National Clothesline

When I receive e-mails and telephone calls, one of the most frequent complaints I hear is “My routes aren’t growing.”

Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time there is not a route business plan in place. Drycleaners who want to start routes or who have routes in place do not consider what it takes to make a route successful.

I am going to touch on just a couple of basic issues that should be part of your route business plan. I will also provide you with a tool to help you build your routes.

Hiring the person who will be your route sales representative is the first task. If you would not put this person on your counter, why would you allow the new hire to go to your client’s home?

So often, the drycleaner, in an effort to save money, hires a barely literate pick-up and delivery person who is just a truck driver. The driver could not be used as a CSR, so why is that person calling on your best customers?

The first rule is do not hire a driver who could not work at your counter.

The second issue I have is with cleaners who refuse to accommodate a customer when they drop off clothing at the counter and want the order delivered.

You are in business for the convenience of the customer. You should never say “No” to customer requests unless you want to destroy your business. If your RSR picked up an order from the customer’s home and the customer requested that they pick up the clothes at one of your locations, would you say “No”?

The second rule is, never say no to any customer request.

One of the route building tools I used was a daily printout of my inventory to determine those customers who had large orders in my plant inventory. My RSR would call those customers and offer to deliver the orders. This created goodwill and an introduction to the route driver and route service. The print-out was by zip code so a specific area could be targeted for delivery and route building purposes.

Too many cleaners are afraid to move counter customers to their routes. Route customers spend more money than counter customers, so why worry?

Is customer loyalty the reason for your reluctance to put counter customers on the route? Use your telephone and call the best route customers monthly to make sure they are getting good service. This will help create the understanding they are still your customers and you will maintain the important personal relationship.

I recently saw some excellent TV ads that can be customized for your company. There is a nice variety available. If you are in a market that allows you to target specific areas or if you are in a small town market these would work great. Contact my friend Darcy Moen at (306) 721-8124 to learn more about these ads.

If you have a television in your call office lobby, you can show the ads on a continuous basis. Something else you might consider is looping a Power Point presentation.

Speaking of call offices, one of the nicest marketing tools I have recently seen is a large touch screen that can be used by the public to access information about your plant, your services, and general knowledge regarding drycleaning. If you saw the Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, you saw the touch screen of the future. It can now be installed in your call office.

While considering the use of that touch screen or any other marketing device in your call office, take a good look at your counters. How long have they been in use? Are they tired? Is the appearance of the call office tired? Put some money back into your business instead of buying a new motorcycle and make your sales department look like new.

Digital signage using touch screens will keep your customers busy while they are waiting for service. Some clients will play with those touch screens because they are like toys. The touch screens can be connected to the internet and if you have multiple locations, they can all be showing the same content. You can ask Darcy about this when you call him about the TV commercials.

Another use of the touch screen would get the CSR out from behind the counter. If a customer has a complaint, you can use the Drycleaning and Laundry Institute CD to show the customer the necessary information about the problem. It is so much easier to deal with a problem when you can demonstrate that other customers have had the same issues and who is the responsible party.

Consider the touch screen as a sales tool. The CSR can demonstrate, or the customer can learn about route sales. For those CSRs who are not great at pushing routes, this will really help.

The biggest objection to digital signage is the cost. Consider this fact from an Arbitron retail media stud: digital signage receives ten times more eye contact than a static sign. One company almost doubled the sales of a particular item that was being marketed on the digital sign.

Finally, measuring the way the customer uses the digital screen can determine future sales and items of consumer interest. In other words, you will be recording all usage of the touch screen because the software records every customer interaction (touch).

Customers, for the most part, love innovative technology. Customers are impressed when you have something in your call office that will differentiate your company from the generic drycleaner.

Now that we all know we are in a recessionary economy, it is time to consider how to reduce the stress you are confronted with. Here are some easy things to do that will reduce stress and improve your mind and body so that you can work on building your business.

These are the Nine Commandments for stress reduction.

1. Remember to eat.

2. Take time for yourself. Grab 15 or 20 minutes to kick back and think about your next vacation.

3. Exercise at least 30 minutes daily. Running around your plant is not exercise.

4. Get enough sleep.

5. Have some fun by getting out of the house. I did volunteer work and bowled a couple of nights each week to escape the TV.

6. Sit back and relax in front of your computer and don’t feel guilty if you are participating in a fantasy football or baseball league.

7. Do a no-brainer. Take a walk or read a good book for fun, not business.

8. Pamper your body, get a massage or a manicure and pedicure. When you look great you will feel great.

9. Keep your love life alive. Have a weekly date with your significant other. Do not put your love life on the back burner.

By taking care of yourself you will find it easier to take care of building your company. You need mental and physical strength to deal with day-to-day issues of owning a business.