I am about to move into my new apartment, which is a pain in Zurich as in any major city on the planet. Which is why I am not a big fan of cities. But the place is beautiful and I got it absolutely hustle free thanks to some friendly help. It suits my family needs perfectly. At least as far as I can see, because I've never visited it. How come? Well, I was never invited by the manager.

Let’s start from the beginning. And this is where I would like to convert this story from a conversation about me moving into new apartments to something we can use to learn. 

Here we go:

January, 2023. I applied for apartments. Place is available only in April. Fine, matches my plans.

January, 2023. My application is submitted but I need to provide a ton of documents. For all of them there is no description or image which shows what is expected. No instruction. No steps. Just a form with a bunch of fields. I can send all or nothing. There is no process. There is no way to ask any question.

January, 2023. With some creative hacks I managed to send an application and it got accepted.

January, 2023. Few days later I'm getting a letter with an agreement to sign and some additional instructions. I have a bad habit of carefully reading documents I'm about to sign. As a result, I'm sending back an email asking to fix the contract because there is no rental deposit amount specified there. There is a line saying I have to pay. There is an empty space and a placeholder. But the amount is not specified. It has to be. But it is just not there: " CHF".

January, 2023. Nobody answered my email for a while. I sent a few more. Silence.

January, 2023. At the end of the month I have to leave the country. Airplane ticket is booked. Only a bunch of days left. But I finally got an answer. Yes, this is a mistake. Agreement will be fixed and sent back to you. Good.

January, 2023. Days are passing by. No documents. After another email I'm finally getting my papers. Correct and signed from another side this time. Cool. It takes me one day to validate it, sign and send it back. Literally the next day I'm flying out of the country. Just in time!

February, 2023. I'm back. Living in a flat I got in between February and March.

March, 2023. Request for a rental deposit arrives to me. It takes me 3 days to fulfill the request. Immediately after it I'm sending an e-mail which contains a rental deposit account statement. I also took a chance and asked a couple of questions. When is it possible to see my apartments? Is it possible to have a plan with measurements specified? Is it possible to list what I should expect there (kitchen equipment, bathroom equipment, etc)?

March, 2023. Couple of days later the manager answered and asked me to provide... a rental deposit account statement. Again. It was attached to my original email, bro. But fine. I did it again. In addition I also attached a money transfer statement for the transaction, just in case. Answers to my questions are as follows: plan is attached (yay!), list of equipment is not available (wait, what, why?!) and to make a visit, please, schedule it with the current tenant, here is a phone number. Obviously, I'm not calling a guy living there to pay him a visit. Right? I mean... He lives there. Why should he be giving me some excursion? How do you imagine it? Fine, at least I have a plan now. But I have no idea what will be provided and what I should buy. Cool. I’ll wait until a handover. In my answer I just asked if apartments are going to be ready for me to move in on April 1st. Simple question.

March, 2023. It takes a while to get an answer. In the end I got an email. Manager is asking me to provide... a rental deposit account statement. For the third time? Well, looks like we have a communication problem here. So, I ask my German speaking colleague to help me out a bit. Also the response doesn't contain a specific answer to my question. Honestly speaking, it doesn’t contain any answer.

March, 2023. After a few back and forth emails in German it is still unclear if it'll be possible to move in on April 1st. The best we managed to get is "painter will look into it and estimate next week". Beginning of my rental contract is April 1st. End of my previous rental contract is April 1st as well. What the hell is that?

March, 2023. We finally got a handover date: March 31st. Our last email in this thread says: "Please, notify us in advance if it won't be possible to move in on April 1st". No answer. Fine.

March, 2023. Invoice for April arrived. I paid it in 3 days.

March, 2023. One week before April 1st. I'm sending an email saying that I paid my invoice and all is great, but I have never visited apartments, so it would be nice to have some instructions and a phone number to call in case of any problems. Is everything prepared?

March, 2023. No answer for a few days.

March, 2023. One day before the handover date I'm getting an email which says that the manager will call me later on during the day.

March, 2023. Manager called me. He said that sadly because of the previous tenant it was not possible to paint everything in time. And asked if it is possible to do the painting on April 1st. It is this Saturday. Beginning of my rental contract is April 1st. End of my previous rental contract is April 1st as well. But who cares, right? Well, I had to move in! But what choice do I have? Fine.

March, 2023. I followed up our conversation with a bunch of questions. When specifically will the painter arrive? How much time will it take him to do the job? How much time will it take to dry up? Will it be possible for me to move my belongings in? Am I paying a full price for a flat which is clearly not ready? Why was it not possible to notify me in advance about the delay? Can I expect any other surprises during the handover meeting or they did a full check with the previous tenant already?

March, 2023. No answer during the second part of the day. Tomorrow at 5pm we have a handover meeting. Let's see.

What can I say here? How could it have been solved and improved? My answer is always the same: train your team, automate things as much as possible, provide information in the form of web services, implement automated reminders and make it possible to reach out to customer support in a few minutes. Do not forget to constantly ask for feedback. 

Yes, I know, at the moment the market can be on your side. Why bother? Well, eventually someone will do a better job than you. Or you will collect enough mistakes to break no matter the size. And your failure is going to be your own doing. Remember the Credit Suisse story. They were a good and a big bank for most of their 100+ years history. Until they failed.