INTERNATIONAL
America’s Best Cleaners Affiliates from around the globe attended this year’s meeting at The Landing at Rivers Casino hotel in Schenectady, New York, from 11 to 13 September, hosted by Best Cleaners New York. The theme was labour, and the knowledge on display was universally important to anyone in any business, not just drycleaning.
Affiliates were greeted with a trip to The Van Dyck for a beer tasting with three local brewers, as well as a Q&A panel with the brewery owners that focused on labour challenges they are experiencing.
Day two featured a visit to the headquarters and plant of host Best Cleaners. Affiliates were given a complete tour of the main production plant and retail store, followed by a detailed debrief back at the hotel and development of a comprehensive improvement plan.
After lunch, there were several informative sessions led by ABC partners and vendors.
ABC technical trainer Liz Davies taught affiliates the importance of quality with her presentation on benchmarking production and quality.
The afternoon featured top industry vendors – Paulo Rocha of Miele, Richard Fitzpatrick of Kreussler, Bill Odorizzi and Wesley Nelson of Sankosha and Nathaniel Dubaski of Metalprogetti – on how to improve quality and productivity, representing efficiencies from ticket to bagging.
The final day featured Toran Brown of SPOT Business Systems who spoke on client to technician communication to quality control and PPOH, while Dave Troemel of BeCreative360 spoke on the power of customer reviews.
America’s Best Cleaners Business Partners Catherine McCann and Chris White took the stage to finish the meeting.
In Management for the Future, McCann spoke on organizational structure, incentives, and KPIs , while White focused on MBE management & forecasting, looking at management systems and quality control.
An open forum allowed affiliates to take the stage and present a new successful program or a business challenge they are facing.
