For any customer who did not see or receive the May 1st email copied below, it follows below for a frame of reference to this email.
Our shift leader who was hospitalized with the irregular heart beat remains on extended leave and our other shift leader who had the pre-planned absence is mostly back, but will still be missing some shifts. We ask that you both continue to let us know if you do not have the flexibility to allow for a delayed return beyond our normal second day return and assure that you adjust what you send us to assure that you leave enough reserve clothing at home in case of a delayed return. (For our business customers, we know who you are, and you do not need to let us know).
I am personally working with heavy attention to recruiting, hiring, expanding, and training more staff, including additional management. This will help both solve the delays and allow us to train more shift leaders. I am aware that some customers who are accustomed to being able to reach and get a response from me personally have not been able to do so, leaving your communications having to go through our Customer Satisfaction Team Members. They transfer information back and forth with our General Manager and Drivers (with more of a time lag than when I am accessible) before being able to respond. This has been a result of my focus on addressing the sudden staffing shortage.
I am preparing us to come out of this temporary period with several results to be able to serve our customers even better in the future: (1) a three shift rotation with more redundancy in shift leadership so we never again find ourselves at the effect of a sudden absence of shift leaders, (2) a doubling of our overall laundry staff team members to assure that we have at least three full shifts of team members able to work according to all our detailed processes and procedures (such that, if need be, we can stop operation of one entire shift and still get laundry returned according to our procedures and committed timelines), and, (3) an additional operations manager available to both come in off his or her regular work schedule to assure proper operations and be able to respond directly to customers. We have also been producing enhanced training videos so new team members start their first shift with a much higher baseline knowledge. This will allow them to absorb the information and training in their supervised training shifts faster, better, and in more depth.
The additional and important result of all of these changes will also allow us to terminate the employment of anyone who does not live up to our quality standards immediately without second chances (though we will continue to work closely to support the development of new team members who we feel have the potential to grow and develop).
Secondarily, we just purchased a third large van. This second Ford Transit Extended length van, like the other, supports our drivers with more organized and higher capacity storage than the full size Nissan NV2500 we have. This helps avoid potential partial deliveries from something inadvertently not being loaded or not being clearly visible upon delivery.
I promise you that any negative experience you have had during this temporary period in our growth will soon be a past memory and we will return to meeting and exceeding expectations. We hope that once things return to normal (probably within a month at the outside, depending on how quickly we find the right additional people), you will continue to refer other customers to us. Our higher level of staffing will then require a larger customer base so we can provide new staff with the amount of work they need to stay with us.
Very sincerely yours,
Michael Gralnick
Co-Owner
Marin Wash and Fold