Adopt voice technologies to remove the stubborn stains of competition and enhance the softness of customer relationships
Consumers can easily order food, purchase groceries or top clothing brands using mobile devices and internet, so why can’t businesses that provide laundry services also benefit from the power of technology? They can, and indeed, many laundry businesses have been blazing new trails by adopting voice-based technologies (think Alexa) that make two-way engagement with their customers easier, more secure and convenient.
There are two reasons for why “voice” is becoming a big deal for laundry businesses. The first is more customers; the second is more profit. Say what?! Adding voice capabilities can give your laundry business tangible differentiation by allowing you to offer superior levels of service in a competitive market. With voice-enablement (through say Alexa), customers only need to say “Alexa, have my laundry collected” or “Alexa, get my laundry delivered” or “Alexa, what’s my laundry bill amount”? Technology seamlessly takes over, guiding customers and triggering the necessary processes within your business.
If you’re wondering how to voice-enable your laundry business, help is at hand. Emitrr’s “voice first” SaaS platform helps businesses build voice capabilities and differentiated customer experiences. Emitrr is already enabling laundry businesses (and other B2C service providers) in the USA and UK to offer voice ordering through Alexa and Google devices.
Ah, but our laundry business already offers customers the convenience of pre-scheduled pickup and delivery – all they have to do is call us or type in the preferred time in the app or log into our website and fill in the details. Great, but think about why more and more people prefer to order food via voice-based instructions when they can do the same through a telephone call, app or a website? Speaking is a basic human capability that’s intuitive, simple and less prone to errors compared with typing. Adding voice-based interfaces with your customers and prospects enable you to offer a higher level of service.
You can easily eliminate the need for paper-based orders. Customers who need regular laundry pick-ups can schedule them more easily because the process does not depend on someone answering their call or listening to a voicemail or them submitting a request via a website. Your business is not limited by regular store hours; customers can place orders or change instructions round the clock. Customers generally choose laundry service providers based on proximity of the store to their home/office (so it’s easy to drop and collect the clothes), quality of the cleaning/ ironing, the ability to handle garments/fabrics that need special care and, of course, price. Voice capabilities can help negate the proximity factor so your business attracts more new customers.
Here’s why adding voice capabilities can be a marketing and sales enabler that has the potential to deliver high ROI (Return on Investment). It is becoming increasingly difficult (and expensive) for businesses to rely on text-based searches to be found. The rules used by Google and other search engines keep changing. This makes it necessary for businesses to frequently tweak their content to maintain high SEO rankings based on relevant key words/phrases and the latest algorithms. The cost associated with SEO varies on the key words used. Google ads are expensive too. At the moment, voice-based searches are free. Therefore, laundry businesses that move quickly to build voice capabilities will reap the benefit of being “early movers”.
The rapid sales growth rate of Alexa and the rising interest in the laundry space to adopt voice means there is only a small window of opportunity available to embrace voice and realize the business benefits that accrue to innovators and early adopters. As Amazon and Google continue to invest in popularizing voice-based searches and transaction processing by adding more features and reducing the cost of Echo or similar devices, the benefits to those already in the voice ecosystem will only increase.
