CHICAGO — “Fifty-nine percent of your Best Customers want clothes ready in one day or less!” Came the voice over the Zoom webinar. “Also Gen Z and Millennials want garments ready in one day or less too!”
The big message: Location is always important, but quick service is just as important.
Those survey facts were delivered by Jeff Schapiro in a recent webinar to a fabricare audience via Zoom of about 400 attendees.
Cleaner’s Supply recently held this free webinar titled Understanding What Your Customers Are Thinking: Before, During & After COVID-19, hosted by Schapiro, president of Cleaner’s Supply.
Cleaner’s Supply in partnership with Drive Research says they conducted one of the most extensive research studies on what drycleaning consumers think and are looking for in their dry cleaners before, during, and after COVID-19.
The study, conducted around the beginning of June, Schapiro says, was done involving 1,000 people across the U.S. who have used dry cleaners in the last year.
“We were looking for insight into what the customer is thinking about dry cleaning,” he explains to his online Zoom audience.
“We know that location, by far, is the most important, however,” Schapiro says, “that opinion is only half true because of the ability to break-out the data today.
“We’ve found that location is not as critical to your Best Customers — they rate quick service as equal to location,” according to what the survey shows, he relates.
The Top 3 important factors in business, the survey indicates, are: 1) Location; 2) Quick Service; and 3) Price. Your best customers are less concerned about price, and gender didn’t matter either in these survey results, Schapiro notes.
You could tell on the computer screen via Zoom that attendees were paying close attention and looked to be writing notes. It was a very attentive audience as Jeff related survey information.
Other facts that came out of the survey, Schapiro points out, are that, “The majority of customers believe there are extra charges for pricing and delivery. Also, urban customers make up two times more volume of pickup and delivery services than rural or suburban, and men are two times more interested in using pickup and delivery.”
In talking about Wash-Dry-Fold, or WDF, he notes that the survey shows 65% say it saves time and 47% say it gives better cleaning results. Note: Percentages don’t add up to 100% in this survey.
“The target market,” he says, “are men. The survey shows that men are three times more likely to use the WDF service.”
Also more about WDF from the survey he notes: Fifty-five percent of millennials are interested in WDF; Gen Z is at 44%; GenX is at 32%, and baby boomers are at 15%.
Moving on to eco-friendly, he relates: “Being eco-friendly appeals to younger customers,” Schapiro notes. “Millennials are three times more likely to place importance on eco-friendly, the survey indicates.”
He also points out regard for how you reach your customers, as the survey shows that 64% of your best customers want to be notified by email. And Facebook got 51%, website 51%, and texts 50%.
About COVID-19, he notes, the survey shows that 50% are staying at home and 50% are not wearing nice clothing, which he opined might not be a good sign for garment care, but of key importance, Schapiro says: “Eighty-three percent want to feel safe and see that you are taking precautions, such as doors propped open; bringing clothing out to the cars; and setting up a rack in front of the counter so customers can grab and go.”
“Show customers exactly what you are doing,” he advises to the webinar audience regarding showing them your safety measures and precautions during COVID-19.
Check back Wednesday for the conclusion.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Dave Davis at [email protected].