Queens Dry Cleaners earns prestigious award

Queens Dry Cleaners were recently awarded the 2007 Award of Excellence for Quality Garment Cleaning and Customer Service. The Balzan cleaner passed a rigorous set of cleaning evaluations earlier this year to achieve this prestigious international award.

The Clothing Care Council (CCC) of America represents the interest of the dry cleaning industry, clothing manufacturers and consumers by identifying dry cleaning operations that provide a high level of quality service.

The award was introduced by the CCC in June 2005. To date, approximately 170 companies around the world have attained this award, which requires passing separate stain removal and cleaning performance tests, among other criteria. Queens Dry Cleaners is only the third dry cleaner outside Canada and the US to accomplish this.

Eligibility for the award is based on successfully completing a rigorous set of cleaning evaluations and satisfying assessment criteria that include attaining or exceeding a specific level of education, and training on a continuous professional development basis; and being a member of good standing in a national dry cleaning association that offers education, training and technical support to its members, and carries out research and publishes monthly periodicals;

It also involves passing an annual cleaning quality performance test; passing an annual stain removal test comprising six different and difficult stains on white silk; and adhering to a set of customer service principles that guarantee prompt attention to customer enquires or complaints;

Candidates need to achieve technical competence and professional quality; adhere to promised delivery schedules; offer a money-back service guarantee if the customer is not satisfied; non-gender based pricing; and commitment to protecting the environment.

Bill Fisher, a 40-year veteran of the cleaning industry in America, and spokesman for CCC, said that Queens Dry Cleaners now joins an exclusive group of 170 professional dry cleaners in the US and Canada that has received the prestigious Award of Excellence.

"Queens Dry Cleaners is proof that quality cleaners do exist - and now customers in Malta will know where to look," Fisher said.