Your money won’t be washed away
Some people rely heavily on dry cleaners to help them dress for success every day. Others only occasionally need that special outfit cleaned for that special occasion. In either case, it pays to shop carefully, because prices and quality of service vary dramatically.
Bay Area Consumers’ Checkbook and Checkbook.org evaluated 177 dry cleaning locations on both price and quality of service. For price, Checkbook found that significant savings might be just a short walk around the corner: Some shops charged prices 50 percent higher than nearby competitors. In fact, a few had prices twice as high as some competitors.
Checkbook researchers, without revealing their affiliation, collected prices on a variety of typical cleaning jobs. A few examples of differences:
To dry clean a women’s wool overcoat, prices among shops ranged from $7 to $75, with an average cost of $17.01.
To dry clean a men’s two-piece wool gabardine suit, the range was from $5.50 to $70, with an average cost of $14.83.
To launder a men’s cotton dress shirt, the range was $1 to $8, with an average cost of $2.28. Of course, quality matters — you don’t want to trust your favorite duds to just anyone. Checkbook collected ratings from customers and here again found dramatic differences. Of the 177 shops Checkbook evaluated, 56 were rated “superior” for “doing service properly” by at least 90 percent of their surveyed customers, but others were rated “superior” by fewer than 60 percent of their surveyed customers.
Fortunately, you don’t have to pay more for high-quality service. Among the shops that received Checkbook’s top rating for quality, 65 percent had below-average prices, and the prices at these top-quality shops averaged almost 10 percent below the average of all dry cleaners.
Wherever you take your cleaning, look for knowledgeable clerks who are attentive and able to answer questions about removing difficult stains. The shop should be well organized with a good system of storing clothes for pickup, and you should receive prop- erly cleaned and pressed clothing on time. If that’s not happening at your dry cleaner, it’s time to shop around.
Checkbook also has this advice:
Remove everything from your pockets before dropping off clothes.
Check for any stains, and give the clerk complete information about stains and spills, including what caused them, how long they have been there, and anything you may have already done to try to remove them. The clerk should make notes from your information.
Ask about prices and make sure they are noted on your claim ticket or receipt before leaving.
When picking up clothes, inspect them to be sure they are properly cleaned, undamaged and pressed. If you have concerns, bring them up immediately. If you find a missed stain or a new one — any problem you think the cleaner is responsible for — ask for the work to be redone. Reputable shops typically will do so at no cost.
If you find permanent damage, the shop should pay for the clothing and waive the cleaning charge. Be aware, though, that the “Fair Claims Guide,” which is published by the Drycleaning & Laundry Institute and is widely used, obliges the shop to pay the replacement cost only after adjustments for its condition and standard life expectancy.