A beauty/massage place offered a special - a massage for about a third of the usual price.
I showed up to redeem my special, and was shown into a chilly room....got undressed and slipped under my towel.
Masseuse came back, asked me if I was comfortable. I mentioned it was very cold. She said, "Oh, the heat is controlled by the building, I can't do anything about it, sorry. It should warm up soon." (The place is in a shopping centre.)
Started the massage....far from warming up, the room became progressively colder, to the point that I was actually shivering! When I turned onto my back my teeth started to chatter.
The masseuse apologized at the end. She said, "I was even cold, and I'm the one doing the massage! Ha ha ha!"
She mentioned it to the manager, let's call her Dora. Dora apologized to me about the cold, repeated that they "couldn't do anything about it" but that they would put a small heater in the room from now on, and handed me a brochure saying, "Take this anyway. You can have 20% off on your next service." (This was included with the special, she wasn't offering me the discount because of the poor service.)
Oh, and she asked me how the massage was "apart from the cold" and I truthfully said that the cold permeated the entire experience and I was unable to relax at any point.
Later that day, received a text from the owner, let's call her Carmiela. Carmiela apologized and offered me a free repeat session to make up for the horrible first experience.
I accepted, and made the appointment. I had to reschedule twice because of childcare, sick baby etc. However, I was finally going to go, and then they called and said I'd missed the appointment - I'd made it for 3 and they had 1pm down.
The thing is that they'd sent me an SMS the previous day confirming - I stupidly didn't actually read the SMS, since I had the time in my calendar - just replied YES as requested!
The person refused to reschedule, and Dora called me later - quite surly, not willing to offer me another appointment. Kept asking me "Did you receive the SMS?" I repeated yes I had, absolutely my mistake in not reading it properly. Reminded her that this appointment was to make up for a dreadful first experience. She said flat out, "Well we're not willing to honour that." I said "All right, let's just leave it then" and got off the phone.
Have written it off as a bad experience and a waste of money - but can't help feeling that if I owned the business, I'd want to go the extra mile to ensure a new client got the massage they'd paid for in the first place. Obviously I am not going to be recommending this place to anyone in future!
Am I being unreasonable? I can't decide. They wasted my time and money....but I suppose I did the same when I foolishly missed the appointment!