“We’re not #1… YOU are!”
“Others promise … we perform!”
“We put people before money”
Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? These are the things that customers hunger to hear… but what happens when a problem arises, something goes wrong and you find yourself faced with … one of your own slogans?! Honoring these statements of “our way of doing things” in fair weather is easy, but when the unpredictable storms of life arrive and you make a mistake it can get really tough to keep your word. What do you do when it is time to “walk your talk” ?
What does Red Roof Rentals do when troubles arrive?
The following actually happened to us recently. We pride ourselves at excelling at tenant screening and we actually are quite good at it… but last spring an error in judgment was made and we ended up with a non-paying slacker in one of our properties who stopped paying rent and vacated! The carpets needed replacing and repainting the interior was required… oh, and did I tell you it needed a deep cleaning? Disturbed by all this, we reviewed the tenant’s application and discovered the tenant was someone who never should have been approved. In a nut shell, the owners felt stuck with someone else’s mess!
Sure, you say… “Everyone makes a mistake. No one bats 1,000! You swung and you missed. It happens. But these words bring no comfort to an owner facing thousands of dollars in repairs because their property manager made an error. That’s just not right.
So what should be done?
Well, as the owner of Red Roof Rentals, here is what I say :
If what happened isn’t right, then try to make it right… as much as you can!
If you can’t heal the wound then at least try to take the sting out of it.
And that is what we did… we joined the owner in paying for the necessary repairs. We took the sting out.
We are pleased to say that this kind of situation doesn’t happen often to us at Red Roof Rentals. But when it does happen, it is our intent to:
- Take responsibility for our part in the problem
- Admit our mistakes and then do our best to
- Make things right – in this case with an unhappy owner
We really do believe that relationships are just as important as making money, and ironically, when you focus on relationships first in business, the money will come.
Building relationships is the right thing to do, and that is what this management company is all about.