National Clothesline

Customer-centric, what is it? What does it mean to you? To me it means providing excellent customer service, brand loyalty, and maximizing profitability.

Whether it is your brick-and-mortar location or route, a customer must feel that the experience with your organization was pleasing, satisfying and, most important, provided an emotional connection to your company.

That certainly sounds like a lot, but you can make it happen. There is an old song titled, “T’ain’t What You Do, It’s The Way That You Do It.”

I am uncertain as to the exact lyrics, but the message is there. Anyone can rent a store; put a counter and some rails in along with a cash register, but what else can you do to create the emotional experience of connection to your branding?

Aside from the warm friendly person who I know you will hire and train, you need an environment that clearly displays your branding and image.

In addition to the potential emotional experience at the time of drop off, pick up, or delivery, convenience is another key to the customer-centric company.

The convenience of having someone visit a home or office is what has driven route sales. With climbing gasoline prices we might find routes sales increasing even higher. Of course, extended days and hours will also provide convenience for your clientele. You are in business for the convenience of your customer, not your convenience.

What services are you offering? There are some companies that only offer drycleaning and shirt laundry.

I was in the supermarket the other day and they were selling six varieties of apples. Six varieties of apples seemed like a lot, so I talked to the produce manager.

The manager explained that customer demand for the various kinds of apples drove this supermarket to provide them.

The produce manager was the customer advocate who went to management and told them that customers were requesting various kinds of apples. Management was wise enough to listen.

Are you offering enough varieties of apples to your customers?

If you are not providing the services customers need, they will go somewhere else to find those special apples. Survey your customers and learn what they want.

Product quality is part of the customer-centric company. How do you measure your quality?

Do you know how many garments are returned to be re-processed?

Do you know why those garments are returned?

Is your inspector missing spots or poor finishing?

Are the minor repairs that the customer requested taken care of?

Quality is measured differently by every drycleaner because the standards of what is good and what is bad are not specific.

One cleaner may have a person ironing the inside of the waistband, so the pants look like new.

Another cleaner may simply steam out the top of the pants and consider that job as high quality because he has never been exposed to what a real quality job looks like.

Great quality creates customer loyalty. Target is not a high-end retailer but they carry quality products that have created great customer loyalty.

Your customer-centric business must have a commitment from the entire staff regarding quality standards. If you don’t know what standards should be, it is time to learn.

The vast majority of your customers will not care about the price if you provide the quality.

Customer service that outshines all other drycleaning companies is a top requirement for a customer-centric company.

Start by empowering your sales force. When I visited Trader Joe’s, a specialty grocery store in my area, I was treated to great customer service. I could not find a particular item and asked where it was. The employee took me to the aisle where the item was located and pointed it out to me.

Will your employees carry out the cleaning to the customer’s car?

Will you provide your customers with your cell phone number so they have the ability to reach the person where the buck stops?

Another feature of a customer-centric drycleaner is the relationship between the plant, routes, dry stores, and internet.

The internet should drive customers to the brick and mortar locations and routes. The routes and brick and mortar locations should drive the customer to the internet. This same kind of relationship should exist between the brick and mortar locations and the routes.

I have said this at every route seminar where I have spoken. There is, and must be, a symbiotic relationship between all aspects of your business.

To sum up what you have just read, your customer-centric company must provide a great experience, terrific convenience, services that the customer demands, top quality, outstanding customer service, and a symbiotic relationship between every aspect of the business that the customer comes in contact with.

When you have all of that, you will own or work for a customer-centric company.

Most drycleaning companies are frightened about raising prices. Because inflation is raising its ugly head, the need to charge more becomes a necessity.

A number of years ago I received the following story that deals with quality.

In the city of Bagdad lived Hakeem the wise one. Many people went to him for counsel, which he gave freely to all, asking nothing in return.

There came to him a young man who had spent much, but got little, and said, “Tell me, wise one, what shall I do to receive the most for that which I spend?”

Hakeem answered, “A thing that is bought or sold has no value unless it contains that which cannot be bought or sold. Look for the priceless ingredient.”

“But what is this priceless ingredient?” asked the young man.

Spoke then the wise one, “My son, the priceless ingredient of every product in the market place is the honor and integrity of him who makes it. Consider his name before you buy.”

How about taking that little story, putting it on a hangtag and attaching it to every order you send out. You might want to change the wise man’s name to Harvey or change the city name, due to potential political ill will, but the message about quality is there. It is simple and straightforward without hitting the client too hard over the head.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, at his 1933 inaugural speech said, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

Ordinarily you only hear the first part of this quote but the balance of it completes the message the president was making.

Too many of you are afraid to raise prices. You become paralyzed with worry about the competitor up the street. Remember, you have “The Priceless Ingredient.”