NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Once driven solely by coin-operated machines and manual oversight, the laundromat industry is transforming with the rise of data-driven operations. More and more modern stores are leveraging smart technology and advanced analytics to optimize efficiency, cut costs and enhance the customer experience.
From dynamic pricing models that respond to demand to predictive maintenance that minimizes downtime, data has become a vital tool for maximizing profits. The shift not only empowers laundry owners to make more informed business decisions, it sets new standards for convenience and sustainability in an industry that has long relied on traditional methods.
IN SEARCH OF ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS
Understanding, leveraging and protecting data used in laundry operations was the focus of a presentation during the CLA’s recent 2024 WDF Workshop. The moderator was Alex Jekowsky, the CEO and co-founder of Cents, a software company that provides point-of-sale, online ordering, payments hardware, marketing tools, and business management software for laundromats and other textile care businesses.
“To some people, data is very normal. You look at your own dashboards, you have your own data warehouse, you’re thinking about it all the time,” he says. “With other people, you don’t even really know what data means, how do you find it, why is it so scary. You don’t really know what’s going on. ‘I’d rather not look at it and just run my business.’”
Data is about actionable insights into your business, Jekowsky explains, where you can get a deeper view into what’s actually happening and then take action. Data is a concept: a transaction, a customer name, anything relating to the operations of your business.
“The most important thing is to do something with that,” he emphasizes.
The first step in data usage is collecting it: “However you run your operations with any system, the idea is you want to pull all of the different areas where you’re receiving revenue, where your customers are coming in, your marketing, and try to collect that.”
You’ll want to clean it, make sure it’s all accurate, that it makes sense, with no outliers or inconsistencies.
“Once you’ve collected it, you want to then organize it in either a dashboard, or a spreadsheet, or something that you can actually look at and start to really understand,” Jekowsky says. “Once that’s all together, you can start to evaluate what it actually means.”
In this analysis, you’ll want to understand why it’s valuable. What is it going to tell you about your business? Look for things like hidden patterns, trends, and customer behaviors, he suggests.
“OK, you grew revenue, but why? How do you make that repeatable? What is the actual underlying element of that growth? What is the efficiency that you have in your business?”
If you have employees, what is their performance? How many pounds per hour is your average employee folding? How are you compensating those employees? How do you know which ones are bringing in more customers, being great leaders?
“So all of this is saving money, it’s growing revenue, it’s increasing retention of customers,” Jekowsky says. “It’s all the key things that you think about to grow and manage your business.”
Many people can be afraid of data and the concept of it, he admits.
“It could be because it’s just overwhelming, just a lot of different data points for you to really understand. It’s not necessarily an easy thing, especially if you’re not a data scientist or (don’t) have any background in it. And if you’re not trained, there can be a reasonable skill gap in doing it.
“The cost of actually doing it, having tools that can visualize data for you. It’s the cost of going from coin and cash at the register to actually digitizing in different forms of payment. Change management – you didn’t have a system before and you want to add a system for data. And maybe (you fear) the data quality and even the security.”
The best way to quell those fears, Jekowsky says, is by asking the right questions—about areas like data storage and security compliance—of the companies that sell the equipment and software that provide the data to you.
Coming Tuesday in Part 2: Laundromat owners share how they view and use data
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Bruce Beggs at [email protected].
