How digitalization can boost laundry business 

The world is changing daily and probably the only thing that remains the same is the desire of people to look good. And what helps to create an impressive and solid look? Of course clean and ironed clothes. However, the current speed of living does not let people spend too much time on doing their laundry and taking good care of their garments. That is why laundry services became more popular than ever before. 

Nowadays you do not even have to sort your clothes by colors, go to the laundromat dragging huge bags of things to clean and then keep waiting in line. Why is that? Simply because digitalization changed laundry businesses. 

“You stay home doing the things you like and we will take care of your laundry” – that is the current motto of numerous laundry businesses that offer pick-up and delivery services through websites or mobile applications.On-demand laundry services is the best thing that ever happened to us all and if you own a laundry and still have no web or mobile presence, then it is time to think about it. 

Digitalization offers numerous benefits to both business owners and their customers because the services can be provided faster and therefore better. You also get a chance to expand your client base, increase awareness of your services and of course make more revenue. Wondering how to do a digital transformation of your laundry business? Then keep reading this article! 

Can custom solutions resolve major laundry business issues?

As the laundry business grows, the challenges become inevitable. So you either keep working extremely hard in order to control everything or you consider optimizing your business and offering a new level of customer service. The second option is definitely better but sometimes business owners have doubts whether a custom solution can really change or improve anything. 

So let’s take a look at the key challenges of laundry business together and see how apps help to handle them. 

Not growing client base 

Laundromats popularity and number of regular customers that you have are influenced by your location. Even if you own the best laundry space in the city and already have a big number of customers, you should not stop looking for growth opportunities. After all, some people cannot use your services because they either do not have time to bring laundry or live a bit far from your actual geolocation. 

By offering pick-up and delivery services you can really expand your customer base. Web and mobile presence nowadays are crucial because people prefer doing numerous things on-the-go without spending too much time on routine tasks. Without mobile or web application you attract people who are ready to come and use your services, but you lose a chance to get more orders from new potential customers.

On top of that, if you have an app – web or mobile one – you can increase your service coverage without actually opening new laundry spots and investing a great deal of money into them. Just organize pick-up and delivery to the nearby areas and see your income growing. 

Customers satisfaction is not on the highest level 

The quality of all laundry services that you provide is crucial but you should not forget about customer satisfaction. You may be the best in washing, dry cleaning and ironing items but what if your clients have to wait for a long time to complete the order? Or maybe they have a limited choice when it comes to pick-up and delivery options? And what about loyalty programs that everyone tends to like so much these days? 

Without an application and a website it is harder to keep all factors influencing customer satisfaction under control. Applications let you stay more connected with your clients and get real feedback from them. Here is how digitalization can help your laundry business achieve better customer satisfaction: 

• Save clients time. Clients can order your laundry services in a couple of clicks instead of wasting time on coming to the laundromat themselves. Clients can schedule when exactly they need to use your services and at what time they might need you to pick-up their laundry or deliver their cleaned items.
• Offer better options. It is possible to specify a more convenient pick-up and drop-off place. Clients even can arrange contactless laundry pick-up by leaving the bag with the items to wash at their door or with a doorman. It is very convenient and all busy people will appreciate this option.
• Faster access to services. Clients can take a look at  info about your range of services and prices. If you do not have an online presence then people will have to either call you and take the time of your employees by asking the questions or they will need to come to your laundromat to discover everything. 
• Custom orders. Clients can specify what items require special treatment, what should be cleaned in a certain way, etc. Let the customers choose what they want and get a great competitive advantage. F.e. all parents will appreciate it if you let them select a type of detergent for cleaning baby clothes. 
• Referral program. You can offer special bonuses to the regular customers and increase their loyalty. It is also possible to provide some discounts if your regular clients refer your laundry services to friends or neighbors.
• Convenient notifications. You can send notifications reminding your clients to do their laundry. Thanks to this option you can encourage people to use your services more frequently.
• Honest feedback. Get real reviews and suggestions from your customers. All commentaries that they might leave can help you improve the services and make your business more efficient. 

Not effective and expensive advertising 

Advertising is the key if you are trying to win the attention of more customers. The laundry businesses that do not have apps and websites usually place their ads on billboards and flyers which is less effective than online advertising. You may not reach out to your real target audience by spreading the information on paper. The Internet is much more powerful in terms of advertising. 

If you have a laundry app and website then you can promote your services among people who really make use of them. When a client registers in your application he leaves his email or telephone number. So you basically can create your client base and in the future send them either emails or push notifications reminding of your services. It is even easier to promote some seasonal services like spring cleaning, putting warm clothes in order or else. You can also use various attention-catching banners and offer some limited-time discounts to attract as many customers as possible. Without digital solutions your options are quite limited and they are also rather cost and time consuming. 

What is better – a website or mobile application?

Based on our experience (and we have developed 2 successful projects for laundry businesses) we can say that you need both a web and mobile presence if you want to expand your client base and boost your company. And we are telling this not to sell you a wider spectrum of our services. The thing is that people have different user behaviour, so to cover more potential customers you need to have an app and a website. While some people order services online only on websites, others use their devices and rarely visit any webpages. 

So high-quality websites and applications for iOS and Android devices are a must for all laundries. You may think that it is very expensive to build them, however it is not so and moreover you will be able to increase your monthly income almost instantly after you launch your solutions.

Our expertise and successful example of laundry solution

Let’s take a real case we’ve worked on as an example. We’ve developed a solution called Laundry King  for a client that owns quite successful laundry business in the US. The idea behind Laundry King was to create an app able to expand customer base of the business owner and also to turn his laundry services to a whole new level. We also developed a marketing strategy for Laundry King. We created banners, used email marketing, wrote interesting blogs about clothes cleaning.

And now let’s speak about the features that every laundry app can make use of. When developing mobile application for laundry we would recommend to add the following ones to it. 

As to the website, it can contain more information related to your laundry business to attract potential customers and let them see to whom they are delegating their laundry routine. You can add to your website real pictures of your laundromat, place a price list and list of services, and even add a blog section and post some tips related to cleaning of items. As we’ve already said, a website can be a powerful marketing tool so you should consider investing in it. What’s crucial – people will also be able to make quick orders right on your side if you add chat to it. 

If you have already thought about digital transformation for your laundry business, then the only thing that is left is to find the right team. We would recommend you to cooperate with the teams which have experience in developing apps for the laundry business since this will help you to reduce overall development time and cost.

The teams like ours have some ready-made modules and know what go-to features should be added first. We also have professional Business Analysts in our team that can help you find new business opportunities, explore your competitors and choose the best approach helping to boost your business. We can develop an MVP to test your idea or full project at once. Check out how much time each of options might take. 

To sum it up

Digital transformation is the key to business success and growth. Now when devices are always at people’s fingertips it is crucial to ensure web and mobile presence of your company. Laundry business can be called location-based and even dependent on it, that is why to turn it to a whole new level you need to use modern technology. 

Laundry application and website can work perfectly together and help you increase your customer base and income, raise awareness of your business, advertise seasonal cleaning options and cover more locations thanks to pick-up and delivery services. To stay competitive and offer even more to your customers you need solutions that can be used at any time and anywhere because the modern world is all about speed and convenience. 

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