National Clothesline

I am sitting down feeling sorry for myself because I had surgery on my right foot.

Heck, I know I have two feet, but hobbling around with a bootcast with air inserts on my right foot is not a lot of fun, especially since I have to keep it elevated.

While thinking about my sore foot I started thinking about your business.

My foot was operated on because the big toe was out of alignment. Reed, my comical grandson, asked me if I had toe-main poisoning.

Do you have a department or employee in your business that is out of alignment or perhaps poisoning your company? Will surgery help that department?

How about a grouchy CSR, or a prima donna finisher, who thinks your business is dependent upon their ability to show up for work? Are these people like my big toe, out of alignment with the rest of your company?

In my case the surgeon realigned the toe and put in a screw to hold it in place. Can you do the same with an employee who causes pain by being misaligned with the rest of the organization?

Rarely will you be able to change a person’s attitude or alignment in relation to the rest of the company. That means you need to call in a surgeon and remove the body part that is making walking difficult for you.

What are you waiting for?

Are your sales down? Is it surprising, considering the fact you have not for the past five years done anything to update your website? Just having a website is not enough in today’s economy. Your website needs to be updated and made more user friendly.

Let’s talk about how to do that. Take a look at Travelocity, Amazon, or Netflix. As a Netflix subscriber I can tell you that they are always making changes to create a better website.

More than 193 million citizens of the USA used the Internet in 2008. How about this statistic, 86 percent of those people made an online purchase. This was an increase of over 40 percent above 2006.

What is sad is there are so many of you who do not have a website. If you don’t have a website, develop one now. Call Darcy Moen, the happy Canadian website designer, at (306) 721.0124 and tell him I sent you.

Do not do it yourself. You are not a professional website designer; you are a professional drycleaner. You have as much business designing your own website as the website designer has doing his or her own drycleaning.

Having a website is not enough today. You need to have the site optimized for search engines like Google or Yahoo to find your company. Remember these three letters, SEO – Search Engine Optimization.

There are services, such as Click Tale and Crazy Egg, that will tell you what parts of your website are being viewed. They do this by using factors such as the location of customer’s cursors.

There are different ways you can invigorate your website. Consider stressing ways your company benefits the consumer instead of stressing how great you are. Give the customers what they want, when they want it.

Because something worked for another drycleaner does not mean it will work for you. You need to test what you do to verify success or failure. Do not hesitate to add links to trade associations or other companies. They will add validity to your website, besides drawing more viewers.

I did this with American Airlines air miles. I loved looking at the AA logo next to mine.

Do not provide excessive information that might confuse the customer or waste time. Provide a call to action.

If you are running a route, give the customer the ability to sign up for your route service. The latest technology might look cool, but it is possible it might not work for you. It could even distract the customer from that important call to action. Use videos when available. They add interest to the site.

Do not ask for too much customer information. Keep things short and to the point and get only the information you need and will use.

Learn what the conversion rate is for your website. In other words, of all the people visiting your website, what percentage of the visitors are actually buying?

Question of the month

Question of the month comes from Chicago. “A customer came into my business and told me that I did something to damage their garment. What should I do when something like that happens and I don’t believe I caused the damage?”

Do you get defensive when this happens or do you take the negative situation and turn it into a positive scenario? The first thing to do is empathize with the customer.

As soon as the customer finds out that you are not going to fight about the problem, the more relaxed that customer will become.

Do not forget that a customer who is angry is displaying childlike behavior.

Your goal is to get the customer out of his child and into adult behavior. That means communicating and getting the customer to communicate. Try reading Games People Play. It will give you tremendous insight about human behavior.

You know you did not cause the damage. You know from your experience that the manufacturer did not do its job correctly. What are you going to do? Will you send the garment to the Drycleaning and Laundry Institute for a lab analysis?

What you should not do is send the customer back to the retailer. That is the absolute worst thing you can do. Nine times out of ten, a sales clerk at the retail store will tell your customer that they sold hundreds of that garment and they never had a problem.

How often have you heard that story?

That means that you request a receipt from your customer for the purchase of the garment. You are on the customer’s side. You tell your customer that you will take the garment back to the retailer.

Yes, I know it means that you are going to give up some of your precious personal time. Don’t forget, it is your customer who is supplying the money that you enjoy spending during your personal time.

Go to the retailer with the garment and ask to speak with the manager. I remember doing this with a garment that was only “a year or two old” and the customer could not find the receipt.

Aren’t all damaged garments less than a couple of years old?

I showed the garment to the department manager and learned that the $250 garment was five years old and was last sold, on sale, for $5. Five dollars for a five-year-old garment was a huge difference from what the customer told me.

I called the customer and asked if they want me to return the garment and get the $5 refund or if they want the garment back. Of course this garment was taken back by the customer.

On the other hand, you will get customers who will love you forever for taking the garment back to the store and getting a credit on their account. You went to bat for your customer and you won the game. Not only did you win the game by hitting a home run, the customer is now announcing that you are the greatest cleaner in the world.