When You Do Everything Right and Still Lose:

Once upon a time, I followed up on a bad Google review.

(And no, I don’t recommend what I did next.)

The site manager was off the day the review came in, so I cold-called the tenant without checking in with my manager first.

They were furious.
Not about rent.
Not about access.
About a car wash.

Here’s what actually happened:
The car wash broke less than 24 hours earlier
The manager shut it down immediately
Posted an out-of-order sign
Opened a maintenance ticket
Contacted the vendor
Vendor scheduled for the next business day

Every single step was correct.

The assistant manager explained this calmly to the tenant, who responded with:
“You’re the property manager. Go fix it.”

The problem?
This wasn’t a lightbulb or a door latch. It was a pressure washer system. Not something a site manager should be touching.

The review still went up.
The tone was still angry.
The facts didn’t matter.

Lesson learned:
Sometimes you can do everything right and still get a bad review, because things break, and expectations don’t always match reality.

Operations isn’t about preventing all complaints.

It’s about knowing when the process worked, even if the customer didn’t like the outcome.

That distinction matters, especially when coaching teams.