When is the Clean Show 2022? Where is the Clean Show? What are the latest trends in pickup and delivery? Learn how the wash and fold delivery market has matured in just five years and what is coming next!  Curbside Laundries will be there with the latest in wash and fold pickup and delivery.

Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry mat episode 21, all about the clean show and future trends. This episode is all about the clean show and the evolution of pickup and delivery over the course of five years. The clean show takes place this year in Atlanta, from Saturday, July to Tuesday, August 2nd. And can’t wait to be there. In fact, we’re having a big reception dinner for our clients. Over 100 of our clients are gonna be there at the dinner reception. So looking forward to seeing everybody there, I’m very thankful to my brother, Aaron , for recognizing this trend of software, washing , fold , pickup , and delivery before it even became a so if you know our story, customers had to find their own clothes in the back room because we were doing so much business and that was the result of a strong online presence. He knew if we wanted to continue growing and not lose customers, we needed a way of tracking all this and making it easy for customers to order online. It’s similar to the famous quote by Wayne Gretsky about you need to skate to where the puck is going, not where the puck is. So as a result of creating software that handled pickup and delivery, one of the features is simply adding a button to your website that says schedule pickup . And it goes through an enterprise grade customer experience that allows the customer to schedule, to pick up and delivery. And that looking back, it’s a like, well, of course you need that. Well, at that time, most laundromats that did pick up and delivery, if they even did it, they said to do pick up and delivery, call this number or text this number, or fill out this web form or fill out this contact form. Customers were typing in credit card numbers through an unsecure form, or sometimes people to schedule a pickup . And they had no , they got no confirmations. I mean, it was the wild west of pickup and delivery, even launders or laundromats, they would launder the clothes and not even know if they’re gonna get paid, they’d drop off the clothes and hope the person’s there. And they’re like, how do you collect payment? So there were all these problems that people were having that you couldn’t even imagine. Now with a enterprise grade solution, people are able to schedule, pick and deliveries online. As soon as we added a button on our website that says schedule pickup , and it went through an online ordering process through software, our pickup and delivery business went up by 30%. Okay. And we were already doing really well. So that simple thing was a big aha moment. It’s all about the customer experience. And that’s a big focus. Fast forward to 2022 development is focused on optimizing the customer experience because if you could increase online ordering by 30%, just by adding a button, think about what else you could increase. As far as getting new customer is retaining customers, getting customers to order again. So you’re gonna see more and more and more development based upon optimizing the customer experience. So we know firsthand how much this helps as laundry owners. We know if we add certain features to our software, our loan demand is gonna make more money. You’re gonna make more money. So we we’re all in it together. So we are just so impatient when it comes to development. So we’ve actually tripled our development team, cuz we want these features done this year. I think when you look back at 2022, you’re gonna see some huge improvements on optimizing the customer experie. So the first time there’s software companies ha doing pickup and delivery and sh and selling to the public added a clean show was in 2017. We have 10 times the number of clients as we did just three years ago. One of my favorite parts about having a lot of clients is it allows us to reinvest in software development. And we need to always be the best in 2017. People were just learning about pickup and delivery and deciding if this is something they wanted to do if they needed. So to do it, I’d say about half the people came to our booth just five years ago, half the laundry owners didn’t even have a website. So we were helping educate people about the importance of having an online presence. At the time, a lot of people thought, well, our customers don’t use the internet or our customers don’t find us online. And that turns out to be a total fallacy. I mean, it’s true. If you’re not online, they’re not finding you online if you’re not online, but if you want more customers, you need to have a strong online presence. And now people just take that for granted. But five years ago have auto mats didn’t even have websites fast forward to 2019. Almost everybody had a website. So in just two years, things changed quickly. The clean show in 2019 took place in new Orleans. And that show was phenomenal. Our booth was packed for three straight days, just Wal wall people. We’re taking up the aisle space . There’s a big shift in just two years from the last clean show to 2019. And that was people realized they needed software. You can’t do pick up and delivery just by filling out an online web form or contact us form or text. Okay. People realized that the customer experience was paramount. If they wanted to do a pickup and , and delivery, they needed software to do it right to make sure the customer experience was top notch . So we’re super excited about 2022 we’ve tripled down on development. That way we have developers a hundred percent focused on optimizing the customer experience. And this is gonna help all of our clients be more successful at the clean show in Las Vegas in 2017. I remember my dad was pumping me before the doors opened and he said, look around, see all these millions and millions of dollars of equipment and booths and all this thing from major, major manufacturers. There’s nothing in this entire expo floor that could help make individual mom and pop LA mats make more money than what we’ve got in this 10 by 10 foot booth. And he’s a hundred percent, right? For example, if you bought a new washing machine, how much more money is your Laro Mac gonna make per month? Meanwhile, we have so many customers using our software who are making five figures in wash and fold per month. And the , and you could look at their revenues and it goes up and up and up and up like a staircase. We’re very proud of that. And our customer success is what motivates us. That’s why we’re here. So we knew because we had the data and personal experience that pickup and delivery was not just a fad. It was a growing trend and it’s just gonna get bigger and bigger and bigger. And things are not gonna go bad to just going , doing the in-store washing fold . Yes, you can make a lot of money doing that. But we also have a lot of our clients who are getting into pick up and delivery defensively because they don’t wanna lose their in-store business to competing laundromats that are willing to pick it up. Just like pizza. If a pizza doesn’t offer delivery, they may be leaving a lot of business on the the table. So we’ve always been about where is the puck going? Not where the puck is and where the puck is going in 2022. When we look back, it’s all about optimizing the customer experience. So we’ve made a long ways from the days of when you call the laundromat or text to schedule a pickup . Now it , things are so much easier, but there more work to be done on optimizing the customer experience and making it better and better and better. And that’s why we’ve tripled down with our developers. So we could focus on this because when you look back, it’s not gonna be like, oh, do you have software? No, it’s gonna be, what is your customer experience? What does that look like? And that’s what we’re focused on. Because if you take care of your customer, you’re gonna make a lot of money. Hope to see you at the clean show. It’s gonna be a great 20, 22. We hope you enjoy the show. If you like to learn more about curbside laundries, go to curbside laundries.com and don’t forget to tap like or subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast player.