The 7 Cs to customer service: Concern, competence, courtesy, commitment, composure, consistency and creativity. The Woodlands checks off none of these.

In today's era, we find that customer service has lost its value and true meaning within businesses. Perhaps we have become too comfortable in regards to business competition. The Woodlands, being one of the cheapest places to live in Tuscaloosa, has no competition. Because of this, The Woodlands struggles in providing quality customer service.

After checking into the Woodlands of Tuscaloosa, I went to see the apartment they gave me. Shocked doesn't even begin to describe my reaction to what I saw. I saw dead bugs all over the apartment, trash everywhere, and broken appliances all throughout the apartment. When I walked into my bathroom, I saw mold all over the bathtub and sink. As a precaution, my mother likes to check for bed bugs everywhere we go. As she checked under the couch cushions, she discovered BED BUGS.

After finding fully grown adult size bed bugs in between the couch cushions, my mother immediately put the bed bugs on a piece of paper and took it to show the manager. The manager confirmed that they did not fumigate the apartment or check for bed bugs. After demanding my roommate and I be placed in an apartment with acceptable living conditions, they started looking for apartments that were available — I know, we had to DEMAND a new apartment.

When I came to see if the Woodlands was where I wanted to live, they showed me a clean and non-broken apartment. You can imagine my disappointment when I saw the disgusting apartment they gave me

After 8 hours of waiting, they had a list of open apartments for my roommate and I. Every apartment that was shown consisted of more dead bugs and more broken appliances. One of the apartments had girls' THONGS and empty BEER cans all over the main floor.

I was in shock that these were the kind of apartments that the Woodlands were offering me.

Unfortunately, I was still not given an apartment with acceptable living conditions. To start, nothing in my bathroom worked. When I tried to turn on the shower, the shower head sprayed everywhere — probably because it was taped together. The shower drain was broke as well and the bathtub leaked water all over the floor, resulting in the entire bathroom flooding. Aside from my bathtub being completely broken, all of my drawers were broke — probably because the Woodlands super glues their drawers when they are broke! In the kitchen, nothing worked. The refrigerator leaked all over the main floor, the stove was broke and the dishwasher was broke. None of the lights worked and the leather couch contained numerous rips in the cushions.

When I voiced my concerns for everything being broke in my apartment and not being able to shower, the Woodlands made it VERY clear that "there are other people who didn't even receive beds or a bed frame, your problems with your apartment will have to wait." They completely lacked concern.

After a few days, one of the broken drawers fell and broke my toe. After that, I started calling the Woodlands every day for them to come fix my apartment. Again, no one came. I started to call the Woodlands staff three times a day asking when maintenance was going to fix my apartment. Finally, after a week, someone came to fix everything. I was extremely disappointed to discover that all the maintenance guy did, was tape over the old tape for my shower head and super glued the already failed super glue attempted drawer.

When I talked with the manager of the Woodlands, she gave nothing but excuses for the apartments that they tried to give me/did give me. She felt that it was okay that those were the kind of apartments that the Woodlands provided people with. "Dead bugs are normal," she said. The manager lacks composure in regards to telling her what your issues are. She becomes defensive and upset, resulting in her giving excuses for the issues being presented before her. "Broken things are normal," she said.

The Woodlands staff is incompliant and lacks courtesy. When I come to the staff with a question or concern, I ALWAYS receive nothing but attitude and rudeness — I learned this very well when I came to them with my issues I had with my apartment. When you ask the staff a question, they never know the answer, they lack competence. People demand competence. They deserve it.

Commitment is automatically out of the question for the Woodlands of Tuscaloosa. Clearly the Woodlands is not trying to be the best apartment complex in Tuscaloosa, clearly they don't care at all. They are not willing to commit and dedicate themselves to being the very best.

The most successful businesses are creative. If they have a challenge, they overcome it by being creative. The Woodlands is not creative. If you have a problem, you fix it yourself.

If I were to give the Woodlands of Tuscaloosa a rating, it would be zero stars. I definitely do NOT recommend anyone to live here, especially freshman who are looking for their first apartment to live in for the next year.

One of the many dead bugs that were found.

Oh, look, another dead bug.

This is what a normal drawer looked like. Dead bugs and dead bug legs all inside — yummy.

These were the bed bugs we found.

And this is where we found the bed bugs!