I took my wedding dress to be cleaned at Tide Dry Cleaners in Mason, OH, but I will never be going there again. Ted (the store manager and person who cleans wedding dresses) assured me that my dress would be finished by June 25th since he was leaving for vacation on June 26th. They would call me when my dress was complete.
After receiving no calls, I called on June 26th to see if my dress was done. Not only was it not done, but it had not even been touched since I dropped it off on June 11th. The girl who was at the computer said that they had a different pick-up day in the computer (which was odd since my take-home slip clearly stated June 25th). She said that Ted was the only person who handled wedding dresses. They could send it off to another store but it would take longer to be finished so she suggested that I wait for Ted to come back from vacation and assured me it would be done by July 16th. I was upset about the delay (especially since I was planning on selling the dress and had now lost several customers who weren't willing to wait. But I understood that sometimes computers can go awry).
I came into the store on July 16th to pick up my dress. The person at the counter found my account on the computer and said that the computer matched my pick-up date. However, my dress had STILL not been touched by Ted. In fact, when they went to retrieve it they couldn't find it and the description in the computer for my dress said it was "solid blue" when my dress was "ivory". They gave me Ted's cell phone number and I called him right away. He assured me that my dress was there because he had seen it, but they had done a tour for P&G earlier that day and things had been moved around. He did admit to not getting to my dress, but didn't offer any explanation as to why. He told me that he would call me the next day (July 17th) to let me know that he had found my dress. He said he would give me 50% off of my dress for my trouble. He also assured me that he would be able to have it cleaned for me by Friday (July 18th) because it was a really slow week. In fact, he said "It was so slow today that I left work early and I'm actually on my way to golf". Now, I'm not sure why a store manager who is the only one in charge of wedding dress cleaning, would NOT 1.) Have a dress cleaned on the promised date 2.) inform the customer that the item was not finished before they drove out of their way to pick it up 3.) leave work early when an item still needed to be done.
As promised, Ted called on Thursday and left me a voicemail to assure me that he had my dress in his hands and told me to come anytime after 3pm on Friday to take a look at it and if I was satisfied I could take it home. On Friday, I left work early to pick up my dress so that I would have enough time to have a face-to-face discussion with Ted (his office hours are until 6pm). When I arrived at 3:15pm, Ted was not there. He had left work early again. I took a look at my dress and there was still visible mud streaks on the outside train, but of course I couldn't point them out to Ted because he was not there. I tried calling his cellphone, but it went straight to voicemail. The staff told me they would have Ted give me a call right away when he came in on Monday morning.
Monday morning comes around and still no call.
I called Ted myself at my lunch break. He didn't remember who I was or which wedding dress I was calling about. When I told him how shocked I was that he did not stay on Friday to consult with me about my dress he didn't seem to think anything was wrong with his behavior. I recapped the whole story starting from June 11th and he finally admitted that he was in the wrong. I tried to describe where the stains were over the phone, which took some time. He said he would work on getting them out and that I could come back again that afternoon. He was going to leave early again, but I told him that it was not possible for me to leave work early for a 2nd time. He finally acquiesced to stay at the store until I got there.
When I arrived, Ted took me to a back room so he could show me my dress in a clean environment without the bag on, which I greatly appreciated. He said that he usually does this for every wedding dress and he wasn't sure why he decided to leave on Friday and he was sincerely apologetic. He told me that if I had cash he would be willing to give me the dress for $25. I said I only had credit card so he was going to charge me $30 for it. He then proceeded to tell me that since I didn't have my dress pressed (that's the longest and most time consuming part of the process), that he was actually breaking even at $25. Originally I was happy to pay $95 for professional service, but I wouldn't willingly pay ANY money for the type of service I actually received with this company. I still trust P&G, but I will never recommend anyone to the Mason store as long as Ted is still managing read more