Excellent customer service refers to how a business reacts and interfaces with patrons on all…read moreoccasions, not just when things are going well. I had a negative experience at SPRFC (mainly beyond their control) and the follow on interaction I experienced was less than excellent customer service.
I've been a non-member patron recently, taking swimming lessons through and at SPRF on Saturday afternoons. During my lesson on July 8th, someone entered the men's locker room off the pool area, shimmied my lock, and stole my wallet (including my military retiree ID, my government civilian ID, my drivers license, a credit card and about $50 cash), my phone, and my car's key fob. So they had all my identification, access to my car, and knew my home address.
There was no one in a management position on site. The front desk clerk allowed me to use the phone behind the desk to call the police and to call home for someone to bring me my backup key fob (thankfully the car was not entered or stolen). While I was making these calls, the front desk employee texted her "manager". The manager told her she would be able to look at the video in the pool area in about an hour. I provided the employee my name and phone number when she said her manager asked for it. The responding officers talked to the employee (and maybe the manager) while I was out of earshot. The officers informed me they had inquired about video. The manager didn't ask to speak to me nor did she reach out to me.
I called SPRFC twice in the following days to see if the manager/Director of Operations was available. During the first call on Monday, I spoke to Chloe, who was aware of the theft and apologized for it occurring. She said the manager was unavailable and she would text her that I had called, asking for a callback. On Wednesday, having not received a call, I tried again. Chloe answered once again and when I asked if the manager was in, she responded, "she hasn't called you yet? I'm sorry" and then she said she would send another message.
That night, still not having heard from anyone in a management level, I sent the Director of Operations an email. I admit I was frustrated. I said the claims of excellent customer service were not evident in my situation and I asked what the process to cancel swim lessons would be since I had a real concern about people having unfettered access to the locker room while I'd be concentrating on my lesson. Prior to the Director of Operations reading my email on Thursday, she finally called. I was unable to answer, and she left a voicemail. She apologized for what happened and said they had found video suspicious footage of someone going in and out of the locker room during he timeframe, and she said it would take so time for that footage to be pulled. She suggested that I contact the police (she had the case number and the phone number to contact) and let them know that SPRFC had footage that would take several days into next week before they could pull the footage off. Then she said when they do get it pulled off she would contact me so I could contact the police.
Then she read my email which she didn't like me pointing out that I had not received excellent customer service. She said they take things like this issue very seriously and that it takes awhile to review the video. She said she was in for a bit on Monday but had to leave for an emergency and was back in the office on Wednesday, when she reviewed four hours of footage "for me". (The provided timeframe was from 11:55Am - 1:00PM, so I'm not sure why four hours of video needed to be reviewed.) She told me SPRFC was not responsible for anything I put in the locker. I agree with that...that's why I put a lock on the locker, and I understand I'm still doing this at my own risk. She said she thinks their customer service is excellent and that she was upset to read my email claiming it wasn't. And she said she will not release the videos "at all now until I m contacted by the police". She ended by saying she wished I had been a little nicer in how I reached out.
All I wanted was for someone in a position of authority to reach out in a timely manner. She had several opportunities to talk to me...Saturday just after the incident, Monday when she arrived at work, some time on Wednesday...I didn't plan to blame them for the theft...I wanted to discuss how easily it is for anyone to get into the pool area, especially on Saturday and Sunday when there are so many lessons going on, without any kind of security measures in place besides passive security video, and see if there could be any assurances of tightening up security measures so I'd be comfortable enough to continue lessons there. This time it was just a theft...hopefully SPRFC will institute some measures so nothing like this, or worse, happens again.
