There was a segment on Good Morning America this morning that was a bit troubling to us here at Classic Cleaners. It was titled “Dry Cleaners’ Dirtiest Secrets“. Being that it’s the media’s job to awe and shock, the correspondent promised to reveal “what you should know” about your dry cleaner who may be trying to scam you and “take you to the cleaners”.
The short, two minute, ”teaser” segment this morning was to intrigue, anger, and persuade you enough to watch the full report tomorrow on 20/20 where they reveal what happens once you hand over your “precious” garments to your dry cleaner. The person who helps the correspondent reveal this “secret” information is the owner of a high end NYC dry cleaner, Jeeves, and he is very angry about “dry cleaners’ dirty secrets”.
We too are frustrated and angry when some dry cleaners cut corners and give the industry a bad name. What we didn’t like about the segment was the correspondent said this gentleman was revealing the “dirty little secrets of the industry“. That immediately gives us all a bad rap. As with any service related, customer focused industry, there are good apples and there are bad apples. The industry itself isn’t “bad”.
During this two minute teaser segment he was able to reveal the top two “secrets” of dry cleaners that are scamming customers:
#1. “Scummy solvent”. We imagine that could happen with some dry cleaners. And the correspondent does say “Some cleaners” but the way this segment is produced to scare customers and cause distrust – we think that’s “dirty”. We assure you, we use clean, clear solvent with every load. No “dirty bath water” at Classic Cleaners.
#2. “Jerk revenge”. Really? He states he’s heard that if a customer is a “jerk” some cleaners will pretend to clean your clothing. For us, that’s crazy. We’ve encountered all types of personality types but at the end of the day, the quality of our work and our reputation is all that matters. We know that one dissatisfied customer is going to tell ten times the people about his/her experience than a satisfied customer. We would NEVER do such an unethical thing such as this.
In fairness to the NYC owner, what he has to say can be true of SOME dry cleaners who try to cut costs. And we mentioned that in our blog post in October 2012 titled “$1.99 Dry Cleaning“.
Good Morning America says they have decided to take 10 shirts and 10 pairs of pants with identical stains of mustard, wine and nail polish to 10 different cleaners (in New York we’re assuming) and you will be able to see all of her report and “true confessions” tomorrow on 20/20.
If you ever have any questions on how your clothing is handled and cleaned by our employees, we are happy to answer them.
Thank you for your business, trust and loyalty.
– S.O.
