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This is a sponsored post by Cents. Find out what Cents can do for your laundry business here. All reviews and opinions expressed in this post are based on my personal view.
Customers are the life-blood of small businesses. Expanding your customer base strengthens your business and should be the goal of any small business owner. The key to attracting new customers and keeping them is to offer them more value than the other options available to them, but what, specifically, are some things you can do to attract more customers to your laundromat business?
The core idea behind attracting new customers to your laundromat business is to offer them unmatched value. Three ways you can offer potential customers value and attract them to your business are to, first, take exquisite care of your customers. Second, reinvest in your business every year. Third, Create and follow a marketing plan.
Attracting More Customers to Your Laundromat
Let’s go into more detail on these three ways that any laundromat owner can attract more customers to their laundromat.
1. Take Exquisite Care of Your Customers
Taking up the example of some of the premier companies out there, one way to stand out from the competition and to create an experience that customers crave is to go above and beyond when it comes to taking care of customers. One simple way to take exquisite care of your customers is to model the best customer-service businesses.
For example, Ritz-Carlton’s gold standard for customer service is three steps and twelve values that you could implement in your business. Chick-fil-a is another great company to model customer care after. The core concepts behind the customer experience success of both of these companies are that they make customers feel like they are important and that they genuinely care about them.
In addition, running a solid operation is part of taking exquisite care of your customers. Great employee training, attending to the basics of operating a successful laundromat, and having good systems in place to manage it all are vital to ensuring a great customer experience.
One tool that can help you with these three additional steps to taking exquisite care of your customers is Cents. Cents is a business-in-a-box solution for laundromat owners to help them manage their business and gives employees simple, powerful tools to ensure your customers have a memorable experience they want to be repeated.
2. Reinvest In Your Business Every Year
At this point, I have interviewed over 50 laundromat owners and industry professionals for the Laundromat Resource Podcast, and one of the things that the most successful owners do is reinvest in their businesses. In fact, I would assert that one of the main reasons laundromats that become Zombiemats end up that way is because their owners failed to reinvest in their businesses.
The best owners are always looking for ways to reinvest in their businesses. Sometimes you need to reinvest in big ways, like adding new washing machines and dryers. Sometimes, you can reinvest in smaller ways like painting inside or outside, freshening up the look of the outside of your business, or adding a convenience item for your customers, such as an ATM machine. Adding a laundromat management software like Cents can improve your business and customer experience on many fronts at once.
When you reinvest in your business consistently, not only does your business stay nice, it communicates to the community that you’re an owner that cares about your business and your customers.
3. Create and Follow a Marketing Plan
You can craft an exquisite customer experience and consistently reinvest in your business and not attract new customers if no one knows about it. That’s where a solid marketing plan comes in. Creating and following an intentional marketing plan designed to communicate your laundromat business’s unique value to customers is the lure designed to introduce potential customers to your exquisite customer experience and fresh-feeling laundromat.
The goal of any marketing plan is to drive sales. For a laundromat business, this means getting people through your door to do their least favorite chore with you.
The first step to getting people into the door for the first time is to do something dramatic. This may be a dramatic promotion such as free washes or drys, double your money promotions, or offering free food. The point is you need to do something dramatic to get them to change their normal habits of however they currently do their laundry to trying out your laundromat for the first time.
It’s your goal after you get them in the door for the first time to “wow” them and craft another strategy to get them to come back a second time. For example, offering a second promotion for repeat visitors or loading extra money onto a payment card could incentivize that repeat visit. And don’t forget to provide that exquisite customer experience while they’re there.
When they come back for your second promotion, provide that same great customer service and incentivize them to come back a third time. Statistically speaking, if they come to your laundromat 3 times then they’ll keep coming back.
Your marketing plan should also include some online advertising. The Laundromat Resource Marketing company has found that Facebook and Google have been the two best platforms to advertise on for self-service laundromats. They are great platforms for fluff-n-fold and laundry pick-up and delivery services, as well. LinkedIn can be a great platform to acquire commercial accounts.
Attracting More Customers Means More Opportunity
When you attract more customers to your laundromat business you not only make more money for yourself, you also have more opportunities to serve your customers better and to serve even more people. So, be sure to take exquisite care of your customers, continually reinvest in your business, and craft a solid marketing plan and stick with it. Customers will be flocking to your laundromat in no time!
