After a disastrous few weeks of missed shipments and intense public furor, Rent the Runway’s head of supply chain is departing the company.
The luxury fashion rental platform has faced a barrage of angry tweets from its users, stemming from issues with delayed or unfulfilled shipments and subpar customer service.
Marv Cunningham, chief supply officer and a veteran of Amazon and Target, will leave his post at the end of September, after less than a year at RTR, Business of Fashion reported Thursday.
On Twitter, RTR subscribers expressed panic about whether their rentals would arrive on time for weekend events like weddings and cited call wait times of up to four hours for help.
“Dropped & seriously delayed orders, 4 hour wait times, no call-back from hold place in line, no returned emails. I’m an 8 piece unlimited member with an empty closet, and have been trying to reach someone for 4 days now. What gives?” customer Sarah Hatfield tweeted at RTR’s support account.
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Forced to weigh in, the company said the operational breakdown occurred because of scheduled upgrades to RTR’s systems.
“We’re in the process of upgrading our operation in order to make your RTR experience even better including more inventory & access,” the company tweeted on Friday of last week, adding, “In the short term, these changes are causing some shipment & customer service delays. We apologize & are committed to transparency as we grow.”
This fiasco is the perhaps inevitable culmination of months of growing pains for RTR, which has faced scaling challenges in the wake of a $125 million fundraising round in March (and a $1 billion valuation).
In July, the company was forced to issue an emailed apology to members after similar complaints reached a fever pitch.
At that time, RTR promised new tools that would help members pause or cancel their subscriptions without reaching out to the company’s admittedly overloaded membership concierge.
However, customers facing issues with shipment delays would still have to call or email for help from a live associate. In July, the company also said it planned to use a portion of its recent windfall to double the size of its customer support team to help with the influx of queries as the service’s membership grows.
Unfortunately for RTR, those investments don’t appear to have yet achieved their desired effect. Supply chain issues have clearly hampered the fundamental functionalities of the service in recent weeks.
Rent the Runway did not immediately respond to Sourcing Journal’s request for comment regarding customer complaints or Cunningham’s departure.
Editor’s Note: This story was reported by FN sister magazine Sourcing Journal. For more, visit Sourcingjournal.com.
