Before I start, THIS IS NOT ABOUT MONEY…read more
Pawville has changed, but necessarily for the better. New owners mean new rules, which is fine, but their communication is seriously lacking.
After dealing with this place for well over a year, I've learned that you must ask the staff questions (and lots of them) to find out exactly what is included and what isn't when you pay for boarding and/or daycare. That might sound like an obvious statement, and we asked several questions when we first started bringing our dog here based on previous experiences. But when customers deal with a business for a while, they get used to the service. So, when the business decides to make some pretty significant changes to that service, is a customer being unreasonable for asking those changes to be communicated the next time they call in?
According to Pawville, the answer is YES.
My issue was that boarded dogs get barely any playtime now unless you pay extra. I didn't know this when we took him in. I only found out when I was picking him up because I overheard another customer discussing the same issue with the front desk associate.
I'll add that we have no problem paying the extra fee. My issue is that this was not communicated to me, and as a result, our dog ended up being locked away in a room with little playtime for three days.
When I talked to the manager later (Kat), she stated that daycare had been included previously with boarding because she was trying to keep customers. This is why I thought it was included in our fee. Then, she apologized and offered two free half-days of daycare. That would have been great if she hadn't followed up her apology by repeatedly insinuating it was my fault for not reading their website closely enough (we called to make the reservation, so we didn't see anything they posted at the front desk) I checked, and they do mention the change on the homepage. However, they don't explain how little "complimentary playtime" actually is. To save you the effort, I'll tell you: 15-30 minutes a day.
For a business that probably relies on repeat customers, Pawville's business strategy is pretty lousy. They have lots of 5-star reviews--for now--but if this is how they operate, that will change.
