Real-Life Decision Making -- Solution
You apologize, but refuse to reimburse the woman.
You tell the woman it was an accident and explain that given the volume of clothes you handle, the occasional garment is bound to get damaged. You say you're sorry and send the teary-eyed bride on her way.
You hate to upset her, but you have a business to run and can't be held accountable for every freak accident.
Unfortunately, two months later, this bride's lawyer tells you that you can be held accountable. She is suing you for the amount of her dress and doing a good job of telling her story to the local press. Basically, your cold-hearted business decision turned out to be bad business.
"Over a week, we deal with a thousand garments or more. Statistically speaking, it's inevitable that one garment would become damaged somehow. But when it's your garment, you, as a customer, don't care about the other 999 that are fine," says drycleaner Darcy Moen.
"In other businesses, this may have been the prudent decision, but not in mine. Drycleaners really don't clean clothes, they handle emotions."
Overall, drycleaners must have good decision-making skills. "We have to determine when a garment comes in whether it is drycleanable or not, what the risks involved are," says Janet Winters. She owns a drycleaning company.