It has been a tough few years, but we have faced and survived more difficult times in the past. While some may need to reflect and respond to a changing demand for their services such as a need to diversify into wetcleaning, I believe our industry is very well placed to face any challenges that may lie ahead.
While the new UK Government got off to a shaky start, it has put cash into the pockets of many people some of which will, hopefully, find it’s way into our factories and high street cleaners. In the past cleaners could anticipate a major boost to Christmas turnover, some benefiting from increases of 200% or more in the immediate run-up to the holiday. However, for many this welcome boost has declined and some will be anxious about the trading prospects for 2025.
At this time of year, when demand for cleaning is down, it is a good time to take stock of your business and critically appraise the performance of both yourself and your staff and figure out if there are any ways in which you could all do things better. Don’t be afraid of visiting potentially contentious issues such as poor timekeeping. Staff should be at their work station at their start time having arrived at their place of work in time to say, put on their staff uniform if required. There can be few things more frustrating or annoying for a busy customer than having to wait till maybe 8.40am for their shop to start serving customers which should have been open and ready at 8.30am
Here are a few ideas and suggestions that could help boost turnover:
Begin with customer service (see LCN February 2024) and work down through production to delivery at the counter and identify any issues that need correcting; then, start with the easiest to resolve and work down to the most problematic and difficult issues. The objective being to start making any improvements immediately rather than deal first with more complex issues that may take some time to put right.
Consider a new service
Many cleaners deliver additional services such as shoe and tailor repairs, press only, photo printing, and sundries such as shoe polish, laces and sticky rolls for removing lint. I even know of one who has made a big success of hiring out party wear. In my experience key cutting can be a really profitable add on to your business and is well worth serious investigation. The key blanks are relatively inexpensive, cutting machines reasonably priced and can require less than 36 sq ft of floor space to install and of course, provided you can get the numbers, profit margins are very good. If you are interested, first check out the number of cutting services in your area – not a good idea to start up with a lot of competition. If there are any large housing developments in your area, residents always need additional keys and can create a huge demand for key cutting services. If finances are a problem look into the purchase of a good reconditioned machine.
There are many potential customers with a minor stain/stains on perhaps a new suit, costume or a treasured item who are reluctant to go to the expense of a full clean and press. Provided you have the necessary skill and expertise in stain removal, introducing and promoting a spot removal service is worth considering. I have done this myself on very many occasions on an ad hoc basis, mainly on fairly new items and where appropriate with a customer who understandably did not want to have their garment unnecessarily exposed to the mechanics of the cleaning process.
Finally, many cleaners providing a domestic laundry or shirt service have experienced a strong demand for their service and while others have a washing/ wetcleaning machine used for personal wear, expanding into domestic laundry may not be something they have looked into. If you have the space available to expand, first explore the market and start by perhaps offering customers a shirt ironing service which you can deliver with existing equipment and, if the demand is there, progressively move towards a full service for shirts and other items. Adopting this approach will avoid the unnecessary cost of investing in expensive equipment if the anticipated demand does not materialise.
