Planet Laundry Nov 2020

COPING WI TH COVID- 19

the first place. Many financial institutions weren’t getting into the PPP game, due to their inability to dedicate labor hours to the task. And, once applicants figured out how to get their applications submitted, those applications often took a while to fund. Of course, it hasn’t been easy to maintain and retrain employees. “Keeping attendants on the payroll was our biggest challenge,”McNutt admitted. “During this pandemic, many people have been unstable within their own lives. Some attendants have allowed the stress of the times to negatively affect their ability to offer the customer service we expect, so we have had to cut ties.” Moreover, most employees were expected to adhere to new, more stringent sanitization, masking and physical distancing requirements within the stores. Taking onToughTimes Despite these formidable obstacles, Jaeger, McNutt and Maes maintain that their businesses are on the upswing, thanks to features that set their stores apart – including sanitizing ozone injection and the ability to provide multiple services. Both McNutt and Jaeger feature ozone systems and are delighted by its benefits. Jaeger’s washers have been designed to work seamlessly with ozone systems, which is a big plus, especially during times like these, according to the veteran operator. Jaeger has ozone sanitization as an“extra rinse”option on all of his Continental washers’ProfitPlus controls. At his store that was most recently retrofitted with ozone technology, 40 percent of the customers selected the ozone rinse option during the first month. “We now have ozone in all four of our stores,” Jaeger stated. “We are seeing increases in customer usage – they’re telling us that they’re pleased with our overall effort at sanitizing the store and their clothes. Cleanliness is important at this time, and I think the ozone has greatly helped our pickup-and- delivery business, as well as our walk-in traffic. We’ve received many five-star reviews on the cleanliness of the store and freshness of the clothes. Our customers appreciate that kind of environment.” McNutt agrees. “We made the decision early on to include ozone at no additional charge, so as to be a differentiator between our store and our competitors,”he explained. “This proved to be a wise choice. Our customers appreciate the fact that we invested in their well-being, as well as in our store’s cleanliness. We’re constantly told how nice the store smells. Ozone is the reason.” However, equally important are the laundries’ services. Through more services, the owners generate multiple revenue streams that help balance each other out during tough times.

Beyond his self-service business, Maes also offers drop-off wash-dry-fold and commercial laundry services. However, because the commercial segment of his business is currently down, he has strengthened his efforts on the residential side. Fromhis laundry hubs, he is positioned to build this new revenue streamwithout reinventing the wheel. Once the hospitality industry recovers, Maes expects to benefit from them all in terms of revenue and profit. From the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, Jaeger maintains that his residential pickup-and-delivery business has surged. “We immediately had 25 percent more new customers signing up, and it hasn’t stopped,”he said.“We had a strong July, then added 14 new customers in the first five days of August.” Although Jaeger’s drop-off wash-dry-fold business was down during these periods, those numbers quickly rebounded to 100 percent. “Overall, business is at 90 percent of where we were,”he said. And he anticipates a full recovery.

13

coinlaundry.org November 2020

Connect. Learn. Grow