Content about California

COMMERCE, Calif. — The SoCal Cleaners Association (SCCA) will host Improving Your Customers’ Experience and Your Bottom Line, a presentation by Christopher White, executive director of America’s Best Cleaners, during the association’s upcoming March 20 meeting.

White has more than 25 years of experience working in the dry cleaning industry and has risen “to the very highest level in the profession,” SCCA says. He has extensive knowledge of textile cleaning and finishing techniques and is recognized as an industry leader in operational systems, database management, staff development and team building.

He will discuss developing an exceptional client experience by catering to specific needs of clients through individual services provided by the front-end team, and how to develop these needs into specific “nudges” that increase the client’s overall experience while also increasing the bottom line.

SCCA says takeaways will include:

LONG BEACH, Calif. — It was a Sunday morning, so it was fitting that dry cleaning industry veteran Michael Nesbit would open his Fabricare educational seminar with a Bible verse.

Quoting James 3:1, he said, “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”

“That means, first of all, when I look in the room here, there’s a lot of guys a lot better in the industry than I am,” he says. “And I’m humbled to be here.”

Nesbit, who heads Houston-based MW Cleaners, the dry cleaning division of The Men’s Wearhouse®, had a great deal of insight to offer based on years of hard work and industry success.

“I want to tell you that the industry’s not dead,” he says. “There is still a lot of opportunity in what we do.”

And so he began discussing The Changing of the Tide.

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Mary Scalco, CEO of the Drycleaning & Laundry Institute (DLI), and Nora Nealis, executive director of the National Cleaners Association (NCA), visit a lot of dry cleaning operations in their work. They are direct competitors, but they share a common goal: improving the dry cleaning industry and helping its operators learn how to build better businesses.

And so the two recently collaborated on an educational seminar, offered during the California Cleaners Association’s Fabricare show, that demonstrates What Cleaners Are Doing to Thrive Today.

SEE THINGS DIFFERENTLY

If you want your dry cleaning business to thrive, Scalco says, there’s something you must do. “You change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.”

You’re no doubt familiar with the FedEx logo, as it can be seen on the delivery company’s trucks, on billboards, in TV commercials, and more. But did you ever notice that the logo contains within it an arrow? It is an ingenious way to depict movement, she says.

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Providing good customer service was a common theme among the dry cleaning professionals presenting educational sessions during the recent Fabricare convention in Southern California. And Cleaner’s Supply’s Trudy Adams, the New York-based dry cleaning supplier’s director of customer service and sales, believes nothing is more integral to the health of a service-oriented business.

MAKE A CONNECTION

Adams recently visited a dry cleaner to provide customer service training at his request. As she sat in the lobby that day, this is what she heard from the CSR working the counter: “Phone number. … When do you want it? … OK, you’re all set.”

The CSR was missing prime opportunities to connect with customers and continue to build on their relationship. “I hear this excuse all the time: ‘They’re in a hurry. They don’t want to talk to me.’ OK, maybe 95% of customers really want to stand there and talk, 5% are in a hurry. You can monitor your conversation with the pace of the customer. We train that with our reps.”

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Brian Wallace, president/CEO of the Coin Laundry Association, was given a daunting task: to capture the audience’s attention during the final hour of a regional dry cleaning and laundry trade show in sunny Southern California.

But his task was no more challenging than one faced by every dry cleaner: to successfully market his or her store(s) in an environment where potential customers have access to information almost instantaneously and from a variety of sources.

On top of all the other “hats” that a dry cleaner “wears”—customer service, maintenance, production, human resources, accounting—he or she can add one more hat to that mix: director of marketing, Wallace told attendees of Fabricare 2012.

“You work incredibly hard for your business, but the fact of the matter is things have changed. … We’re all trying to reinvent ourselves on the fly, trying to deal with the new marketplace. I think that trying to come to grips with some of the new marketing techniques is really an important part of that overall process.”

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — The Coin Laundry Association (CLA) has put together an event Oct. 11-13 that it hopes will bring together the self-service laundry industry’s most successful people for unmatched educational sessions, networking, exhibits and a unique opportunity to share best practices with their peers.

The Excellence in Laundry Conference is designed specifically for those laundry industry entrepreneurs who want to grow their business and succeed, CLA says. Attendees will rub elbows with some of the most successful laundry industry professionals and learn some of their most coveted secrets to success.

The agenda includes:

BURBANK, Calif. — When Milt Chortkoff retired from dry cleaning in 1983, he was an old hand at it. Having started out at his father’s plant, Hollyway Laundry & Dry Cleaners in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, in 1939, he had already spent more than 40 years in the trade. It was, he thought, time for rest and relaxation. And so Chortkoff and his wife, Edie, retired to travel the world.

And after just a couple of years, “I got very bored,” he says.

Powerless against the pull of the business he grew up in, and eager to champion the service credos he had learned throughout the years, Chortkoff re-entered dry cleaning as a consultant. And soon enough, he found himself consulting at a plant that he could buy and run as his own. “I love the action,” he says. “After all, I’ve worked in a cleaners since I was 10 years old. I just love the business.”

Victor Green, author of How to Succeed in Business - By Really Trying!, will be guest speaker at the opening educational session of Fabricare 2012 on Friday, July 13, at the Long Beach (Calif.) Convention Center. Leading Cleaners Internationale is the sponsor.

Green will cover all aspects of starting and running a business, including marketing and sales, profitability, growth, financial management, and more. Seating is limited; to reserve a seat, call 310-734-6487. There is no charge to registered Fabricare attendees.

CHICAGO — In February, after 14 years of study, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) named perchloroethylene a “likely” human carcinogen in its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) database. And after more than two decades of increasingly stringent regulation on the industry’s solvent of choice, the announcement seemed like the final nail in perc’s coffin.

Ironically, the decision actually protects perc’s position in dry cleaning, at least for the time being. “Everyone has the misconception that the category perc is in has changed,” says Faye Graul, executive director of the Halogenated Solvents Industry Association (HSIA). “It has not changed at all. The report says perc is safe for use in dry cleaning.”

EPA expressed no concerns about consumers wearing clothing cleaned in perc, and the IRIS report could ease the drinking-water standard required for environmental cleanups. And with a recent, recessionary lull in regulatory activity, only co-located facilities and plants in California and a few other areas see the possibility of a full phaseout ahead.

HAYWARD, Calif. — A new book describes fabric restoration company FRSTeam as a franchise that “…Wows Its Customers the Apple Way.”

In The Apple Experience: The Secrets to Building Insanely Great Customer Loyalty, author Carmine Gallo explores the methods and practices used by Apple and other innovative service pioneers like FedEx, Disney, The Ritz Carlton and Zappos.

FRSTeam was honored to be in the company of these leaders and singled out for the brand culture that has created “goose bump” moments, FRSTeam’s internal name for its “wow” customer service experiences.

In the narrative on his first meeting with FRSTeam President Jim Nicholas, Gallo reveals a common misconception after learning that FRSTeam is a fabric restoration service brand that restores clothing and other items after a smoke, fire, or water loss.

“Don’t you just pick up the damaged goods, restore them, and return them?” Gallo asks Nicholas.

GreenEarth Cleaning Affiliate Meeting from 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. followed by a cocktail reception from 5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

WASHINGTON — When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posted the final health assessment for tetrachloroethylene—also known as perchloroethylene, or perc—to its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) database in February, it deemed the chemical to be a “likely human carcinogen.”

The assessment replaces the 1988 IRIS assessment for perc and for the first time includes a hazard characterization for cancer effects. The assessment underwent several levels of rigorous, independent peer review including: agency review, interagency review, public comment, and external peer review by the National Research Council, according to the EPA, and all major review comments were addressed.

The Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance says 70% of U.S. commercial dry cleaners use perc; EPA estimates the total number to be 27,000. So what does this development mean for the future of the industry’s preferred solvent?