Breaking the Loop: A Real Story of Ownership, Persistence, and Service

Last week, a client contacted us with a serious issue: their credit card processing was completely down. No transactions were going through. For a family-run attraction, this meant operations were effectively frozen and revenue had come to a halt.

What followed was a frustrating but all-too-familiar experience. Endless phone numbers, repeated explanations, and two separate companies passing responsibility back and forth. No one owned the issue, and no clear path to resolution was offered.

Rather than accepting that reality, I made the decision to step in and go through the process myself with one goal in mind: break the loop.

For simplicity, we’ll refer to the two vendors involved as Company A and Company B.

Before even reaching an agent at Company A, there was a recorded disclaimer stating that no offensive or foul language would be tolerated and that violations would result in immediate call disconnection. While professionalism is important, after experiencing the breakdown firsthand, it was easy to understand why emotions run high in situations like this. When a business can’t operate and revenue is on the line, frustration is a natural response. The real issue isn’t tone. It’s process. When broken workflows aren’t addressed, the burden unfairly shifts to the client.

I contacted Company A directly to understand the issue. They attempted to reach Company B but said they were unable to connect. When I tried to initiate a three-way call, that request was refused, and I was redirected back to Company B’s support team. From there, I was routed through multiple phone numbers, each claiming to be the appropriate department, yet none able to resolve the problem. Eventually, the calls landed right back where they began with Company B.

At that point, a representative from Company B (Team Member A) joined the call and clarified a critical detail: this wasn’t a small number of declined transactions. Every transaction was failing. Company B (Team Member A)agreed to stay on the line for a three-way call. Once on the line both parties had to work together. After escalating internally, a representative from Company A (Team Member C) confirmed the issue was outside their department. Meanwhile, a manager from Company B (Team Member B) worked behind the scenes to escalate the situation to the account creation team at Company A.

That escalation finally broke the loop. The issue was identified, addressed, and the account was restored.

This situation had nothing to do with Gatemaster, and technically, it wasn’t something we could fix ourselves. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that our client needed help, and they needed it now. I was determined to get the right teams working together to resolve the issue and ensure the client could get back to business.

This is a family-run operation that depends on daily revenue to support both their attraction and their livelihood. Letting this continue for another day simply wasn’t an option.

At Gatemaster, our mission is clear: we help attractions massively succeed by enhancing guest satisfaction through proven, innovative technology and legendary service. We strive to deliver on that mission not only through the systems we provide, but through the way we show up for our partners, especially when it’s inconvenient or outside our scope.

Being results-oriented means stepping in when systems fail, pushing past rigid processes when they block solutions, and taking ownership of outcomes, even when the problem isn’t ours to solve.

The most rewarding moment came at the end of the call. Hearing the relief in the Denise’s voice, she said, “Tiffany, I know you always have my back.” Denise Ralph Adventure Village 

That’s what a real partnership looks like. And that’s the standard we hold ourselves to every day at Gatemaster.

If your systems aren’t speaking the same language yet, our team can help you sync them up.