National
Clothesline
The high cost of not paying claims
Sometimes it pays to just pay. Customer
claims are probably one of the biggest headaches in a
drycleaner’s life. Sure, regulations and rules are more
confusing and profit-prohibitive, but when a cleaner writes a
claim’s check, then he is essentially saying he failed to
do his job. Nobody likes to freely admit fault, but, when you
have to pay somebody money while you admit fault, well,
that’s just so much worse.
Still, it is a necessary evil in the
business. No cleaner is perfect all of the time. It’s
just not mathematically possible. Sooner or later, everybody
runs into an impossible stain or an uncleanable garment.
Everybody makes mistakes. Sooner or later, even cleaners who
believe they are perfect will meet with an unreasonable
customer who is simply incapable of being satisfied. At that
point, many cleaners bite the bullet, humbly apologize, and
then pay through the nose. It’s a high price to pay, both
literally and figuratively, but sometimes the price of not
paying proves to be even higher.
While scouring national headlines, we
recently came across a story about a cleaner in Georgia who
refused to pay for a $300 imported comforter that came back
from his drycleaning plant “hard inside” and
“shrunk to half the size” according to the dismayed
customer. When told there would be no financial recompense for
the destruction of the comforter, the customer proceeded to
contact the Better Business Bureau, who, in turn, sent the
garment in to IFI’s International Textile Analysis Lab
for testing. The result? “Excessive shrinkage due to
improper care.” When the BBB representative called the
cleaner to inform him of this fact, the cleaner still believed
the garment was not cleaned with improper care. It wasn’t
until the customer had arrived at the plant with a BBB
representative that the cleaner finally paid the $300. Of
course, a local media outlet had picked up the story by that
time, and it had escalated into a major source of bad publicity
for the cleaner.
The lesson learned is a simple one
— it does not always matter who is right and who is
wrong. Either way, the cleaner ended up paying a much steeper
price. The bad publicity will certainly keep away potential
customers who read the story in the local newspaper. Plus, it
will take a lot of positive publicity before that stigma can be
erased. After all, bad stories stick with the public a lot
longer than the good ones. Next time, paying $300 might seem
like quite a bargain indeed.
Perc’s future secure – or is
it?
Most cleaners will probably brush off the
new EPA clean-air regulations as insignificant since their only
additional requirement will be to buy a $250 leak detector and
use it to perform monthly inspections. Compared to the
situation in California, where perc has been targeted for a
complete phase-out, that is small beer.
In contrast to California, EPA only wants
to phase out perc in situations where a cleaning plant is
located in the same building with residences. The agency
estimates there are about 1,300 such cleaners, most of them in
New York. Curiously, those cleaners are already covered by
strict state regulations which seem sufficient protection
against a minimal risk. Nonetheless, EPA decided to go a step
further with a perc phase-out. But it was only a step. Cleaners
should be aware that there are forces, many in positions of
authority, who would like EPA and other environmental
regulators to go much further. They would like to see perc
eliminated in other co-located situations including those in
which the drycleaner is near, but not adjacent to, certain
types of businesses. EPA declined to do so at this time but
left the door open to consider it in the future. This is the
“slippery slope” IFI refers to in its reaction to
last month’s EPA decision.
It’s not much of a slide down that
slope to get to the next level: a complete ban on perc. In
fact, the recent action by the California Air Resources Board
shows just how fast the slope can be descended. The air
board’s staff originally offered a proposal to phase out
co-residential perc facilities by 2010 — ten years sooner
than what EPA has just approved. But that wasn’t extreme
enough for the air board’s governing body. They directed
the staff to come back with a plan for completely phasing out
perc in the state.
Cleaners may brush off the new rules as a
nuisance, but they can not brush off the significant threat to
perc’s existence. A perc leak detector is useless if
there is no perc to detect.