I am not in the hospitality industry but as an outsider it would mean a lot if someone seemed to genuinely care, apologize, and offer another option. Maybe offer their favorite option to have it become more of a personable/personal interaction. It would also help if they were able to understand the frustration and disappointment so long as the guest wasn’t disrespecting them as the messenger.

@Kylie Fitzgibbons well, part of my job is collecting money from contractors. One of the worst feelings is calling up a customer saying that a payment is due and either the work isn’t finished or maybe not finished to their liking. I do not have control over that aspect and if I don’t hear from sales or operations I would have no idea. In order to help with this my go to is to apologize for the call, assure them I will find out the status and call them, and most importantly actually make the call back. You’d be surprised how thankful the person can turn around when you actually make that effort. You also of course face people who just are annoyed you called for payment. My favorite thing is when people are “happy” when they have to pay their invoices and making relationships with customers so that if I call they know we are working together for the situation and I’m not the annoying CFO pressuring them for payment.