Manotick Bridal, Manotick, Ontario, Canada - wedding dress ready two months late

# 4 for July 10, 2003

Complaints.com received the following business reply on February 25, 2004:

From:

RE: Manotick Bridal Salon

RE: Complaint #4 for July 10, 2003

I am responding to the complaint left by Kelly E. Bourgon, who was know to us by her maiden name of Kelly Morton. This situation was not a good one, fully admitted.

Unfortunately, there were some delays with the manufactuer on the delivery of Kelly's gown which of course disappointed Kelly and rightly so.

I made the error of supplying Ms. Morton with the information provided to me by the manufactuere, when they made me a promise I forwarded that information on to her. When I continued to follow up with the manufacturer, I guarantee you, it was not polite, when they were putting me in a position to tell my customer one thing and then not be able to follow up with it.

We most definately care about our customers and we did apologize to Ms. Morton on serveral occasions. When I did go to Toronto I informed the manufacturer to hold the dress and I would pick it up, someone in their shipping area made a mistake and shipped the gown. When I arrived I was told that the gown was shipped in error and it was on its way to Manotick. I was furious that I had driven for 4 1/2 hours just to be told that they again has made a mistake.

I have taken this situation to heart and have changed policies in how we deal with Manufacturers delivery dates, ezpecially this one, and have implemented new procedures. I am very sorry that Ms. Morton had to go through this, and do not want it to happen to any other clients. We have been in business for over 25 years and have been a family run business for that long, I am third generation. I assure you that our customer service is very important to us. We have won the consumers choice award for business excellence in 2002 and 2003, the was an honour. We arrange for gowns for approximately 350 wedding per year and every customer and every situation is unique. We do our best to please everyone.

Again, this situation and delay should have never happened and we are sorry. We are thankful for Ms. Mortons critisizms and did make changes to ensure that this does not happen again.

Melissa Dowdell

Complaints.com received the following on July 9, 2003:

From: Morton, Kelly [Email User]

RE: Manotick Bridal, Manotick, Ontario, Canada - wedding dress ready two months late

1143 MILL STREET. CITY: MANOTICK. STATE: ON. ZIP: K4M 1A2. ...

My wedding date is June 21, 2003 and I'm getting ready well in advance. I've been out looking for a dress and find one I absolutely love in November of 2002 at Manotick Bridal. I love it so much that I decide to purchase it through Manotick Bridal in November, and pay the full price for the dress upfront, because they offer to pay the taxes if I do so.

They give me a date of April 10, 2003 for delivery of the dress. That's plenty of time before my wedding, and I'm happy with that. It gives me time to get alterations done, and that way I'm not too stressed. Because, let's be honest, as much as one enjoys getting married, and as much as it's supposed to be about love and starry eyes and all that, it's a stressful event. Especially when you're hosting it at your own home and so are responsible for everything! So April 10th comes and goes without a phone call from Manotick Bridal. Well then, I wonder, am I supposed to be calling them? It's bad customer service, but I guess I'd better chase them down. And so I do. I call them around April 14th to find out if my dress came in. No, they tell me, "it's not in, and the date has been pushed back to April 30th". Well, okay, I can still handle that. That still provides me with just under two months to get the dress and have it altered, and still keep my stress level down. Then April 30th comes and goes and no phone call from Manotick Bridal. So I call them the following week. Is my dress in? No, it's still not in - however, it's on route - it has been sent. Well, what can I do? The dress is on the way. I ask them to call me when it comes in. Of course they will! Now it's May 20th, the dress is still on route, and I'm still waiting and starting to get a little anxious. We're down to a month before the wedding day, and I still have no dress. And what's even more unnerving is that the place that I've ordered my dress from (Manotick Bridal) not only doesn't seem to really care that I don't have a dress, but never makes the effort to call me and update me on what's going on, and on top of that, when I call them, I get an answering machine more times than I get a person! May 20th rolls around and the story changes over at Manotick Bridal. "It will be in next week - May 26th." Great I think! My dress is finally coming. So I wait for their phone call on May 26th, to no avail. I have to call them again and ask if my dress is in. New answer this time, the girl who is in charge of orders (Melissa) isn't in town. She'll call me when she gets back. Well the dress is promised for Monday, so Tuesday night I call them. "Melissa's still not in, but no we did not receive any shipments today. Melissa will call you tomorrow." So my dress isn't in. Of course, tomorrow (May 28th) comes around and I have to call them again. New story again. Melissa was apparently in Toronto to pick up my dress and apparently it had already been sent from Toronto and was on route to Manotick.

She promises me that it will definitely be in on either Wednesday or Thursday (May 28 - 29th), and that she'll call me when it comes in. So I wait until the evening on May 29th, and I have to call THEM AGAIN. And surprise, surprise, my dress has not arrived. Now she promises me it will be in tomorrow (May 30th) morning. So May 30th, 12 noon comes around, and I haven't received word from Manotick Bridal. I call them, and am told that Melissa is busy finishing up a dress and will call me back. Of course, an hour later, I still haven't heard. My mother asks me if she wants me to have her become involved. Sure, why not. So she calls.

She gets better success than I do, as she actually gets Melissa on the phone. Apparently Melissa is quite curt with her and tells her that she has me penciled in to come in that evening to get my dress, and doesn't understand why my mother is calling. My mother then asks her if the dress is in, "no", she is told, "Deliveries are between two and five." And you know, not being nice to my mom isn't the way to calm me down! I then get a message from Melissa telling me that there must have been some sort of miscommunication as my mother called and she doesn't understand why. That she told me deliveries were between two and five and it would be in today. She isn't exactly nice on the message.

So I call her back. By now I'm very frustrated, so I'm not exactly nice either. My return message tells her two things. 1) The 'miscommunication' is due to the fact that she told me the dress would be in this morning, not between two and five. 2) That I didn't understand how she could guarantee me the dress would be in today, when she has promised it would be in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and then Thursday and it didn't come in on either of those days. I then ask for a return call when the dress is in her possession so I don't make the trip to Manotick for no reason. What really gets me is that these people are in the business of weddings and wedding dresses and first and foremost - brides! We are stressed out people close to our wedding date. Being in the business they should be aware of this. I realize there is a limit to what customer service personnel should take (having been in customer service for many many years), but the simple fact is if you keep screwing up and you keep making promises you can't keep - then the customer has every right to be upset. In fact, the customer should be upset! And the least the customer service representative can do is not antagonize the situation! So the afternoon of May 30th comes along and Manotick Bridal finally calls and tells me my dress is in. I drive out there after work. Everything is civil, but you can tell that neither one of us wants to see the other ever again. I try my dress on, check it out, and take it with me that night. Finally I have a dress - now I must search for someone to alter it! (Luckily the wonderful lady at Marka Fashion Design and Boutique was able to do it on short notice - was great with customer service and did a superb job). The dress being almost two months overdue is one thing, but the customer service provided by Manotick Bridal is another! They don't answer their phone, in my experience, so you're left venting your frustrations to a phone machine. When they finally do return your phone call, probably because you've had to yell at their machine, they don't seem too concerned that the dress is almost two months late, or that you've got three weeks before your wedding and you have no wedding dress. Nor do they ever offer apologies for their screw up. No, they just kept offering me hollow promises. And I don't ever see them trying to rectify the situation. I left a message one day asking them when they were going to start viewing my lack of a dress as a problem (because of course I don't ever get a person on the phone). And I get a call back with a new promise - that of course doesn't come to fruition. They just don't seem to care if I get married in a wedding dress or not. Kelly E. Bourgon

Comment On This

I will never recommend Manotick Bridal to anyone. I got married in 2004 - so after this wedding date and still had issues. I ordered a dress I loved well in advance. I got a decent deal on it but they said that their credit card machine was down and be up and running shortly. Weeks passed and the machine still wasn't working. I was forced to put a deposit in cash on the dress to ensure it would be ordered for me and the alterations be made.

Months passed - no credit card machine - yet was assured every time I went in that it would be ready the next day.

It was never fixed before I needed to pay for my dress - in cash - which was disappointing because it was a costly purchase and was hoping to get travel rewards on my credit card by purchasing it.

Overall I was completely disappointed with the service and efficency of Manotick Bridal.