Ryan Cook

Review of Custom Air Conditioning and He...

A representative named Scott came into our workpla...

A representative named Scott came into our workplace to fix an HVAC unit that wasn't working properly. We work with adults with developmental disabilities and we have a trained service dog that works with our individuals in our facility. Upon entering our building and seeing the dog, Scott aggressively ordered our staff who were in the middle of working with our individuals to "remove the dog and secure it in another room". Our staff complied and went to inform me as I am one of the owners and happened to be at that location at the time. I went to find Scott to talk to him to explain that our dog is a working service dog and needs to be with the individuals, in the process I received an important work call that I had to take. I had the service dog with me at the time in a room separate from the Scott. Scott walked over to the doorway from the other room and yelled in at me while I was on the work call, "That dog needs to be secured somewhere!". I yelled back that I was on a work call and I would speak to him in a minute. After my work call I called his supervisor, Randy, to express my concerns for the lack of professionalism that Scott displayed and to let him know how disruptive he was being. I also explained that Service Dogs legally can be where they need to be, especially in our place of business and that a representative from Custom Air should not be coming into our place of business and dictating to us how to handle our Service Dog, especially in the manner in which he did. Randy's response was, "I don't know what the difference is between a regular dog and a Service Dog" and said he would address the situation. I asked that he follow up with me after he did so.
Randy's idea of handling the situation was to talk to Scott on the phone. Randy called me back and literally told me that he handled it by telling Scott, "to be nice." Scott came back into the building to give me the estimate and never once apologized for his behavior.
Very disappointed at the lack of professionalism and the level of disruption company caused at our organization. Hopefully the owner, Pat Halaiko, still is involved with his company and addresses these employees properly.
UPDATE: Pat called me the next day and assured me that the issue would be addressed. He is going to train is staff on Service Dogs and how to handle those situations moving forward. I appreciate that he takes customer service so seriously. I feel confident that he will work with his staff to make sure it is better moving forward. We will use them again.