SERIES: How are you doing?

By Becca Anderson

In Part 1 of this article I talked about why evaluating your own success is inextricably tied to knowing how your competitors are doing, and gave you tools to get data to evaluate in that regard. You don’t have to get a peek at your competitors’ spreadsheets to see how successful they are; you just need to study what’s actually going on and then draw insights from it.

In this article, we’ll look at what you learned by observing, and turn it into action steps.

Look at your data

If you followed the steps and sent a mystery shopper to each of your competitors with an evaluation sheet and instructions to be brutally honest, you made a great first step. If you included your own store in that mix, you are ready to begin the next phase of this project.

Look at the spreadsheet where you transferred all the scores from your own mystery shop and those of your competitors. Who excelled in each category? Who seems to be letting opportunities slide? Were you surprised by any set of scores? What about your own?

I worked for a grocery chain that hired a firm to do focus groups on all the competitors in the area. It was the most hotly-contested market in the country, so there was plenty to talk about. I so vividly remember when the results came back. We expected to be in good shape with respect to people’s opinions of us. It was devastating to hear they thought our stores were outdated and overpriced. Sure, they liked our employees, but they cherry-picked sales all across the area to get the best deals, rather than being loyal to one store.

The immediate reaction in the conference room was to deny the truth. “That can’t be right. They must all live near older stores.” But when the data showed these were customers who lived all over town, and experienced even our best stores, we could not ignore what had been said.

If you are brutally honest about the evaluations that you are holding in your hands, you can see areas where you are not perfect. Don’t be an ostrich and hide your head in the sand. Really read the numbers and the notes and see where your operations are fumbling. Then take a deep breath and look at your competitors’ numbers the same way.

What do you get from this?

Each area your mystery shopper cited as a weakness is a prime opportunity for you to improve your customers’ experience. And each area found to be weak in a competitor’s operation is a flag showing you something you can pounce on. For instance:

• If one competitor has great prices but terrible online reviews for quality, push your quality guarantee.
• If others don’t offer pick up and delivery, start some routes, and see how they go.
• If nobody seems to offer repair services, advertise repairs heavily.
• If the other shops look dated, a mini-refresh of your customer area and storefront might make you stand out.
• If they don’t communicate by text, start sending your customers “Ready for pickup” notifications.

Dry cleaners are a little like banks; people don’t switch from one to another easily. They’ve chosen a dry cleaner for a reason. If that reason (like good service, quick turn-around, etc.) no longer holds over time, there’s an opportunity for you to show them a change might be a good idea.

There may be areas of your own company that need tweaking to bring in more customers and profit. For example, if you offer premium quality cleaning but are priced mid-market (according to your new data), you’re losing margin. If you’re budget-priced but slow and inconsistent, you’re losing customer trust and are vulnerable to customer flight.

Focus on the differentiators

Customers usually choose a dry cleaner based on five basic factors.

1. Trust/Quality.

This is the most important factor, since no one wants ruined garments. If they find a cleaner who reliably gets out the stains and puts the creases where they belong, they will not experiment with another cleaner without a strong reason in the other categories.

How do you build trust in your quality? Aside from the obvious (do a good job!) you can influence your customers’ thinking by showing them quality subliminally. Use Social Media, in-store signage and other methods to spread the word.

• Promote the expertise of your technicians by celebrating milestone anniversaries (“Sadie has been taking the spots out of your garments for 20 years!) or any special training they get (“Jim is just back from advanced training at XYZ and eager to put his knowledge to work for you”).
• Show before/after examples of stain removal, garment restoration, wedding gown preservation, etc.
• Offer a “quality guarantee”. Customers will often try something if they know they have nothing to lose. Then delight them with your skills and quality, and you’ve got them hooked. (If you say, “I can’t offer a guarantee!” then there are deeper issues than can be covered here.)

2. Convenience

People will pay more for doing less themselves. Every time you can show them that you are saving them that precious commodity, time, they will take notice. And if it is also something they would consider drudgery, all the better.

Show them you make their lives easier by promoting:

• Fast turnaround
• Pickup/delivery
• After-hours drop boxes
• Text notifications
• Seamless payment

If you don’t have some of those things, that may be why they are going to your competitors. These are great areas to step up your game, and then make a lot of noise about it in every way you can—on Facebook, fliers on orders, signage, etc.

3. Specialty Services

If someone needs something special, price is not the first thing they look for. They need someone qualified to handle their order. Some services you can do yourself; some you might partner with a carefully-vetted outside vendor to provide. These might include:

• Wedding gown cleaning and preservation
• Leather/suede cleaning and repair/dying
• Alterations/repairs
• Household items (too bulky to do themselves)
• Special cleaning options for delicate items

Whether you do the service in-house or send it out, you can promote it as part of your menu of valuable offerings. Make some noise about them!

4. Relationship/Familiarity

Clothing is one of the most personal things we own. It not only lives next to our skins, it expresses our personalities and retain emotional memories of associated events. As such, the more personal you can be with your customers (while still remaining professional, of course) the better.

This comes down to training your staff. Every counter person should greet customers by name when they know a customer’s name, and learn it in the conversation if they do not. They need to ask customers about their personal preferences when it comes to handling their garments. This assures them you care about their order. And of course, a “thank you” should end every transaction or interaction.

5. Pricing Strategy

Does it surprise you that I put this item lower down on the list of the big five? If the other four are in place, customers are much more flexible with this last one. It all comes down to this:

You don’t have to be the cheapest; you have to be worth what you charge.

Action plans

After you’ve reviewed your data, it’s time to build actionable plans to move your company forward. Now that you know what your competitors are not doing well, you can begin to tell the stories they are not telling. For example:

• If your team has 30 years of combined stain-removal experience, advertise it.
• If you’re eco-friendly, put it on the website header.
• If you have fast turnaround, make it the first thing customers see.

How are you talking?

You alone are in control of the messages your company is sending. Your website is a cornerstone of that communication package. Be sure that you are communicating:

• What you do
• Where you are (you’d be amaze how many leave off the city, province and country! The Internet is worldwide.)
• How they can contact you (make it easy)
• Why you’re better
• Prices
• How fast you are
• How to order
• Why customers trust you (use some of those before/after photos)
• What your Google reviews say about you

Your website needs a strong and consistent design. Look at your competitors’ websites with a customer’s eyes and choose which you’d visit just based on that. How did yours fare?

Create a retention system

Everyone likes to feel valued by someone they just paid for a service. A simple “Thank You” text can let them know that, as well as the verbal thank you if they were physically in the shop.

Ask for reviews—but don’t badger people. There is something we could call “review fatigue” that is setting in. You know how it feels. You went to the corner shop and picked up a newspaper. You open your phone and they are asking you for a review! You growl, and delete it.

It should feel natural to ask for a review, not forced. If a customer made a comment about how great the clothes looked when they picked up, a counter person can easily send a text with links where they can leave a review.

And if a customer leaves a negative review, you should never just let it sit there on the screen. Reply to the comment with a “thank you for telling us” and what you are doing to put it right. That goes a long way with people trying to decide on a dry cleaner.

Show up where they don’t

If your competitors ignore online presence, you can dominate search results by posting Google Business updates, LinkedIn updates, encouraging fresh reviews, and including blogs/articles about garment care and related topics on your website. The average new customer puts “Dry cleaner near me” into a Google search. You want to come to the top of that result by having an active presence.

It’s never over

You’ve studied your own operation, mystery shopped the competitors, and then improved your operation accordingly. Good for you! You’re a star!

But don’t think it ends there. What you’ve done is react to a moment in time. New competitors come into the market; seasons change; population shifts. Be prepared to repeat the process in an ongoing manner.

Set a schedule:

• Quarterly mystery shops
• Monthly online reviews scan
• Seasonal price comparisons
• Annual service-mix review (wedding season, winter coats, etc.)

Consistency beats dramatic one-time efforts. A customer who feels you have their back as far as garment care, that you’re there when they need you, that you know your business, will continue to be a customer into the future. There’s no such thing as resting on your past accomplishments. There’s always a new customer to win over.

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