I pulled into the office parking lot excited, for the first time, about ‘Casual Friday’- but not because I was sporting ‘untorn, unfaded, properly hemmed jeans’, but because the staff would finally be. It was the early 2000’s and many companies were still making the transition to a less formal dress code. It took two years of ‘considering it’ for our company to approve it and the staff was victorious. For reasons unclear to my black-slack soul, ‘Casual Friday’ was like a gift to most employees and I was looking forward to the happy spell that only denim could cast.
Everyone in every department had been working overtime due to problems with our newest client’s move out’s. Damages, damages, and more damages to the apartments were on everyone’s lips. Bills, bills, and more bills were sent by exasperated landlords to exhausted employees who brought them to the offices of confused Managers. The VP called a meeting to say we’d be relinquishing the account and we needed an exit-strategy, immediately. The account was a large account; our largest, in fact, and the client was relocating international teams of 20-40 technology experts per month to sister companies across the US for a project that would take 3 years.
Most of the damaged items were the same in each apartment. The largest ticket items were the stoves which were completely covered in burnt, baked on food to the extent that they couldn’t be cleaned and had to be replaced. Sheetrock damage was common in the bathrooms as water was getting on the walls. Our cleaning crews were reporting that the small washcloths were assumed ‘washable toilet tissue’. It was too large a coincidence that most of the transferees damaged the apartments in identical ways. I finally got the Executive Team to abandon their frustration and share my interest in the coincidence when the VP’s assistant interrupted our meeting. Knowing we were meeting about the account, she wanted to share that the utility bills for this client’s apartments had begun to come in and they were among the highest our company had ever seen in Winter. “Ok, and that’s the last straw!”, he said, “we can’t do this anymore. No one will want our business.” He asked me and the Director of Sales to inform the client. We arranged a meeting and booked a flight for the following week. But that ‘last straw’ of coincidence kept nagging at me. I’m from the East Coast and was always surprised at how relatives that moved to Florida were so cold when they came back to visit in the Winter; like their bodies were on a different setting since they moved to a tropical temperature. I started thinking it must be hot where the transferees were from and, if that was the reason, they all kept the heat on so high, there may be common reasons why the other damages were occurring. I decided to call the Consulate for answers.
After explaining the issues, the gentleman I spoke to at the Consulate asked me to provide some last names as that could help to isolate the area of origin. He explained that the village they came from had no modern conveniences. The climate was very hot and cooking was done on an open flame grate and bathing was done with collected rainwater. People were transported to and from schools and an education in technology was a commodity for growth and opportunity.
Without cultural training, people assimilate their new environment with their old. When the flame came out of the stove, they cooked directly on the grates. Without knowing that a shower curtain protects the rest of the bathroom from water damage, they didn’t see the need to use it.
The meeting with the client, now, could have a different twist. We could go there with a solution instead of a problem. Before we were awarded the account, I recalled them asking about our move out cleaning charges. It became clear that they had likely received some nasty bills, previously, as they started these relocations with a mix of other corporate housing companies before going out to bid. I was hoping that the upset over the problem with the transferee’s would be transformed into appreciation for the consideration we gave them, and the solution we brought to the table.
The meeting went wonderful, they were apologetic for our troubles and impressed with our concern for the transferee’s experience. However, they were hesitant to speak to their international parent company and confess that they’d forgotten to consider cultural training in their bidding process. With their approval, we created a document for each of the transferees to sign dressing the needed cultural training with a cloak of ‘apartment maintenance’. They signed the document agreeing that, if damages occurred due to their failure to follow the instructions, they’d personally accept the cost as the company would not cover damages.
The document verbiage could not be obvious to the transferees that were not from this village overseas, that the document was created for the transferees that were. This posed the greatest challenge when addressing the washcloth confusion. But a warning against using washcloths as baby wipes when changing a diaper seemed to do the trick. Our housekeeping crews were especially appreciative. The problem was solved to everyone’s benefit and things went back to normal over the next weeks. (As normal as things can be in our industry.) The corporate housing business is hard. The industry is competitive. But, if you care enough about your guest’s experience, are creative and willing to have some tough discussions, you just may be able to spin a ‘last straw’ into some gold.