REIDS OF HENLEY A DRY CLEANING DYNASTY BUILT ON A QUALITY FINISH

The Reid family has been in the dry cleaning business for three generations. Currently holding the baton is Ian Reid, whose grandfather first entered the trade in 1945. Reid’s of Henley has been a fixture of the up market Oxfordshire town since the early 80’s and Ian is pleased to say that business has never been better. As you approach the shop it looks quite sophisticated  in its black & white livery. No sign of special offers in the window, no ‘three garments for £10’ or similar cheap offers. So how does he manage to corner the local trade if it’s not a price-led strategy?

“We rely totally on the quality of our product” says Ian. “Furthermore, we take great pride in the personal service we give all our customers. Of course, it helps that we have been established in Henley for over 25 years. We have regular customers who have been using us all that time and many come from quite some distance to drop off their dry cleaning – passing goodness knows how many others in the process. I firmly believe that if you give customers a quality finish and serve them with a smile, they will be prepared to pay a fair price for your service.” It should be music to the ears of the dry cleaning industry and an object lesson to other operators.

Following the sad death of his father, David, in recent months, Ian now runs the shop with his mother, Kay, who has also been in the business for many years. 

RENZACCI ASSOCIATION

Although Ian and David had dealt with Renzacci UK some years earlier, it was in early 2007, when Ian invited Jason Alexander, Managing Director of Renzacci UK to quote for a complete refit of the premises.  No “shoo in”, this, because Ian also asked several other suppliers to quote for the equipment he needed. “I was really very surprised at the poor quality of response I received from some major branded equipment houses. Some didn’t even bother to reply to the enquiry.”

So it came about that after many meetings and telephone calls, Renzacci UK won the contract.  This was not just for the supply of equipment.  It involved a total rerouting of the services entailing a fundamental gutting of the production area, removing some of the existing newer equipment Ian had to storage (to be reinstalled a week later along with the new Renzacci machinery), and scrapping the older redundant equipment. Jason takes up the story: “The only thing left by the time we had stripped it all out was the incoming electrical supply. We had to undertake all the basic work on the services before we could ever think of installing a piece of equipment”.

The new equipment ordered was two Renzacci Progress 45 Club drycleaning machines, a Pony SP/U manual finishing press with steam gun and 18kW boiler and a Pony MGP-INOX stainless steel garment former. These were specified and arrived in short order despite a bespoke specification that involved customizing the distillation unit and filters on the Progress 45 machines, together with some other requirements that Ian particularly wanted.  The specification was one that Ian insisted upon, since his work methodology is quite different from many other dry cleaners: “Being third generation means that an awful lot of received wisdom is handed down from father to son by word of mouth. You could call it trade secrets, but suffice it to say we have a way of operating that we believe delivers the quality standard that Reid’s of Henley has built its reputation on. Give Jason his due, unlike some people we spoke to, he never once questioned our rationale, which must have seemed quite bizarre. In fact, he readily saw how it would all go together. It was this understanding of our business that really endeared me to him.”

RENZACCI PROGRESS

The Renzacci Progress 45 Club model that Ian selected has been established in the marketplace for 18 months now and even before Ian’s modifications they were already built to a very high specification. Jason refers to it as “fully loaded” meaning that it has all the features you ever dreamed of in a dry cleaning machine. Jason admits: “You may have to pay 5 or 10% more than our competitors’ prices to get the best, but that’s loose change when amortised over the life of a machine like this – and we are always able to arrange the finance, if required”.

One feature on the Renzacci Progress machines that particularly caught Ian’s eye was the Videotron microprocessor controller. This is a real-time management and control system that is an integral part of the machine.  Fitted at user height to the front of the Progress machine, it features a large, graphic multi-lingual full colour LCD display, which shows Ian all the machine’s operating parameters such as temperatures, timings, extraction speeds and the active operational phase of the machine.  In addition, this revolutionary microprocessor controller also allows operators to vary parameters whilst the machine is operating, such as drum speeds, extraction speeds, solvent temperatures, drying temperatures, rocking actions – whether it be in automatic or manual modes.  Ian commented: “It is quite exceptional – the programmes we have designed are pretty comprehensive for any garment, but if you get for example a very, very delicate garment, we can run a standard automatic program for gentle fabrics and then alter it to make it do precisely what this particular garment requires – I have never come across anything like this, and if I had to use one word to describe it, that word would be ‘genius’!”.

Having gutted the workshop, it was amazing to realise that Reid’s was back up and running just over a week later with all the new and existing equipment in place. “The job really did go like clockwork” says Ian “All credit is due to Jason and his team of engineers, who clearly knew what they were about. Overall, my experience of Renzacci is nothing less than five-star. Jason obviously works the same way as I do. He listened to what I wanted and then delivered it on time. What more could I ask? I’d certainly recommend Renzacci UK to anyone.”