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Original article from Eastern Funding.
Now is a great time to be a laundromat owner. With so much innovation in the industry, there are incredible opportunities to leverage technology to create a better experience for your customers and employees while driving up profits. In this blog, we’re going to walk through a few hot topics and trends in the industry and how you can utilize technology to take advantage of them.
On-Demand Laundry Delivery Services
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Laundry delivery services have been one of the leading drivers of increased revenue and customer growth for laundromats. Unfortunately, there is often a high-cost barrier associated with pickup and delivery services. You may need to pay for a van, insurance, a driver, gas, accidents, and more. All of these eat at your profit margins, making your growing business less profitable.
Absorbing these expenses has become the norm due to a lack of other methods to power laundry delivery services. In today’s world, there are millions of rideshare and gig economy drivers on the road passing by your store every day. Have you ever wondered why they aren’t delivering laundry?
As an example, let’s look at restaurants. Doordash, GrubHub, and UberEats all have made it possible for restaurants to offer delivery without taking on the operating costs. Why hasn’t the laundry industry been a point of focus for gig economy delivery?
If anything, laundry is easier to deliver as it takes longer to process and doesn’t need to be delivered ASAP like food. Part of the challenge with laundry is the integrated process. One order can take multiple days to process, will be handled by multiple employees, and contains the belongings of the customer.
Previously impossible to leverage in the laundry industry, the gig economy and last-mile logistic networks can be a huge cost-saver and revenue driver for your business.
Operational Efficiency
As delivery drives more volume and new customers begin sending orders to your stores, the ability to track employee and operational efficiency is key to increasing margins. Knowing the pounds per hour folded, average processing time, order rating, machine downtime, and more are all key metrics that many owners and operators either do not track or use inefficient and manual logging tools.
When you can easily calculate data, it helps make data-driven decisions to reward and incentivize employees, run predictive machine maintenance, and create a better overall order and store experience for your customers.
Promotions, Affiliate Programs, and More
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Promotions can be one of the best ways to engage new customers and reduce customer churn. However, there are some key aspects to a successful promo/coupon campaign that will drive sales:
Granularity:
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Setting up your coupons and promos can be even more powerful if you do it strategically, opposed to generically. Offering 10% off wash and fold or self-serve on weekends can actually decrease your revenue. People are willing to pay full or higher prices on weekends and peak store hours. It’s critical to set promos that will not only drive new customers to your store but increase machine utilization and purchases in your off-peak hours.
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Offering a percentage off or discount service can be valuable. Having the ability to dynamically create promotions based on data and time ranges, specific stores, product or service types, and quantities will raise your ROI on promos to a new level.
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Leveraging existing successful coupon and promo campaign templates can help improve campaigns focused on retaining and creating customers for your stores.
Insights:
Once you’ve run successful promotional campaigns, the most important next step is to understand the insights.
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How many customers engaged with that promo?
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How much cumulative money was saved?
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How many customers were returning compared to new? What promo or coupon campaign worked better than others?
Affiliate Codes:
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There’s a great opportunity to incentivize your customers to be your marketers. Your customers can receive an affiliate code to share with their friends, family, and colleagues who haven’t been to your store before.
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Create affiliate campaigns where new customers use one of your existing customer’s affiliate codes and both parties get a credit to their account. This happens in many different retail/eCommerce environments, and it can be a game-changer for your business
Using Technology at Your Laundromat
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Technology is the gateway to drive new initiatives and business opportunities that drastically decrease the manual, labor-intensive work that goes into running laundromats.
Beyond just technology, laundry-specific software platforms like Cents power all services mentioned in this blog post and can take your business to new heights. To learn more about what Cents can do for you, and other tech trends that can help grow your business, schedule a demo with us today.
