Somewhere along the way, streamlining COZi’s operations became one of my favorite parts of running it. Finding every friction point an operator hits — a cleaner who no-shows, a guest who checks in early, a payment that doesn’t reconcile — and quietly building a backup or a remedy for each one, until the whole thing runs without needing to lean on me constantly. That’s a genuinely satisfying kind of problem-solving, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But there’s a number every operator eventually hits where “I’ll just keep improving my own system” stops being the obvious answer, and “maybe…
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It was 3AM in December when my phone rang. A smoke alarm had gone off in one of my units. No smoke, no fire—but the guests were scared. Outside, Boston was buried in snow. Still, I threw on a jacket and went. Not to silence an alarm. To show up. To reassure. To calm an scared customer. To show that we are on top of everything. And also—to make sure everything really was okay. Because when you’re the one running the business, you’re not just calming guests. You’re also protecting the thing you’ve built. Sometimes, it’s about empathy.Sometimes, it’s about…
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Let’s get one thing straight: customer service matters. Always has, always will. I’m not here to argue with that. For years, businesses have been told to delight the customer. “Go the extra mile!”“Make them 110% satisfied!”“If they’re not happy, try again until they are.” And honestly? That’s solid advice. If you mess up, fix it. If you can do better, do better. That’s just good business. But here’s where it gets tricky. You can do everything right—reply to every message in five minutes, upgrade the room, throw in a free snack basket—and still get a 4-star review.Why? Because for some…




