From time to time — when I have a few moments to spare, I run a search to check out what’s going on in some of the largest pick up/drop off laundry companies throughout the U.S.
A great place to start with reviews is on Yelp, of course. I’ve looked at pick up/drop off reviews for Boston, NY, Philadelphia, DC and MD. I have noticed a trend. Some of the larger companies that have the fancy APPS have the worst reviews.
Remember the defunct Washio? They had raised millions of dollars and had collected thousands of clients. Yet, their doors closed pretty quickly. Why? They consistently lost people’s clothing items. They did a poor job with the cleaning. In short, they disappointed and frustrated too many clients. Ultimately, they were unable to fix the problems.
What is the problem with the giant sized, cutesy-cutesy laundry APP companies? In short, they are outsourcing clients’ laundry all over the city to numerous companies and it’s impossible to keep a handle on quality. In addition, it’s exceptionally difficult to create systems when you are outsourcing people’s laundry to 10 – 12+ different mats who all have their own systems or no systems at all.
Has UpperCrust Laundry ever lost a client’s clothes? No and we never will. Why? Because we don’t outsource and can easily locate anything that may have been left behind. Every now and then a sock escapes us (socks apparently have evil fairies that kidnap them) but we don’t lose people’s clothes.
Sometimes a potential client will ask us if they can drop off their laundry to us. At this time, no. We are a pick up, drop off laundry company We do not yet own our own laundry center. Instead, we have ONE laundry whose space we use. We have our own area within the mat when we are there and are able to keep an eye on our clients’ laundry. We label everything and we have phenomenal systems in place that actually work.
Another thing I noticed when I was checking out online reviews was that with the large “on demand” UBER type laundry companies, clients complain that when they have concerns, they must fill in a form. Or they are led to call a number that never picks up.
Not so with UpperCrust Laundry. If you have an issue, you reach an actual owner! It was that way when we had our house cleaning company and clients were happy to know that they could reach and talk to an owner of the company about their concerns.
Even when our cleaning company grew large, the owners were still the point of direct contact. Our clients had our cell numbers, business numbers, business address and email addresses. We answered immediately, consistently. And we still do.
So no, our clients need not fill in any fancy paperwork to get their concerns taken care of. And if there is an email or phone call, our clients can be assured of an almost immediate response from an owner.
It’s that way now and it’s going to be that way for the duration of the business. We’ll never be to large or too busy to care for our clients.
Who’s washing your clothes? If you are using one of those UBER/APP companies, I’ll tell you who. It’s any number of laundry facilities strewn all over the city. Those facilities have temporary, untrained employees and contractors who could not care less about you or your clothes. Proof that they don’t care is the fact that they steal your laundry, lose your laundry, and in many instances, don’t even bother to wash your laundry. I’ve even seen cases where they send laundry back soaking wet.
I’ll end with this. I checked out on Yelp the responses that many of the UBER laundry so-called supervisors give. Their responses are offensive.
They say things like:
… thanks for sharing your experiences with us and we’re sorry to hear of the issues with this order. Please send over an e-mail to ——@—– and our Customer Concierge team will look into this immediately for you. Best Regards.
Imagine this. You just wrote a review sharing how devastated you are that this company has lost all or most of your clothes, leaving you with the shirt on your back and a couple of other outfits —- and the response above is all you get? The promise of a “Customer Concierge” when you know that no such thing exists for real and it’s just part of their cutesy game? Or another email to “Support” that won’t get answered?
Spare yourself. Contact UpperCrust at 301-322-7112. Our motto is, “Your laundry is safe with us”…..and it is!