3 SOP’s Your Laundry Delivery Driver Needs to Know

Delivering laundry is different than delivering pizza. Here are 3 basic Standard Operating Procedures your laundry delivery driver needs to know.

Delivering laundry is different than delivering pizza. An Uber driver is not used to the size, weight, personalization, and emotional attachment that comes with the day-to-day of a laundry delivery driver. If a pizza is delivered to the wrong house, it’s $10 and 20 minutes to replace. If this happens with someone’s laundry order, it is a much more expensive and emotional problem that takes much longer to solve. On top of that, there is a pickup and a delivery. Laundry delivery is a double-touch delivery transaction whereas most home services and food delivery is a single-touch delivery transaction. This means there are two times the room to make a costly mistake. Mistakes in the laundromat are easy to fix. Mistakes in the van can be devastating. Delivery can be a money pit if you don’t have distinct and clear Standard Operating Procedures. These are three SOPs you didn’t know your laundry delivery driver needed.

Laundry delivery drivers should photograph and document everything. When business happens over the counter, it is easy to prove. But when business happens at the customer’s door, a complaint can mean it’s your word vs theirs. More technical laundry delivery software will include the ability for your laundry delivery driver to photograph pickups, missed pickups, and deliveries at every stop. This takes an extra 1-2 seconds and can provide invaluable support to the company. When an order is not tagged properly, you have photo proof to go off of. When a customer claims the driver never came or that the laundry was indeed left outside, you have photo proof that is not true. When a driver claims they were at the right house, you have photo proof that they were actually at the neighbor’s house. Every time the laundry delivery driver gets to a stop on the route, they should be logging photo proof of the stop’s outcome – whether picked up, missed, or delivered.

Laundry delivery drivers should not rely on notes or memory until they finish with the route. Laundry bags, hampers, etc. should be tagged immediately with the the tagging mechanism that your laundry delivery software provides. If you are not using the provided customer tags from the software, your laundry delivery driver can use temporary tags to keep track of the order until they are replaced by the permanent tags at the laundromat. Your laundry delivery driver should check all of the bags for tags when collecting. Just because the customer has a branded laundry bag, doesn’t mean it is tagged with their information. Check all bags for tags before putting any pickups in the vans! This is one of the worst mistakes your laundry delivery driver can make in day-to-day operations. ALWAYS tag your bags immediately.

We’ve added different steps into the missed pickup protocol to document your efforts to pick up laundry from the customer, contact the customer, and give ample time to the customer before moving on with your route. Missed pickups happen! We understand. However, your laundry delivery drivers operate on very full routes. Every minute matters! If you operate a traditional laundry delivery route, these routes operate like a UPS or FedEx route – not a pizza delivery or an Uber ride. Your laundry delivery driver will notify the customers when they are on the way through your automated messaging system tied to the laundry delivery software. If no clothes are left out, the laundry delivery driver will knock/ring the doorbell. If no answer, the laundry delivery driver should 1) call, 2) text, 3) then call again. Let your laundry delivery driver know that sending texts through the laundry delivery software and leaving voicemails will help prove their efforts to contact the customer if these efforts are called into question. If at that point your laundry delivery driver can’t reach the customer in 3-5 minutes, our drivers are instructed to move on with their route. The driver will not be able to turn back. Having good documentation from the laundry delivery driver helps you: 1) prove to the customer that you did everything you could and 2) prevents the customer from bullying the drivers by making false claims to your customer support operators.

A good delivery includes good presentation & good photos. While the customer came here for beautifully folded laundry, making an aesthetically pleasing delivery can’t hurt. Place the bag with the logos facing out and take the photo so it looks Instagram-worthy. Your customers will love it the small attention to detail!

Mistakes in the laundromat are easy to fix. Mistakes in the van can be devastating. These introductory SOP’s can help you get your laundry delivery drivers on the right track. However, a good laundry delivery operation will have many more detailed Standard Operating Procedures. Reinforce to your laundry delivery drivers that laundry delivery is much higher stakes than pizza delivery.Most importantly, they are representing the company while they are on the road. Don’t stop to pee on the side of an apartment complex. Don’t flip off a customer who cut you off. Don’t speed recklessly. Keep music volume to a reasonable level. Wear your mask. These are all things customers or passers-by have (and will continue to) call customer support to complain about.