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Survey: Vast Majority of Wire Respondents Seeking Business in Trying Times

CHICAGO — During these difficult economic times, positioning a laundry as a valuable service to end-users or clients has never been more important. With that in mind, American Laundry News asked its Wire e-mail subscribers this month if they were actively seeking new business or were satisfied with maintaining the status quo.
The overwhelming majority of respondents — 94.1% — to the unscientific survey say they are seeking business. Among them, 52.9% say acquiring new business is vital to growing their operation, and 41.2% say they’re looking because they have additional processing capacity available. No one tied seeking business to a desire to eliminate competitors.
Of the 5.9% who acknowledged not seeking business, the reason was an inability to take on more work right now. No one tied their position to having just the right amount of business, being positioned to serve only their institution’s needs, or because upper management doesn’t favor prospecting.
Determining what customers want would seem to be a common-sense aspect of garnering new business, and roughly 59% of respondents say they seek the opinions of their end-users or clients regularly. Nearly 12% say they never seek such input. Roughly 24% say they do so occasionally, and 5.9% do so rarely.
If a laundry isn’t ready to attract new business now, it’s due to any number of reasons, including the need for new or additional equipment (25%), larger or renovated production space (25%), more staff (16.7%) or better distribution/transportation capabilities (16.7%), survey results show. Roughly 58% of respondents say they’re ready for new business now.
Several U.S. and international trade organizations are preparing to present a slate of 38 educational sessions during the upcoming Clean Show in New Orleans. Topics garnering the most pre-show interest among Wire respondents relate to laundry chemistry/stain removal, at 33.3%. Production techniques are next at 20%, followed by green operations/sustainability and equipment innovations/automation, each at 13.3%.
While the American Laundry News Wire survey presents a snapshot of readers’ viewpoints at a particular moment, it should not be considered scientific.
Subscribers to American Laundry News’ Wire e-mails — distributed weekly — are invited to participate in an industry survey each month. The survey is conducted online via a partner website. Each survey is developed so it can be completed in 10 minutes or less. Readers are encouraged to participate, as a greater number of responses will help to better define operator opinions and industry trends.
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ALN Wire Survey Chart

ALN Wire Survey Chart

ALN Wire Survey Chart

ALN Wire Survey Chart

Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].