Disgruntled Customer. Manage Our Expectations Better.

I enquired with the Carlswald branch about how long it would take until I could collect my items, post drop off. The exact words, in the eMail response, were

“Good day, If you bring your suit in tomorrow before 9am then we can have it ready for you Wednesday morning. Regards **owner’s name deliberately omitted**”

Tuesday, at around 08:30, I dropped off the items I needed dry cleaned, with an intent to fetch them on “Wednesday Morning”—this is anytime after they open, until 11:59. Upon arrival around 10:00, it wasn’t ready. Understandably, I asked when it would be ready and they couldn’t answer with a ballpark time. Subsequently, the driver was called and he indicated that there had been maintenance issues with the machines of their service providers. Although not my problem, I exercised understanding and asked for a way forward.

A woman who claimed to be the manager then came from out back to address me. She began by telling me how the dry cleaning was done off-site and it wasn’t their fault. With her level of hostility, I told her that-that wasn’t my problem, because I had email correspondence. She walked off and further uttered, “How can **owner** say such to clients, when he doesn’t even work here.” The said manager called the driver, trying to find out what’s going on. To which she was told about the machines that were being maintained.

After this call—one I witnessed—she proceeded to tell me that she knew about the maintenance issue but hadn’t passed on the information to her subordinate. Whether or not this was true didn’t matter, it said enough to me. I couldn’t get over her level of hostility and rudeness, each time she addressed me. Then, while dealing with another customer a phone in the store was ringing off the hook, she exclaimed “Can’t this person see I’m busy!”.

During all of this, she offered to get my suit delivered. I turned her down. I wanted to leave with it. They’d failed to tell me that my collection would be delayed, why would I trust them to make the delivery when they said they would? Even though I had one example, I’d concluded that communicating well in time wasn’t sth they were good at.

I saw quite a number of customers who seemed like regulars, bring in their items. This seems like a reliable establishment, but they need to manage expectations. You can’t have customers believing one thing and then failing to deliver. I say this because the manager stated that the driver usually starts arriving from 12:30, which is passed the “Morning” the owner indicated.

Manage your expectations, and teach your manager to better deal with such instances. That’s all I ask.