7 On Your Side cleans up a dry cleaning mess
UPPER EAST SIDE, Manhattan (WABC) -- Anthony Sociedade was recently promoted to nurse manager at one of New York largest hospitals and needed to update his entire wardrobe, but he had no idea the mess he was about to get himself into.
"As a nurse, you just wear scrubs," he said at his Upper East Side apartment. "So I didn't really have any professional clothing."
He needed business casual, but he waited until Black Friday to hit up sales at J. Crew and Zara to find some bargains. He splurged on five new pairs of slacks, six dress shirts and six sweaters for his new job. After the holidays, he used a new app called "Cleanly" that his neighbor recommended to dry clean his new duds.
That was the last time Anthony saw his brand new wardrobe. He has security video of January 1, the day his dry cleaning was picked up in his lobby.
"It literally is the Uber of dry cleaning," he said. "I got an email saying my cleaning was picked up. It's so convenient."
Cleanly's app allows customers to click their way to clean clothes, navigating pick up and drop off with a few taps. But a few days after his bag was picked up, Sociedade noticed it was back, unclean.
He called the company but got no response, then emailed and was instructed to put in a new order. He began working with two different customer service reps.
Anthony admits making the mistake of affirming the order was his without noticing the company had attached a link to photos of another person's dry cleaning at the bottom. He got someone's else's order delivered, but he still hasn't been able to get his own clothes back.
"I was frustrated," he said. "I was really frustrated, because I just bought all these new clothes, my New Year's and Christmas outfits I literally wore once."
After months passed with no resolution, Sociedade got 7 On His Side.
"My next stop was going to be small claims court, but then I thought, Nina will help me," he said.
Within a day, 7 On Your Side got a refund directly from Cleanly's co-founder and CEO Tom Harari. The company was responsive, professional and quick to act in the hopes the customer would come back to their service.
"He reimbursed me with more than I was seeking," he said. "I really appreciate him and his leadership and hope that trickles down to his customer service team. I'm really happy."
He got $1,000 reimbursement from Cleanly, and now, he's going shopping to replace his missing clothes.
Cleanly's full statement below:
"Cleanly's vision is to create happiness by giving people clean clothes and more free time. Every step of our operations and supply chain is built with that vision in mind, and if something in the process is broken or does not live up to that, we review and refine. Mistakes happen, and while Cleanly has invested a lot of technology into streamlining logistics, human error can always creep in. In this particular case, there were several such human errors, on both sides, that contributed to the substandard experience. We sincerely apologize to this customer and are pleased he has accepted our full refund of $1,000, which was in line with our reimbursement policy of 10x cost of cleaning - an industry leading policy that is recommended by the International Fabricaire Institute. On our end, we have conducted a top to bottom review of process and will continue to get better as we grow. Our customer's time, happiness, and garments are paramount. - Tom, Cleanly.com"
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