Originally posted – Aug issue/2012
Winning customer service is your self-service laundry’s best competitive advantage. It’s the lifeblood of any business.
In fact, you can offer promotions and slash vend prices to bring in as many new customers as you want, but unless you can get some of those customers to come back, your business won’t be profitable for very long.
Customer service is all about bringing customers back. And about sending them away happy – happy enough to pass along positive feedback about your store to others, who may then try you out for themselves.
A good salesperson can sell anything to anyone – once. But quality customer service is what determines whether or not you’ll ever be able to sell that person anything else. And the essence of good customer service is forming a relationship with your customers.
How do you go about forming such a relationship?
Don’t make promises unless you can keep them. Reliability is one of the keys to any good relationship, and good customer service is no exception. If you tell a wash-dry-fold customer that her laundry will be ready by 5:00 p.m., be sure it’s professional packaged and ready to go by 4:59. Otherwise, don’t say it. Think before you promise, because nothing annoys customers more than a broken one.
Listen to your customers. Is there anything more exasperating than telling someone what you want or what your problem is and then discovering that person hasn’t been paying attention and needs to have it explained again? Not from a customer’s point of view. Let your customer talk and show him that you are listening by making the appropriate responses, such as suggesting how to solve the problem.
Deal with complaints. No one likes hearing complaints, and many have developed a reflex shrug, saying, “You can’t please all the people all the time.” Maybe not, but if you give the complaint your attention, you may be able to please this one person this one time – and position your laundromat to reap the benefits of good customer service.
Throw in something extra. Whether it’s a coupon for a future discount, additional information on how to care for certain garments or just a genuine smile, people love to get more than they thought they were getting. Don’t think a gesture has to be large to be effective.
Train your staff to be helpful, courteous and knowledgeable. Do it yourself or hire someone to train them. Talk to them about good customer service and what it is (and isn’t) regularly. Most importantly, give every member of your staff enough information and power to make those small customer-pleasing decisions, so she never has to say, “I don’t know, but so-and-so will be back at…”
This last step is a crucial one. For most laundry operations, it’s the store attendants who will be forming these customer relationships and will be charged with following the above steps.
“The most important people are the people who are interacting with the customers,” explains customer service expert Robert Spector, whose Up Close interview begins on page 24. “They are the engine that powers the machine. If they aren’t taken care of, you’re not going to be able to take care of the customer.
“The employee experience creates the customer experience. If you don’t provide a good employee experience, you’re not going to be able to provide good customer service. If the employees are not happy and engaged, how can you possibly expect them to be happy and engaged with the customers? That’s not human nature. That’s not going to happen. And that’s what separates companies. The companies that are good at customer service are the companies that take care of and respect their employees.”
It’s a simple as helping your attendants help your customers, which in turn helps your business.
If you apply these simple rules consistently, your laundry business will become famous for its customer service. And, over time, good customer service will bring in more new customers than promotions and vend price slashing ever can.
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