On the initial sign-up Monster Plowing pours it on super thick with their promises and how fantastic they are. Met George, the manager on-site and he does a great job marketing their services and reputability. They are very organized in terms of their contracts, billing and updating their customers on storms and snowfalls and even give their customers warming gifts of socks and trinkets on signing which is a nice touch and that's the only reason I gave the company 2 stars instead of 0. All the praise talk, little trinket gifts and excitement of having this new company join our team came to an abrupt end when we had a chance to observe how they functioned as a company once the snow actually started to fall. Since this was a multi-residential property, if snow isn't plowed, tenants issue complaints and rightfully so if they can't get out of their parking spot to go to work or find it's full of snow on their return.
We went with the priority package which supposedly gave us priority. But when it came to communicating and addressing issues relating to the actual plowing itself, this company and their President Mikhail are possibly the worst I've seen in the 20 years I've been managing snow removal on this property. Monster is all enthusiastic at the beginning of the season, arriving to plow when practically no snow is on the ground, but when the going gets tough and it's 10+ cm, they are atrocious. Leaving large trails of snow which would later freeze solid and we would manually have to remove them ourselves. They would leave complete parking spaces (that had ample room for plowing) clearly unplowed. They would also come for ONLY one visit regardless if it's 10cm or 40cm. You can imagine what kind of snow builds up with a 20-40cm snow fall throughout the day/night which is impossible to address in one visit, yet this is how this company functions.
Emails would go out on storm days stating their workers could not physically be out long because of the cold and when we addressed issues relating to one snow fall of 40cm, Mikhail's response was:
"The city is in pieces, with this event bordering on a natural disaster. Our staff are all only human, and get tired. They need to not kill anyone or themselves while driving around during a blizzard. Its snowed an entire year of snow in the past two weeks. Obviously everyone is exhausted and wide-eyed. We are not Walmart, you're dealing with a locally owned company who is trying to make the best of a survival mode situation."
It seemed that their crew was not cut out for large snow falls since they use very few plow operators to save money and consequently any burden placed upon them by customers for lack of contractual obligations was met with fury and anger as they were doing the "best they could" and that meant not performing duties at even the basic level such as plowing parking spaces.
When we approached Monster on multiple occasions to resolve the problems, the President Mikhail himself would respond showing this company is not very large and after we researched and investigated we found that the company primarily consists of 3 people, Mikhail the President, George the Manager and a senior plowing operator (who was our snow plow operator) and all three of these individuals are posing for a consumer choice award on their MonsterPlow dot ca website on their "About" page. These appear to be the three primary players in this company handling the majority of the workload. How this company could obtain a consumer choice award is difficult to fathom considering their extremely poor workmanship as a City Wide snow plow operator.
Communication was through email mostly so everything was documented and they refused in person meetings. When issues were in need of addressing, customer service was ridiculous. We requested onsite discussion to rectify issues with George the manager, but we could never speak with him again. All communication that needed escalation would only be addressed through email and usually went straight to Mikhail. When we forwarded our complaints in January (keep in mind this is January 2019) Mikhail stated:
"We can discuss next September if you'd like to sign up again with us next year. At this time, most snow removal companies aren't even responding to emails. Please be thankful you have us on your side. If you don't like the service, you are free to cancel as per the Termination clause in your agreeement.....Finally, at this point in the winter, let's all just get along, and hopefully you can get into a headspace where you are content with the amazing service your property is receiving despite the insane weather over the course of the past few weeks. It would be great if you would save your complaints politely for when we actually do something wrong. If you are not satisfied, next year you can find another contractor."
The amazing service was not amazing at all. Their version of amazing was leaving snow in parking spaces. Our responses to Mikhail were always very polite and professional and each time we were met with antagonism, refuting our claims, praising their operators and service despite all the security footage we showed them with very obvious signs that the operator was not plowing spaces or leaving trails of snow all of over the place. We hoped Monster Plowing, as a highly touted and reputable company (award winning actually) would be open to feedback and ways to improve service and customer relationships rather than emphasizing a cancellation clause. When we brought up the heavy trail lines of snow left by the operator the response by Mikhail was:
"I don't understand why some lines on a parking lot require a meeting, when there was 40 CMs of snow that fell alst night? We've gotten about 5000 calls in the alst 2 days, and another 5000 emails for people in this city asking us for service....the bottom line is, that in this business, it really pays to play nice with your contractor. You can catch a lot more flies with honey, as they say.."
This is the president. Not a random employee or some customer service agent responding who has no best interest in maintaining a service agreement. This was our first year and relationship with this company and these are the kinds of responses we were met with multiple times from the President of the company himself. There was an outright refusal to address any problems we had with the actual snow plowing operation, denying any problems at all and instead always attempting to suggest we cancel or go elsewhere. And this was January in the middle of winter. These statements from Mikhail show what kind of mindset this company has when customers with legitimate issues relating to contractual obligations are highlighted.
Should there be any dispute of the above, we can provide security footage, and documented emails with all of the evidence to support the above. I don't know how this company functions for home residential, but I would never ever recommend Monster to anybody for any service relating to snow removal due its less than satisfactory workmanship by senior snow plow operators and the President's extremely poor communication skills to resolve and expeditiously address customer complaints.
Please pass on this company if you are considering a reputable, customer friendly and efficient snow plow operator. There are much better and cheaper alternatives with a lot less headaches and stress from companies who actually care about engaging in a more amicable fashion with their customers.
