appointment. You have to understand how hard this phone call was to make.
I almost could not bear doing it because to me, it felt like scheduling his execution.
This time, somebody named "Jamie" answered the phone. I was still crying and probably not super easy to understand but I noticed her irritation with me was almost instant.
I said to her, very specifically, "I am calling to SEE if there is anybody available to come out today." There was NO expectation that there would be.
When she initially said "ummmmmm", and the way she said it, I just knew there was going to be an issue. She went on to ask me if it was an "emergent" situation. I told her no and explained what was happening with him and I was still obviously crying.
Not one word from her like "I'm so sorry", or "this is so hard", nothing except a huff in her voice and the statement: "well, we usually ask for 24 hours notice so I'll just have to see" , in this extremely snippity, irritated voice like we had somehow just inconvenienced her or that we were stupid not knowing we couldn't call to SEE if it could be done same day.
She continued to speak to me like I was an idiot and that she was doing us a favor by even trying to get ahold of somebody, even after the other lady told me to call back and ask. I got tired of how she was speaking to me, we exchanged heated words and yes, I told her she was acting like a "b*tch" which just made her more rude, entitled and now a victim. She said her supervisor would call me back and it's Monday morning, and still no call.
It was VERY apparent they did not care one bit about my dog and made him wait HOURS until I realized they weren't going to call me back. Only awful people do that. I tried calling back, was sent to voicemail (guessing they have caller ID) and somebody called me from a blocked number, rang once and hung up. Not sure if it was them but they didn't give enough time to answer and didn't leave a VM.
I have seen other people leave negative reviews and the owners responses, which mostly put the blame back on the reviewers so I don't expect any kind of different response but
when you do your training, your receptionists need to know that by the time somebody calls for their services, they're tired. Guilt ridden. Incredibly sad. And typically the phone call is not easy.
Please, for God's sake, don't make it harder. And please, Jamie, find a job that doesn't require sympathy or empathy or any kind of human emotion. If your job is to simply schedule, maybe somebody else can do the talking. read more