Wouter Verkerk Recognized As First-Ever 1-800-DryClean Employee of the Year

Posted on August 27, 2008 by Pete Kosowski

1-800-DryClean is proud to name Wouter Verkerk as its inaugural Employee of the Year. Shannon Toler said the contributions Wouter made during the development of Route Runner earned him this recognition.

"The initial decision to take our business to the next level and develop our own software came last Fall with the help of our Franchise Advisory Council," said Toler. "Wouter spearheaded the project management of Route Runner along with our software partner Stature, Nathan New and the franchise owners who greatly contributed to this process."

Owners will see the new web-based system and the evolution from Spot. New owners will come on board faster and easier than ever before. Ease of training and accessibility are also huge improvements to this integral business-building tool.

"This is ground-breaking from what I’ve seen. The working relationship with Stature has been great – Joe is one of the best developers and project managers I’ve seen. He’s knowledgeable about the industry, can communicate in layman’s terms and has been willing to test different functionality that has resulted in cutting-edge technology," said Verkerk.

When asked about the process of going through the development, Verkerk said it was fun. He recently showed employees at Service Brands International’s Home Office the system, and said it was cool to see how impressed they were, and how the system is so intuitive.

"When you enjoy doing the work, it doesn’t seem like a big deal. I really enjoyed the creative part of this process," said Verkerk. "I feel like there’s a psychological response in our system because we won’t have to dismiss suggested improvements to the system in the future – it’s invigorating at the capabilities we have available to us."

Special thanks to the franchise owners who also worked on the development providing important perspective and feedback to Route Runner:

• Pete Halliday
• Larry Shiffman
• Brent Moffitt

"Wouter really showed his potential during this project. He is so detailed-oriented and was able to anticipate needs early on during the process," said Toler. "It was great to be able to acknowledge Wouter recently at a Town Hall meeting at Home Office and now to the system."

ABOUT 1-800-DryClean:
1-800-DryClean is a quality dry-cleaning and laundry pick-up and delivery service franchise, and a member of the Service Brands International family of brands. 1-800-DryClean is the world’s largest drycleaning delivery service franchise. It’s ranked number one in its category, and a "Top Home-Based Business" among Entrepreneur magazine’s Franchise 500Ò. The company has franchised since 2000, and currently has more than 130 franchise units across the United States.