It may seem as though you could just unlock the doors to your laundromat remotely from your smart phone, monitor for vandalism or theft via security camera, and check in periodically for any maintenance issues while leaving your laundromat unstaffed. 

However, customer service is incredibly important for local businesses, and laundromats are no exception. While there will always be a place for unattended stores, today we’re making the case for customer service with a personal touch. 

Here are 5 reasons why customer service will always matter for laundromats:

1. Happy customer service employees create happy customers.

90% of customers make a decision about a business based on customer service. If you’re not fast enough when trying to fix problems, it can drive people away from your business!

Imagine this scenario – one of your washers breaks down and starts “eating” a customer’s quarters. You do not have any staff inside the laundromat, but you do have a comment area where you encourage customers to leave feedback. While you may make every effort to respond quickly to any notes left in the comment box, it is still not an instant solution. Your customer will likely leave the laundromat feeling frustrated and under served.

On the other hand, if you do have an employee on site who can handle situations like this immediately, your customers will feel well-taken care of and valued. The key is action!

2. Customer service can expand your service line.

Making money from people doing their laundry in the machines may be your bread and butter, but there are other ways to create revenue streams with live employees. For example, you can offer a drop-off laundry service that your employees tackle. You can charge significantly more for this type of service than you can charge in the machines too — just make sure you understand all the costs involved and have a good strategy to sell your new services. 

3. Employees can respond more quickly to maintenance mishaps.

Just like your employees may tackle any customer complaints, your employees can also help make sure everything is up and running the way it is intended to. If a machine breaks down or some other problem arises, they are there right away to alert your or a maintenance technician. 

They can also go ahead and put a sign on the machine to let others know not to use it. This is a huge benefit to your other customers, as they may become annoyed if they come in and lose money in a broken machine. 

4. Good customer service builds loyalty.

One of the most important success indicators for a local business is how loyal their customer base is. Good service will keep your customers using your laundromat as opposed to anyone else’s, and are worth 10 times more than other customers over their lifetime. 

If a customer has a good experience at your laundromat, they are significantly more likely to keep coming back. In order to make that a reality, you should also consider offering regular customer service training to your employees.

5. Your employees are your eyes and ears at your businesses.

Unless you plan on being at your laundromat around the clock, you should lean on your employees. Your employees can observe what frustrations customers have with your laundromat and relay those back to you to improve. For example, perhaps customers have a hard time with the fact that the doors both swing outward when they are trying to carry laundry inside. From this feedback, you could switch one of the doors to swing inward so that people coming in and going out have an easy way to open the door, even if their hands are full.

This might be something you wouldn’t have considered if you hadn’t listened to your employee. Your employees can offer insights about your customers experiences that you may not be aware of. 

While it might be tempting to get rid of employees so that you can save some money, it probably isn’t worth it in the long run. No one enjoys visiting a business where they do not feel that they will receive service should a problem arise, and it will likely hurt your overall business down the line.