Recently we had a very poor experience with our local dry cleaners — poor enough that we have stopped using them after years of patronage.

My wife took my daughter to have a dress altered for her Grade 8 graduation formal. A little tuck on each side.

When my wife picked up the dress she was told this small alteration was $50.00 — much higher than she was led to believe when she dropped it off. The owner indicated that he would adjust the price accordingly. However, the entire time my wife was in the shop, no explanation for the increase was offered — in fact, the seamstress didn’t even acknowledge her.

When my daughter tried on the dress we discovered it was significantly too small. The zipper would no longer close by approx 4 inches.

At this point, my wife was very upset and my daughter almost in tears because she thought the dress which we had purchased in Florida during March Break for her special evening was ruined.

After my wife’s poor experience, I decided to take my daughter and the dress back to the Dry Cleaners to address the situation. When we arrived the seamstress had left for the day, but we were able to speak to the owner who apologized and assured my daughter that she would have her dress for the evening — even if it meant they had to purchase another one. He readily agreed that the alterations were incorrect and he requested that I bring my daughter back with the dress when the seamstress was there and he would personally see that the appropriate alterations would be made.

When we returned, we had the dress marked and altered by the seamstress and my daughter was able to wear the dress to her formal — however, the seams down the side were now off-centre because the material that was cut from the initial alterations needed to be “found” by pulling some of the pleating from the front of the dress.

In the end my daughter’s dress was saved, but my wife and I were not interested in returning because of the poor treatment by the seamstress and we have never been back to the Dry Cleaners.

Some key elements were;

• the owner immediately apologised and assured us that the situation would be resolved
• the seamstress did not offer a sincere apology
• there was no offer to compensate us for our inconvenience (5 visits vs. 2)
• the Owner admitted that the seamstress was not an employee (I assume she rented space) and therefore there wasn’t much he could do about her attitude
• every employee or contractor counts towards your impression

My Perspective: Because “everything counts” you must be careful about your associations. In this case the Dry Cleaner had allowed someone who didn’t share their values to impact on their customers. Resultant, her poor attitude ended a relationship the owners had worked hard to nurture. When we had such a bad experience — even when it wasn’t their core business — we never returned.