INTERNATIONAL
The trend towards online services is growing in the textile cleaning industry: consumers want to find suitable specialist companies quickly and easily, and process their cleaning orders as simply as possible – by means of an app, for example.
A high degree of process transparency in the company is necessary to offer such customer friendly services, which is why machine and plant manufacturers, as well as software providers, make relevant information available online and in real time. From 20 to 24 June, the sector is showcasing state-of-the-art solutions at Texcare International in Frankfurt am Main.
Shopping and errands are increasingly planned and transacted on smart phones, tablets and PCs. Access to shopping portals around the clock has fuelled high expectations of quick and easy access to services, primarily with millennials, but also other age groups. Instead of being bound by opening times, they want to be able to complete their tasks around the clock with just a few clicks.
This change in mindset has long since taken hold of the textile cleaning sector as well. “These days people who want to take shirts, and men’s and women’s suits, in for cleaning generally look for the nearest specialist company on their smart phones,” says Daniel Dalkowski of the European Research Association for Innovative Textile Care (Europa¨ische Forschungsvereinigung Innovative Textilpflege - EFIT) in Berlin. “A cleaning company’s homepage and its entry on search engines or social media is the first source of information for people who are travelling, on holiday, or relocating.
“In collaboration with the University of Applied Sciences Landshut (Hochschule Landshut), we have prepared a guide to getting into the online laundry and textile cleaning business, in order to give companies an overview of the opportunities the internet provides for winning and retaining customers. It’s already available to our members, but we want to present it to a wider audience at Texcare.”
