CHICAGO — Hygiene solutions. Safety supplies. Custom branding.
Value-added options like these can help industrial laundries win and keep customers, and occasionally smooth things over when the linen service doesn’t go as planned.
Some industrial laundries haven’t gone near these value-added options; however, many offer them, using the products and services in strategic ways.
That’s what respondents to the most recent American Laundry News Your Views survey indicate.
When asked if their industrial laundry offered value-added options to their customers, 80% say they do. Only 20% don’t offer such options.
What products/services do these laundries offer? Choosing from a list where respondents were asked to select all that apply, customized products/branding was tops at 60%. Half of operators who took the survey provide both hygiene and consultative solutions.
On the lower end of the scale were ergonomic solutions (20%) and safety supplies (10%).
One respondent shared a list of the numerous value-added options their healthcare laundry provides:
- Internal Linen Distribution
- Hospital Linen Assessments
- Consulting Services
- Linen Distribution, Linen Management, and Laundry Equipment Scrub and Patient Linen Machines
- Specialty Product Processing
- Safe Patient Handling Product Sales and Processing
- Cubicle Curtain Program
- Specialty Item Customization
For survey takers whose operations aren’t offering value-added options, they’re either considering doing so or don’t think it would make sense.
One writes, “We currently do not have any extra services at this time. We are looking at adding first aid.”
“Facility services make a ton of sense for Cintas,” shares another. “They have built a company that stretches beyond our industry, through acquisitions, separate distribution and fulfillment, etc.
“UniFirst struggled to match the model. I’m not convinced that without scale, others can match it, nor should they try.”
When it comes to finding out what added options their customers want, most laundry managers (45.5%) say they rely on customer inquiry. Other major information sources are route service representatives and sales representatives by almost a quarter each of survey takers.
Surveys and “other” methods were both indicated by 4.5% of respondents.
When asked what other ways their laundries use value-added options, selecting all that apply from a list provided, the top answer was to attract new customers (60%). Half of survey takers use options as incentives for re-signing contracts, and 20% offer value adds as a loyalty reward.
Only 10% use value-added options to make up for errors on the laundry’s part.
While the Your Views survey presents a snapshot of readers’ viewpoints at a particular moment, it should not be considered scientific. Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%.
Subscribers to American Laundry News e-mails are invited to take the industry survey anonymously online each quarter. All managers and administrators of institutional/OPL, cooperative, commercial and industrial laundries are encouraged to participate, as a greater number of responses will help to better define operator opinions and identify industry trends.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].
