For the coming period, we will present you week by week, the most outstanding PTC showcases that were officially nominated for The Global Best Practices Awards Program 2018. The profiles of these companies are also present in the WOPCOM platform, which you can access here.
Lavemcasa (Brazil) – The Special Award for Extraordinary Business Development at GBPAP18 (Retail Textile Cleaning).
Revolutionizing laundry, one machine load at a time
To say Lavemcasa is revolutionizing laundry and drycleaning services wouldn’t be a lie. Lavemcasa is a Brazilbased company that offers laundry and dry-cleaning services on a subscription basis and on demand through partnerships using a mobile app. Its team has experience in the most modern processes of conventional laundry combined with the use of technology, not in the least to
reduce costs. They can offer their services in a very large area, stretching from Brasilia down to Curitiba and to the east to Belo Horizonte, including São Paulo.
Reaching customers
Because the business relies heavily on online activities, it makes sense they also use online communities to reach their target markets. Lavemcasa operates a successful Facebook page, is active on Instagram and places clips on Vimeo (a video platform). Following the company on social media has perks for the laundry company’s customers, a lot of promotions are placed on these pages. Recently a 10% discount campaign was run using Instagram. The catch phrase they use roughly translate to “You have better things to do than laundry.” And this philosophy seems to resonate with people who lead busy lives. Lavemcasa aims its efforts at singles, couples and young families, as well as at hard working people who would rather not spend their days off doing household
chores.
Packages
The different laundry subscriptions people can purchase are options which individual needs of all types of households. For singles there’s the 15kg plan, 15 kg of everyday laundry a week. Couples get advised to use a 25kg plan. Families of three members, 40 kg and larger families, with more than one child can have Lavemcasa pick-up 50 kilograms of dirt laundry on a weekly basis. It won’t surprise you to hear all payments involving the service are done electronically, one provides card details once and all charges are executed using a secure platform.
By using the app Lavemcasa developed, one can easily select a pick-up day and time. The app is free and available in the Apple Store and for Android on Google Play, all a potential customer needs is a smartphone. If the service Lavemcasa provides to a customer’s liking, he/she is asked to place a review on the laundry company. Involvement with the company on social media is the new word-of-mouth, this modern business relies on. Apart from the package scheme, they also offer a ‘regular’ program. An occasional laundry service, to wash certain special items or on incidental occasions; “Anything you can not do or do not like to do at home, Lavemcasa does.” For example, mattress protectors and other items involving bedding.
How does it work?
New customers will have to follow the following steps:
• Enter their zip code;
• Once confirmed that Lavemcasa operates in the area, one will be able to see the prices of the items;
• Items can be added to the basket;
• A customer will now be prompted to fill out full address nd the times available for pickup and delivery will be displayed;
• If there are specific instructions for collection/delivery or cleaning, then these can of course be added;
• Once confirmed, one is taken to the payment page, where card details must be given;
• Customers are asked to prepare items by separating the laundry in ordinary washing or dry-cleaning or just ironing.
All that needs doing now is sit back and relax until pick-up. Regular laundry gets separated once it reaches the facility, looking at colour and the temperature indicated on the labels. Of course, the laundry gets pressed and folded before being returned to a customer’s home.
Success story? Starting a business like this is not easy, it needs attention in all sorts of different areas, such as logistics (covering a large an area as Lavemcasa does, is impressive), good balance between quality and price, punctuality and many, many more, but looking at Lavemcasa it all seems very feasible.