Case Study: Keeping Your Laundry Local
To us, every single customer represents a valuable relationship, and our local, family-owned approach has been critical to maintaining each and every one over the years. Sustaining long-term relationships with each of our customers isn’t just about good business, though. It is also essential to ensuring your uniform program runs smoothly with no unnecessary hiccups that leave your employees wondering what happened to their clothes or leave you wondering how you ended up running a laundry service.
We know with every business that it’s essential to focus on running an efficient operation and, as they say, “a penny saved is a penny earned.” But we’ve been in the business long enough to have seen first-hand just how valuable a good, local business relationship can be, and how important it is to weigh this into the equation when considering a uniform provider.
About ten years ago one of our largest customers, in a well-intentioned effort to examine cost-saving opportunities, made the decision to opt for a national supplier after more than 25 years with their local provider, Gallagher Uniform.
THE SURVEY SAYS: LOCALS OUTPERFORM NATIONALS
Our unique business model, combining old-fashioned personal service with today’s latest technologies, is difficult for large national chains to match. In fact, a recent survey found that local, independently owned uniform rental companies were more than twice as likely to exceed expectations in categories like Timely Response, Uniform Appearance, Complete Delivery and Overall Satisfaction. Additionally, companies that switched to a national chain from a local independent company were three times more likely to say that the new supplier performed below expectations in the area of service.
Our goal is to keep our customers from having to think about their laundry, mats, towels and other facility services because we know they’ve got other things to think about. Over the course of this customer’s new service agreement, the company’s president and other members of the leadership team began to realize the noticeable differences between the superior service they had become accustomed to with Gallagher and the service they were now receiving from a national chain.
And, several years later when this customer was again evaluating its uniform program, they realized they were, in fact, spending too much time and too many resources worrying about the service provided by a national chain. That’s when they gave us a call.
BACK TO A TRUSTED, LOCAL PARTNER
Customer service and satisfaction at Gallagher Uniform is engrained in the culture at a level we believe is only possible from a local, independent provider. We ensure customers get exceptional service and quality uniform products, all at a competitive price. And after 124 years in this business, one thing we can say is that relationships are an absolutely vital part of the business.
Staying in touch with customers past or past present is something all businesses should do. In this instance, Gallagher continued to stay in contact with staff and several other members of the leadership team from our previous customer throughout the term of their new uniform agreement – this tends to happen when two companies have over a 25-year history together.
When the service agreement with the national chain came up for review for our former customer at the end of their contract, they felt it was important to consider a local business in the bidding process this time around. Having been a trusted partner in the past, Gallagher was at the top of their list.
Gallagher Uniform was able to work with the staff to create a uniform rental program that would meet their needs, take care of their employees and keep them looking great. And above all, they were excited to get back to the rock solid service they had previously come to expect from their local, family-owned uniform provider. Although it was still a very competitive process, through great communication and collaboration, we were thrilled to welcome this customer back in 2015.
If you’ve noticed lately that you too have been putting too much time and effort into your uniform program and would like to find out what a difference a local, independent provider can make, or if you’re just considering putting a program together for the first time, we’d enjoy talking with you and sharing more of what Gallagher Uniform has to offer. Contact us today.