True Quality Cleaning: The case against quick turnaround

Your cleaner has assured you that they’re a true quality cleaner.

They’ve also told you that they routinely provide “great cleaning, fabulous service and quick turnaround.”

How do you spell CONTRADICTION?

We get asked many questions at RAVE FabriCARE. Many of those questions involve turnaround time....

Why can’t I drop off my cleaning on a Monday by 9:00 and pick it up that same day at 5:00? Or at the latest by 5:00 on the following day?

Why can’t you pick up my cleaning on day 1 (say a Monday) and deliver it on day 3 (say a Thursday)? And pick up my cleaning on day 1 (say a Thursday) and deliver on day 4 (say a Monday)?

Our stock answer is that we don’t - and won’t - produce what dry cleaning industry experts call “bang and hang cleaning” and what we call “ordinary cleaning.”

You see, bang and hang cleaning or ordinary cleaning essentially involves tossing your cleaning into a machine, banging it out on a press, stuffing it in a bag, and cramming it onto a conveyor or shuttling it out the door.

Believe it or not, this is standard operating procedure at the vast majority of ordinary cleaners, including those offering pickup and delivery service. It’s a service available at most of the 26,000 cleaners in the USA.

If you don’t believe this scenario, consider, for example, what happens to your cleaning that’s picked up on a Thursday and delivered on a Monday by ordinary cleaners.

In all probability, those articles are “tagged” on Thursday evening or Friday morning. “Cleaned”, “pressed” and “bagged” on Friday. This way they’re “right and ready” to be delivered on Monday. (The same principle applies to cleaning picked up on a Friday and delivered on a Tuesday.)

Just think about that for a second. That’s nothing less than same day, or at the very best, next day service!

Given this scenario, would you knowingly subject your fine garments - especially your bespoke, made- to-measure, designer, high fashion, specialty and couture garments - to same day or next day service cleaning?

Of course not!

So here’s our dilemma: We can either focus all our resources on consistently producing cleaning that’s considered by many non-compensated, independent, authoritative third parties to be among the finest in the USA, or we can deliver the same bang and hang cleaning offered by over 400 ordinary cleaners in the metro Phoenix area and over 26,000 ordinary cleaners in the USA.

In a hectic world of same day and next day service and 3 day pickup and delivery service, you can take comfort in the fact that a true quality cleaner takes the time to do it right.

Because when it comes to caring for your fine garments, household textiles and accessories, faster isn’t better.

Never has been.

Never will be.