4 Ways Washmen Makes Its Mark in Its Markets

Burger and fries, ham and cheese, peanut butter and jelly, and spaghetti and meatballs are pairings that most people find intuitive. As with these food pairings, there are things in life that naturally go hand in hand.

The same goes for certain businesses. A streaming platform naturally pairs well with content production (e.g., Netflix), textile manufacturing with fashion retail (e.g., Zara), and a coffee shop franchise with coffee farming (e.g., Starbucks). However, who would think laundry goes with plastic recycling?

Washmen would and did. This professional laundry and dry cleaning company partnered with one of the plastic recycling companies in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. This is one of the many ingenious ways the company distinguishes itself from other providers in its markets.

1. Laundry and Dry Cleaning Meet Plastic Recycling

Washmen provides laundry pickup and delivery services. The way their process works, a customer schedules a pickup and leaves his laundry outside his door.

A Washmen driver picks up the clothes and brings them to the company’s processing facility. After these clothes have been washed, cleaned, or pressed as needed, a Washmen driver delivers them to the customer’s residence.

If you have ever used a laundry service, you will know that this is the typical customer experience most laundry companies provide. However, Washmen differentiates itself through a free home recycling program value-added service.

Plastic recycling likely does not come to mind when you think of laundry services. However, as Washmen proves, these two are a perfect match. The laundry company will pick up its customers’ laundry anyway, so why not pick up their recyclables, too?

Washmen has also streamlined the process, so their customers don’t have to go out of their way to avail of the free home recycling benefit. Once a customer has scheduled a pickup, he simply has to fill a washbag with his plastic, paper, and cardboard recyclables, label the bag with a “Recycling” sticker, and leave the recyclables-filled washbag outside his door with his laundry.

A Washmen driver will pick up the customer’s laundry and recyclables, bringing the former to the laundry facility and the latter to the company’s sustainability partner for recycling.

The free home recycling pickup is definitely convenient for customers, and it’s a value-added service that does not cost Washmen drivers an extra trip. Ingenious, right?

2. Laundry and Dry Cleaning App and a Seamless Customer Experience

One of Washmen’s main distinguishing features is its mobile app. It’s true that customers can call a laundry service provider instead of using an app to schedule a laundry pickup.

It’s also valid to say that other Dubai and Abu Dhabi laundry companies have mobile apps, too. However, what differentiates the Washmen service and app is the seamless customer experience they provide.

Here’s how a customer typically uses the Washmen laundry app.

• The customer schedules a pickup on the mobile app and prepares his laundry.
•  He leaves his laundry outside his door.
• The Washmen driver takes a picture of the washbag or bags outside the customer’s door and takes them to the laundry processing facility.
• The customer’s clothes are RFID tagged, inspected, photographed, and itemized at the laundry facility.
• Washmen shares the pictures of the items to the customers via the mobile app, highlighting pre-cleaning stains and damages, if any.
• Once the clothes have been washed, cleaned, or pressed as needed, a Washmen driver delivers them to the customer’s doorstep.
• After delivering the customer’s clothes, Washmen charges the customer’s selected payment method and automatically sends an itemized receipt to the customer’s email.

A review of the process will tell you all a customer has to do is schedule his pickup and prepare his laundry for pickup. That’s it. Washmen does the rest.

The app also ensures accountability and transparency. The company inspects the customer’s clothes, photographs them, and shares the pictures with him through the app.

Finally, the app makes communicating with the company more effortless for customers. If a customer has any instructions or item requests for the laundry crew, he can readily relay them via the mobile app.

3. Color-Coded Laundry Bags

One other simple yet clever innovation that makes using Washmen so easy for its customers is the color-coded laundry bag system. They have three colors: green, pink, and blue.

Green

This is the Clean & Press bag. Customers use it for items that need individual care, like a suit jacket, an evening dress, or a dress shirt. Every item in this bag will be assessed and given the care its fabric requires. Clothes in this bag may be OptiCleaned, dry cleaned, or hand-washed as needed, then air-dried and steam-pressed.

Pink

This is the Homecare bag. Customers fill it with beddings, towels, and home linens. The laundry crew will ozone wash, dry clean, or machine wash (whichever is appropriate) the items in this bag. After drying, they will be steam pressed.

Blue

This is the Wash & Fold bag. Customers fill it with casual wear, socks, sportswear, and home wear. Clothes in blue bags will be washed at 40°C, tumble dried, and folded neatly in preparation for delivery.

Press Only

The customers can also use any color bag and stick the “Press Only” sticker on it to request the Press Only service for clean clothes that need a little bit of crisping up. Clothes in Press Only labeled bags will be steam pressed.

4. Superb Care for Delicate Fabrics

Washmen has more than 50 custom programs to ensure they can provide the best care for their customers’ clothes. One of the most notable is OptiClean, a gentle-mechanical, cold-water wash program that mimics hand-washing mechanics. It is an alternative to dry cleaning for delicate fabrics.

Washmen also has an air-drying facility for items that require individual care. Air-dried clothes can maintain their shape and color longer than tumble-dried clothes. Air-drying is used for clothes in Clean & Press bags.

Finally, Washmen uses only steam for pressing instead of hot irons and hot plates. This helps preserve clothing’s texture and color.

The steam pressing machines Washmen uses generate 150°C steam. According to the World Health Organization, 140°-150°C is hot enough to kill most viruses and bacteria.

Differentiation Is the Key

There are many laundry providers in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. However, Washmen stands apart through its ingenious strategies.

Partnering with a recycling company and offering a free home recycling pickup service ensures it can provide an additional convenience at no or minimal cost.

A mobile app with advanced features and laundry bag color coding (and labeling) shows a commitment to making the customer journey as easy as possible.

Finally, its ability to provide specialized cleaning care for delicate fabrics ensures customers are satisfied and will return for more of the same excellent service.

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