Originally posted – Apr 22, 2014
Professional drycleaners have a number of releases they have their customers fill out, because of all the delicate and specialty items they handle – such as silk, leather and so on.
In essence, these drycleaners are telling their customers that there are certain items they might not be able to clean or certain stains they simply might not be able to remove just due to the very nature of what the items are or how they’re made.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that we, as laundry owners, handle as many specialty garments as a drycleaning plant. However, when doing residential wash-dry-fold laundry, you’re definitely entering the drycleaner’s realm of “professional laundry services.” And one of the key advantages successful drycleaners have over their less-successful competitors is a well-trained staff at the front service counter that knows exactly what’s going on in the back of the plant.
In other words, the better the quality of your counter staff, the less the possibility there will be customer complaints or other problems on the back end of the transaction.
At this point, you may be saying to yourself, “I’m not a drycleaner – I’m just doing people’s laundry. What’s the big challenge?”
No, you’re not a drycleaner, but there are always challenges when you take on other people’s problems. And, when customers bring you their laundry, it’s because they have a problem – whether they don’t have the time to do it or they’ve got a particular stain that they can’t get out. Whatever the level of problem, the better-equipped the attendant taking in the order is – as far as being able to explain the wash process and its potential limitations – the less of a chance there is that a problem will occur when the customer returns to pick up the finished wash-dry-fold order.
It’s not that you want to undersell your service, but you definitely want to educate the customer – because you won’t be able to solve every wash-dry-fold problem. Even the best drycleaners can’t solve every stain problem.
Asking the Right Questions
A critical part of your service counter staff’s training is teaching them what questions to ask customers who are dropping off wash-dry-fold loads. After all, any up front information they can pass along to the employees who are processing these orders is helpful.
Of course, identifying any particularly tough stains ahead of time can be a huge help, as we’ve discussed in past columns. However, even more important than that is how long the stains have been on the item.
At my store, we frequently get laundry that people have stored away for several years that they want to have us freshen up – comforters, bedding, linens that they may have had at a summer cabin, garments they inherited from their grandmother and so on. You want to find out approximately how long since those items were last laundered.
You also want to identify the value of those items to the customers. After all, sometimes older garments that have been lying around for a long time might not be very durable – they might not come out very well and, in fact, they might even break up during the washing process.
But, if a garment isn’t too old or delicate to wash, and is of value to the customer, those yellowing age stains that occur from simply sitting around for a long period can be removed fairly easily – if you treat them with the right water temperature and the proper chemicals.
So, knowing the length of time stains have been sitting without being cleaned is a key piece of information.
It’s also crucial to understand the customers’ expectations with regard to when they would like their items completed. Some customers want to have their garments processed immediately, and some of them are OK with picking up their items a week later. Understanding the urgency of the customer and making sure the job can be done within that timeframe is critical.
This is especially important when you’re dealing with high-volume customers. Some laundry owners will charge a premium price for a quicker turnaround; whether or not you choose to do so, identifying a customer’s needs time-wise up front is another important part of that customer service equation.
Another way to safeguard your wash-dry-fold business from customer complaints is to be sure to get a phone number where he or she can be reached. After all, you never know when customers are going to slip a mistake into a load.
When I say “a mistake,” I mean an item they might not realize is in the load, or something that requires you to ask them a question. Asking about a specific garment or stain before attempting to solve the problem is always preferable to taking on the challenge without asking – and then finding out you’ve ruined the garment.
For example, let’s say you discover a cashmere sweater in a wash-dry-fold load. If you accidentally wash it and ruin it, you’ll very likely have to take responsibility for it – even though it was the customer who put it into the load. Therefore, it’s always better to check with the customer: “Did you really want us to wash this sweater? We also offer drop-off drycleaning. Would you like us to send it to the drycleaning plant?”
Customers often will bring in garments, such as 100 percent cotton men’s dress shirts or women’s blouses, that would look much better if they were pressed – certainly better than we can do by simply pulling them out of the dryer early, drying them on low heat and processing them in the most wrinkle-free way we can.
In such cases, we’ll call those customers and ask if they want us to process the garments as a typical wash-dry-fold order, or if they would prefer a full-service finishing process, which we also offer.
The key to avoiding customer complaints is to identify and anticipate them before they even become issues – and to train your attendants to know what potential problems look like. It’s always best to identify these problems with the customer the minute you find them and to ask initial questions to determine what potential challenges you may find.
Keep the questions simple, as you don’t want to take up too much of the customer’s time at the drop-off counter. So – in addition to getting a contact phone number for the customer and verifying when the order is to be completed – if you notice something that’s a bit older, ask, “How long has it been since the garment has been laundered?”
And, because it’s always easier to treat stains if you know about them ahead of time, ask “Is there anything in the load that requires special attention?”
As laundry operators, we’re trying to let our customers know that we might not be able to handle a particular garment or stain – because of the length of time it has been on there, due to the nature of the stain, or simply because the stain can’t be identified.
By asking some simple questions, you’re setting yourself up to provide the customer with realistic expectations on the front end, so you then have the ability to exceed those expectations on the back end.
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