So, for my wife’s birthday I gave her a gift certificate to a local spa for a massage and facial. We’ve been going to this spa off-and-on for almost ten years, the frequency fluctuating with where we happened to be living and our travel schedules. However, any way you slice it, we’re fairly established customers.
She went in a few weeks ago to redeem part of her gift and while she was there she scheduled a massage to consume the remainder of her certificate. Since we were driving from Oklahoma City to Wilmington (1300+ miles) she thought it would be a good idea to have a massage the day after our return.
Much to her surprise, the day she was scheduled to fly to Oklahoma City to meet me, she recieved a call from the spa to reconfirm her appointment that afternoon. Obviously the person making the appointment made a simple mistake – why on earth would she schedule a massage for 2:00 when she had to be at the airport at 3:00? The spa nazi was insistent that the computer was never wrong and informed my wife that if she cancelled there would be a penalty fee of 50% of the service. After much debate (spa nazi was sorry my wife was upset…) she offered to only charge half of the normal penalty. When my wife requested to speak to the manager or owner she was rebuffed; spa nazi insisted that this was her job and she could take care of it.
I haven’t called them yet; rest assured that when I do the spa nazi will regret not handling things properly with my wife in the first place. Regardless of the outcome we will never spend another penny at Ki Spa & Salon (Wilmington, NC) and I suggest that you do the same – unless you happen to derive pleasure from abusive customer service policies.