Is the appearance, manners, and conduct of the route men a factor when trying to sell more service to their customers? Is the attitude of customers and their friends toward the laundry a factor in increasing sales? What can be done to create a favorable buying attitude toward a laundry throughout the community? What can be done to get the women of a community interested in knowing just how the laundering quality of a textile, a dye, or a garment made in a certain way are determined? Is a laundry educational campaign on a cooperative plan worth while? How can women be interested in textile conservation? Why should not a laundry manager cut prices in the hope of doing a larger volume at smaller unit costs? Will this not create a favorable buying attitude? What cost data should be known before such a policy is adopted? Is the amount of business which a cut-price laundry can get large enough to justify attempting such a program? How can the amount of business likely to be gained by such a policy be estimated? Would some customers be likely to discontinue patronizing such a laundry? How can the probable amount of this lost business be estimated? What are all the management and cost problems involved when a woman does her own washing? Employs a laundress to come to her home to do the laundry? Uses an electric power washing machine? What is the total overhead expense in buying an electric power washing machine on the installment plan, including repairs and depreciation over the life of the machine? How much damp-wash laundry each week will this amount buy? What is the total overhead in buying a power ironer on the installment plan, including repairs and depreciation over the life of the machine? How much damp washing each week can be purchased with this amount of money? Topic No. 3. Satisfying Patrons with a Laundry Service A study of customer wants necessary.-The success of a laundry evidently depends upon satisfying or pleasing its patrons. Just what patrons want, therefore, seems worth careful study; for trying to please people without knowing just what they want is rather difficult. Under conditions where practically no one is obliged to patronize a particular laundry, the manager who knows just what the patrons of his establishment want has a much better chance to increase his sales than the manager who never stops to think about what his customers actually expect in the way of laundry service. Indeed, a constant study of what customers want seems to be about the only corrective for the attitude of many business men who, from their acts, seem to say "We are giving good service. My customers should be satisfied with it." What a laundry manager thinks about the quality of the service given by his organization does not help increase sales very much. What customers think of a laundry service is the vital thing; for that really determines the success of the business. Hence, a brief analysis of what customers want in the way of laundry service is an important element in any plan for increasing sales. Degrees of customer satisfaction significant in business.-A brief consideration of what is meant by satisfying a customer will throw S ht upon this part of the problem of increasing sales. Satis faction comes when an expectation has been realized or fulfilled; dissatisfaction, in some degree, whenever an expectation has not been realized. Between the extremes of satisfaction and dissatisfaction there are a number of intermediate stages which are very significant in building business. These different degrees of satisfaction can be indicated by labeling them the get-by degree, the full degree, and the plus degree. The get-by degree of satisfaction is the feeling which a customer has when her expectations have not been entirely met. Due to her lack of technical knowledge, or her unwillingness, or her inability to explain wherein she is not really or entirely satisfied, the customer may make no complaint; but she is not exactly satisfied. She may come back again, for there may be no real, definite reason for not dealing there; but she is likely to yield to the slightest suggestion for buying or trading elsewhere. Further, if her slight feeling of disappointment returns every time she deals with that firm, it is likely to crystallize into a positive dissatisfaction and so result in a lost customer. Such a customer is usually ready to find some fault, or some real reason for complaining or for going elsewhere with her business. The full degree of satisfaction comes when an expectation has been fully met. The customer has received exactly what she expected. She is satisfied; so all is well. She will come again; she probably will not consider going elsewhere. Indeed, she may put up with some inconveniences, even going out of her way in order to trade where she has been satisfied; for she is confident that she will be given the same good service the next time. The plus degree of satisfaction comes when an expectation has been more than met. The customer is surprised; she is delighted; she is enthusiastic. She got more than she thought she would. She has a surplus of satisfaction, and may want to tell all her friends about it. She is likely to be a booster. Practically nothing can stop her from coming again. For a time she will overlook many small disappointments, as she feels that the firm is one which does exceptionally good work and can give the very best of service. Satisfaction determines attitude.-The practical importance of considering these degrees of satisfaction comes from their effect in determining the attitude of the patron toward the plant with which she has been doing business. The patron who has been slightly disappointed will have an attitude of almost indifference toward the firm. She doubts the ability of that plant to satisfy her and may stop patronizing it at any moment. She can be won by having her expectation fully satisfied next time; but she may be lost before that happens. Her attitude will not help build business, for she will not have much to say in praise of the service. Her indifference will be interperted by most of her friends as meaning that the service given by that firm is not good. The patron who has been fully satisfied has a positive, friendly attitude toward the firm. Her friendly attitude will cause her to speak well of the service which she appreciates and so will help bring more customers. Further, it makes her less inclined to complain about any slight disappointments she may have from poor service on some subsequent occasion. When explanations are required, her attitude will aid in helping her see their reasonableness. The patron whose expectations have been exceeded usually will have a most favorable, almost indulgent attitude. She often will do her utmost to get her friends and neighbors to trade where she has been given such surprisingly good service. Because of her attitude she may overlook much poor service for a time, as she has learned from experience that the firm can give the best of service. Her attitude influences her to be favorable toward any apologies or explanations about anything connected with the service from that firm. Patrons' attitudes change.-The attitudes of patrons are not permanently fixed. They may change with every transaction, for every dealing gives rise to expectations and to varying degrees of satisfaction. The more frequent the transactions, the more important the attitudes of the patrons. Some change their attitudes very slowly. Having been fully satisfied on one occasion, they will remember that time and remain in a favorable attitude in spite of many small disappointments later. Others will have a decidedly different attitude after each transaction, apparently forgetting their past satisfactions as quickly as they forget their past dissatisfactions. How attitudes affect sales in the laundry industry.-The problem of meeting expectations and of frequent dealing with patrons is particularly important in the laundry business where there is a weekly cycle of expectations and realizations. Each week, as a customer makes up her bundle of laundry, she unconsciously forms an expectation as to what her clothes will look like when they are returned. Each week when she opens her bundle and puts away her laundry she will be satisfied, disappointed, or delighted according to the degree to which her expectations are realized. Thus, each week there is a possibility of a change in the all-important attitude of each patron. The customer's attitude will oftentimes determine just how much laundry she will send. If she has been fully satisfied the week before, she may not hesitate to include in her bundle for the present week some of her most valued possessions; though she may not be willing to take a chance on some garment about whose laundering qualities she has a doubt. If her attitude gives her full confidence in the laundry, she will usually include even those articles about which she has a doubt as to whether or not they will launder well. Of course, if she has been disappointed the week previous, or some time recently, she will be likely to include in the bundle only those garments which she feels certain will be handled safely or well finished by the laundry. Obviously, those articles she does not include will be laundered in some other way and so will constitute that much lost business to the laundry which she did not fully trust. Just as the patron's attitude determines what she will send, so it helps to determine how she will feel when she examines the finished. product. If the customer has been slightly disappointed the previous week, she may be mentally prepared for a similar experience and so she may be unfairly severe in judging all she sees. Her attitude makes her too critical to recognize, or to give due credit, for the good work in her bundle. If the customer's attitude is friendly or highly favorable, she will be likely to overlook any minor defect in her laundry and to see only the good work which she expects to find. Of course, some great disappointment may produce a change of attitude; but generally the favorable attitude will cause her to give most weight to the things which please her. Some customers are exacting in their standards.-The fulfillment of some of these customer expectations is made harder by the exacting standards of so many people, who, when they pay others to do some work, expect a much higher standard of performance than they require of themselves. A woman who can not do a fair job of laundering often will be the most exacting when examining the quality of the work done by others for her. A customer who, when washing a silken garment accepts a run or break as an unfortunate accident, or as a matter of course due to the age of the garment, often will ask the laundry to replace a garment because the same thing happened when the laundry processed a similar article even more expertly than she. Though every customer knows that colors fade and that many textiles shrink when laundered, yet many seem to think such things should not happen when the power laundry processes her clothes. Intolerance for the inevitable results of wear, of laundering, of the ill luck, or of the mistakes of others makes giving satisfaction to some laundry patrons very difficult. The expectations of laundry customers.-Most of the expectations of a customer who intrusts her clothes to a laundry can be summed up under these heads: 1. She expects all her clothes to be really and entirely cleaned; 2. She expects the colors and appearance, including finish and normal clean color, not to be changed; 3. She expects her clothes to be returned whole, undamaged, and the fabrics not weakened by the processes used; 4. She expects the size, shape, and fit of the articles not to be altered in the cleaning process; 5. She expects to have all her own goods returned safely at the usual time; 6. She expects the laundry to make a fair and satisfactory settlement for any losses or damages due to its own fault; and 7. She expects courteous treatment from all with whom she comes in contact. Expectations not based upon knowledge.-These expectations of laundry patrons are not based upon a knowledge of what can be done in a laundry or upon a knowledge of the laundering qualities of the textiles they send. The average customer bases her expectations on what she wants or hopes; not on what she knows can be done. Further, these expectations are influenced by the very human hope for the best. The expectations of a laundry patron when assembling her laundry or when examining the finished product are influenced greatly by the customer's lack of information about modern scientific laundry processes. Because power laundries, under efficient management, are able to produce a better product than any other laundering process, most customers think that the results must be due to the use of powerful chemicals. Those customers who have this idea are quite likely to believe that the unknown laundry process is responsible for any bleaching, fading, crocking, bleeding, or shrinking. Knowing that machinery is used, these customers are also likely to try to ascribe any newly discovered weaknesses or actual breaks in their goods to the effects of the machinery. They are prone to think of these as the explanations for their disappointment rather than to realize that poor dyes, poor textiles, or poor laundering qualities of their goods are responsible. Expectations include every possible point in every article.-The expectations of laundry customers previously enumerated apply not to her laundry as a whole; but to each and every article sent. The expectations as to complete cleanliness applies to every separate article for each will be examined sometime or other and the expectation as to cleanliness in that article will be realized or disappointed. The expectation as to satisfactory color and appearance applies to each separate article, also. A customer may have sent 30 or 40 separate pieces; but a fading of the color of just one may cause her to be most bitterly disappointed. A tear in one article, a shrinking in another, or an unexpected worn place in another may result in such an intense feeling of disappointment that the customer feels that the entire job was poorly done. Looked at in this way, the problem of satisfying patrons includes satisfying them in every respect with every article processed. The |