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Company name: Le Grand Wedding
Address: Le Grand Wedding 79 Tanjong Pagar Road, Singapore 088500
Company service: Bridal Shop
Headline - Here is to the most infuriating experience I bride to be can ever go through
As I walked into the daintily decorated bridal shop along Tanjong Pagar Road, another bride-to-be was complaining bitterly. I should have taken this as my cue to look elsewhere, but a lady at the entrance of the shop who greeted me in a friendly manner, convinced me to stay. So, that's what I did and haven't spent a day not regretting this. This lady, Adora (who helped design my dress) has now left the company. She left in the middle of making the dress. Sure, this could not be helped, but the aftermath is the reason that I felt compelled to write this review, because it's only fair for all brides-to-be to know exactly what they are getting themselves into before they agree to give away their hard earned cash to poor, poor, poor service (notice I said poor not once, but three times!)
So, here's my horror story. With most establishments, it is normal practice to pay a portion of the cost of the dress first and the remaining portion upon satisfactory completion of the service. But NOT Le Grand. They want the money first and now that they have it, you have to sit in agony and chew your nails. Because they don't respond to emails.
Daniel, is quite frankly an incompetent buffoon. He doesn't seem to understand the basic concept of customer service. I once asked a question about the status of my dress. And in his response, which came a week later, he simply copied and pasted a generic response not even bothering to respond to my question. He just went on about me being the most beautiful bride ever. I simply just gave up. The stress of planning a wedding plus this nincompoop adding to it was not worth my energy.
I no longer live in Singapore and have relocated to Hong Kong. This just added to my stress and helplessness.
I sent another email in June (dress still being made) Ok. July? No response. August, silence. Fast forward to the present, I sent a series of emails asking why I had no news about the dress in September when the dress was meant to be ready by April. September!
Silence. Then, I sent another email to Daniel saying - "It's been four days now and no response!" I had to call from Hong Kong to tell the store to PLEASE ask Daniel to respond to my email. To add to that, I sent yet, another email.
Three days later, he responds, apologies all round.
He then explained that he couldn't contact me earlier because he had no way of contacting me since I was no longer in Singapore. So, I forwarded previous emails that I had sent to him directly before he finally admitted that I did write to him after all and HE DID HAVE MY EMAIL ADDRESS. Meaning he could indeed contact me if he wished. (See email below)
I did email you earlier, but my company email address was crashed thats why i couldnt get you and needed Adora to email you. I do apologise for the incovenient causes to you.
Meanwhile, your dress is ready though. I heard from Adora that your wedding date changed, probably when? For a made-to-measure gown, normally we would like our customers to do their fitting before collecton. I wonder do you able to make a trip down to Singapore in near future? Otherwise we will have to ship you the dress and the shipping fees will be covered by your side.
Do let me know what do you think.
Thanks
Bst Rgds,
Daniel
Ok, so send me the dress. NO, Daniel responds, you have to cover the shipping costs (smiley face).
Really? Really? After ignoring my emails, after this service, that's that?
I explained to him that it was unfair to force a client to pay upfront and not get the service. Other establishments agree for their customers to pay a part of the dress first and the remaining part upon satisfactory completion of the service.
I told him I will have to write a review, because people have to know.
He didn't like this and went on the attack:
"Because i force you to pay up front" this is a very harsh sentence to see with my eyes.
Firstly, my company did not force any of our customers to pay for anything before they decided to sign a deal with us.
Secondly, you are getting a customize dress from our company, full payment is applicable before we proceed with the production.
Thirdly, how do you judge our service and quality of product is not acceptable. We do understand your situation of not living in Singapore and you have to travel all the time around the world, when comes to arrangement of appointment, it was difficult. We hope you do understand you are getting not an off-the-rack item, we need you to be around to make adjustment, fitting and stuffs. This is how we guarantee all of our customers are getting a perfect wedding gown. Thus, service takes two hands to clap, you should not have put all the blame on us.
Last but not least, writing a review on news paper, somehow it does sounds like we are being threaten. On behalf of my company, we hope you are not serious about that, otherwise company will make an effort of following up inquiries.
Many Thanks,
Cheers,
I responded as follows:
You can put it like this "full payment is applicable before we proceed with the production." But, all this is saying is customers have to pay up front or you won't make the dress. Period. Whether I like the dress or not, or the service or not. This is forcing.
You may not like it, but this is what you are doing to your customers. You are making them pay up front and then you don't deliver the service.
Writing a review is important so that future customers know exactly what they are getting into before doing business with you.
Daniel asked me what other solution I had in mind. And I basically, told him that the service has been pretty unreliable and from email communication (and I am including the tardiness of the emails, and the way you write to me, etc) and the fact that the dress was supposed to be complete by April for July and it wasn't. I told him to:
"please spare me any more grief. Complete the dress, and I will make the final fittings in Hong Kong after you've sent me the dress so I no longer have to deal with your company. That's the only solution I can think of. The alternative would be asking for a full refund."
He said he would check with management and get back to me. Then a few minutes later, he send me the below email:
Your MTM dress supposes to be self-collected and it does not include shipping fees, insurance and also any import or/ export tax.
Your dress is ready for collection since 26th of July. So do let me know when are you coming down for collection.
Many Thanks.
So, I still have no dress. I don't even have a picture of the dress. We are now mid-September and no dress. They keep telling me, the dress is complete, it is not yet complete, it is complete. I have no idea.
I seriously don't recommend this bridal store. Ladies, if you are looking to make a wedding dress and go past "Le Grand Wedding" on Tanjong Pagar Road, just keeping walking ---Fast. Don't look in, don't even bat an eyelid just keep on moving to the next store before you get burned like I did.
On April 5, 2011, my husband and I signed a contract with Sears to have our house sided. We were told the job would start immediately and end within a month. It took one month before anyone showed up to start the job. When the crew arrived, they brought the wrong color siding. It took one month for Sears to rectify this, so we had nothing but green insullation board on our house the whole time. Our outside lighting was removed, so were (and still are) in the dark too. When the crew finally returned, they had no equiptment with them. I am serious. They brought a saw and 2 ladders. They needed to wrap our windows in metal and brought no metal brake! They appeared to have no idea what they were doing either. They used the claw end of a hammer (that they borrowed from us) to hack off the drip edge of our windows. Had we known what they intended to use the hammer for, we would have offered them a chisel! They damaged the casing on 2 windows, and Sears stated it was not an issue because we wouldn't SEE it after the siding was on! These guys put mostly caulk, not metal, on our windows, and the metal they did install looked horrible! We made MANY calls to both Dick Beale and Don Regnet at Sears. Eventually, Dick came out and saw the terrible job. We fired that crew, before they demolished our home. It took almost a month before another crew arrived, and they still did not have enough material to side our house. The crew worked for a few hours and then did not return for 2 weeks. We continued to call Dick and Don to address the lack of material and crew. They made many promised about getting things done "timely" and "to your satisfaction." When the crew returned, 2 men (hardly a crew) worked for about 4 hours. No one came back the next day! We called Tony Salvaggion at Sears. He assured us that the job would be done in 3 days. The next business day 2 men worked for about 6 hours. There is one day left of the promised 3, and our house is nowhere near done. Our side yard has been destroyed due to the boxes and other debris and equiptment left here for this job. There are nails and little pieces of metal all over the ground, and we have small children. The job is taking FOREVER! It is now June 28, 2011. I have no hope that my house will be completed tomorrow. I STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU DO NOT HIRE SEARS FOR ANY HOME IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS! We are paying $23, 000 to have our house sided, and all we have received are stress and headaches. The issues we have had are common, as you will see on this site. I wish I had read them before signing our contract.
We, Le Grand Wedding, are happy to say that this issue has been resolved. The complaint was made with much emotional anger, and Ms Offy has made an official apology. We appreciate that she has retracted her statement and made a full apology.
Ms Offy's retraction on Singaporebrides.com forum:
Posted by fifi2012, Sep 21, 2012
Looking back at both our comments, I would like to apologize to Daniel for the way I portrayed him in
my review. All this boils down to poor communication.
My main fear was that Le Grand had not started making the dress and being far away, I had no proof
that they had. A mere photo and phone call would have sufficed to set me at ease. Further, when I had
asked if I could have a friend pick up the dress, I did not get a response to my question. This only
added to my fear and frustration. I wouldn't just put up a review based on the fact that I was not getting
free shipment!
I also want to remind Le Grand that customers should have a right to give reviews, as it gives the
public an idea of what doing business with you would be like, and it also gives you feedback on how to
improve your services to the customer.
A friend of mine has now been allowed to pick up the dress, and based on her photos it looks finished.
So, from my standpoint I can now breath a sigh of relief. What I have proposed to the moderator is to
take down my review.
---------------------------------------------
Transcript of our explanation on Singaporebrides.com forum, "management" referring to us, Le Grand:
[Posted by management, Sep 18, 2012]
Dear Ms Offy,
Let us start with our own regret that you have to harbour such anger. We understand that you may have
other predicaments in your situation, and that you may have been going through quite a lot with the
relocation to Hong Kong. This could contribute to the grave dissatisfaction that you have been going
through.
Let us then continue with the series of events pertaining to your case.
Full Payment
In accordance to our service standards, we are confident that we can produce results, thereby requiring
customers to pay in full before custom made the gown. This policy was brought about because there
were previous incidences of our collecting a 50% deposit after making a made-to-measure gown, but
our clients were suddenly not contactable, leaving us with a one off couture gown that could not, of
course, be used for other brides. Therefore, we now collect full payment when customizing gowns
specially fitted to the bride.
Communication
When you first arrived in our shop, Adora was indeed the designer in charge. It was one the last jobs
she had done for us before she left the company to focus on her family. The handover was efficiently
carried out, and Daniel was fully aware of your case. Adora had always remained contactable, therefore
we had no issues with resolving any details.
The gown was completed at the end of June.
Initially, we could not get you, and Adora had decided to send you an email to arrange for the first
fitting. One week later, you had replied with only a one word answer, and no further instructions. We
therefore waited.
Adora sent another email on 11/7/12, and she/Daniel did not get a response until
5/9/12, Daniel was overseas, and he responded when he came back 6 days later, informing you that we
are not able to send a gown to Hong Kong without the shipping costs covered.
Designers do not have desk bound jobs, therefore they would be slower to reply their emails as
compared to our administrative coordinators. Their overseas trips are rather frequent as they have to
constantly source for new materials, fabrics, and lace. Messages for them can be made left with our
sales coordinators.
Shipping
We do not charge additional costs to any gown without due reason, and have always strived to give our
brides as much as we can. Should you have bought a gown online, they too would have to charge you
for shipping costs. Likewise, please understand that purchasing a gown in Singapore would require self
collection at our boutique.
Resolution
The management had received an email from yourself stating that you will be displaying your
unhappiness in the forums with peacock exuberance should we not ship the gown to Hong Kong for
free. We strongly feel that we should not give in to coercion utilising the internet as a weapon. With no
hiccups, we had created a gown for you before the deadline. As much as you could not contact us
through email, we too could not get an answer from your dear self.
You have now made your issue public, and our reputation had been put on the line. As a business, and
as people, we are not blameless; where we have faltered, we will do double to make it up to our client.
These situations have been thankfully few and far between, and none of our clients went online to
pursue their displeasure. We strongly feel that you have maligned Daniel with harsh words that were
uncalled for. Such character assassinations are harmful not only to our staff, but to our company on the
whole, it is their rice bowl as much as it is our business.
Online harassment is a chargeable offense, but we have decided not to pursue this matter legally. We
believe that you may have too much on your plate, being an expatriate in Asia is not an easy task.
Our only request is for you to issue a public apology, published on all the forums you have posted in, to
Daniel and our boutique by 21/9/12.
We wait in anticipation for your reply, and sincerely hope that this matter rests here.
Yours Truly,
The Management
LeGrand Wedding
-------------------------
[NB: Sequence of Emails]
April 19th 2012 -
Hi Daniel the wedding is postponed to next year, so I don't need it right away. How about a fitting in
August?
Offy
Adora's email on July 11th 2012 -
Hi Offy,
How have u been? I would like to check when u can come over to do ur gown fitting? Just let Daniel
know about ur timing. Pleases call Le grand wedding to make app [protected].
Best regards,
Adora
Ms Offy reply on September 5th 2012 -
Hi Daniel,
I am not able to come to Singapore. Is it possible to send the dress to me
in Hong Kong?
Just go ahead and finish the dress and send.
Regards,
Offy
Ms Offy's last email on September 17th 2012 after rejecting request to cover shipping to Hong Kong -
Ok. I am done now. You've given me no choice. I am writing a review and I
will post it every single day in any medium I can find all over the
internet until you send me my dress.
[Posted by fifi2012, Sep 21, 2012]
Looking back at both our comments, I would like to apologize to Daniel for the way I portrayed him in
my review. All this boils down to poor communication.
My main fear was that Le Grand had not started making the dress and being far away, I had no proof
that they had. A mere photo and phone call would have sufficed to set me at ease. Further, when I had
asked if I could have a friend pick up the dress, I did not get a response to my question. This only
added to my fear and frustration. I wouldn't just put up a review based on the fact that I was not getting
free shipment!
I also want to remind Le Grand that customers should have a right to give reviews, as it gives the
public an idea of what doing business with you would be like, and it also gives you feedback on how to
improve your services to the customer.
A friend of mine has now been allowed to pick up the dress, and based on her photos it looks finished.
So, from my standpoint I can now breath a sigh of relief. What I have proposed to the moderator is to
take down my review.