Upon returning to my home Sunday with my two week old newborn, my husband and I were greeted most abruptly at the door to our tower from the garage. Shouting through the speaker at us was a woman from security, "Stuart, you better move your car outta here in the next five minutes, or I'm having it towed!!!" Mind you, it's close to midnight, and after two weeks of nighttime feedings, we both found ourselves a bit confused.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Stuart, you are not allowed to park here. You gonna need to move that car or we gonna have it towed."
"What do you mean I can't park my car here? I just got a sticker for it last month."
"You come up red in our system, so you gonna have to move it."
After this pointless conversation circled around a few more times, we had asked why and who had flagged me as being a criminal in my own apartment, but to no avail. Exacerbated and frustrated, we told them to go ahead and tow the car if they saw fit, and if they'd like to resolve the situation, they could adddress us at our apartment. This of course was not good enough for their inferiority complex, for the need to be right in the situation outweighed the need for exercising good customer service skills or guest relations. We were then told in no way could they be bothered to fix the problem at our home, that we needed to come to them to correct their mistakes. So, wanting to resolve the issue, we obliged. When we came to tower 3 where the security office is located, they doubled down on the power trip by announcing over the intercom that we were to press #500 for entry, as if it was impossible to buzz us in otherwise. Mind you, we are doing this with a newborn, at midnight, and who will soon need to be fed. Upon conferring with security, they had no tools to correct the situation. They couldn't answer why I had been flagged in the system, who flagged me, or when. Nor could they answer what that had to do with my wife's car who has been in the system for the past 4 years. Unprofessional and utterly useless, the conversation was like talking to a wall. "Uh, the system, uh red, no park." Like talking to a caveman. I've been in hospitality for over 20 years, and if you recorded any of the interactions, I would save them for a training video on how not to do your job properly. Since you are the ones training them, and have failed so miserably, let me walk you through the interaction:
"Good Evening, Mr. Byers"
(Not informal address by my first name, you don't know me, show some goddamn respect.)
"Mr. Byers, I'm so sorry to bother you this late in the evening, but my system is showing a discrepancy here that we may need to address. Again, I apologize for having to do this at this hour."
"What seems to be the problem?"
"Sir, (always a good sign of respect) my system here is indicating a warning when you attempted to use your card at the gate. Let me check in with my supervisor and see why this was even annotated on your account. Again, I'm so sorry for the disruption. One moment please, if I may. Better yet, let me not keep you waiting, if I can't figure out how to solve this on my own, I will be up to your apartment shortly to resolve the matter."
And that's how you do guest relations. No immediate attack to put the guest on the defensive or on edge.
This may all stem from some other bullshit your people have been up to: last month, my card was deactivated. Why? When I went to the main office, they said that, "someone in security had said you moved out, so we deactivated your card." Excuse me, what sort of unprofessional behavior is this? Now we don't confirm with the tenant or their landlord whether they have vacated the premises, we go on heresay? What kind of joke operation are you people running here? I'm told you are a big company, how in the world do you expect to maintain this? There is always another company hungry enough to take your place. Always. If you can't be professional and interact with tenants with civility, you better believe that day will come sooner rather than later read more
