MANILA, Philippines - Third Row, a business solutions company, has launched its pilot product offering and introduces the Lavandera Web app through the website www.lavandera.ph.
A Philippine-registered business entity, Third Row capitalizes on modern technology to develop business solutions. Its aim is to put in place systems that streamline the otherwise un-methodical and oftentimes un-secure processes that business owners and consumers alike have been used to.
Lavandera is a Web app exclusively designed for laundry shops and laundry shop owners, and all who avail themselves of laundry services — singles, couples, families, and businesses (hotels, dormitories, hospitals, salons, catering, etc.).
Lavandera.ph provides a basketful of features for laundry shop patrons, whose favored laundry shop — whether a community or dormitory laundry shop, hotel laundromat, dormitory clothes cleaner — is signed up with the Lavandera system. The laundry shop owners or operators, on the other hand, are provided with tools that allow for methodical day-to-day operations of the shop.
Intuitive, interactive approach to laundry services
For customers, Lavandera intuitively suggests all the nearest laundry shops in and around the site visitor’s area via geographic tagging. Lavandera’s backbone is a listing of laundry shops all over the Philippines, addresses and contact details included. The Search function comes in handy if and when a particular laundry shop is being looked for.
With a quick zoom-in or out of the map, laundry shops right at your building, on your street corner, in the next block or in the whole city will show up. Users would know if their current laundry services provider is subscribed to Lavandera.ph when its icon on the map is red. Clicking on that icon will have the visitor seeing the shop’s details.
Users can then log in to “Add Shop†that laundry service provider, after which they will be ready to endorse their laundry items — one item after the other — with description next to each if the user prefers so.
Users have the leeway to go for simple descriptions (e.g., navy blue board shorts) or a little extensive (e.g., gray hoodie with a patch on left chest and applique on the right shoulder). Call it a virtual closet — one that you can access through your smartphone, desktop, PC, or tablet.
As the extended intuitive feature, Lavandera remembers and auto-suggests all items keyed in in last week’s or last month’s laundry endorsement. Users can then just click on the corresponding item that shows up on the auto-suggest list.
As a value-added service, users may opt to receive updates from the laundry shop about the status of their laundry — from when the items were Received, Washed, Rinsed, Dried Out or Readied for Delivery.
Users may also use the other tools. The Rating Tool allows for grading a laundry shop they favor. This is complemented by a Comments feature, allowing users to key in their two cents about the shop. These features aim to help laundry shop operators gather customer feedback in a snap. Moreover, users can put forward any new laundry shop not included in the database via the Suggestion tool.
Digital age of laundry shop operations
Like in a real community where laundry service operators establish their business presence, laundry shop owners can mark on the Lavandera map their own shop, or shops for that matter, in case they have multiple branches.
Once set up, they can then add in the shop details like address, contact numbers, shop operator, business hours, and even service rates. The services list is an easy tick-box checking.
Shop owners can also assign or add a Staff to the system. This Staff represents whoever is manning the day-to-day operations of the laundry shop. The same operations officer can conveniently update each customer’s laundry status by choosing an appropriate entry on the pre-listed set of progress updates.
The Staff Dashboard serves as a quick-peek to the laundry transactions being processed for the day. Both the Shop Owner and his or her Staff can view what’s newly entered in, pending, being processed, or done and ready for delivery.
As users can provide special instructions how they what their laundry to be cleaned, the Staff is prompted about the customers’ individual preferences (i.e., which items should be dry-cleaned, ironed, hand-washed, separately washed, etc.). This important insight may later on help laundry shop operators know their market better.
As a simple laundry shop operations rule, what goes in must go out — completely, that is. The ancient problems of having Customer A’s items mixed with Customer B’s, or horrifying Customer C with the realization that a favorite shirt is missing, are discrepancies Lavandera seek to address. The Lavandera list generated from the customers’ inputs is recorded, providing shop owners and their staff an easy reference for checking, verifying, and tracking each and every laundry item of their patrons.
Ditching the old problems in the bin
Lavandera’s core features are based on online and face-to-face surveys conducted among laundry shop owners and patrons of their services. Consistent results from such surveys pushed the need to deal with the common problem of lost, mismatched or wrong laundry items customers hound the shop operators for.
Both parties are at a disadvantage when such discrepancies happen. While customers are frustrated about the sad realization, shop owners are at a loss tracing back how such problems happened. That frustration oftentimes compels customers to turn to another shop, only to eventually encounter the same problem.
For inquiries, get in touch with Joe Capistrano at Third Row IT Solutions, Unit LG03 Globe Telecom Tower Plaza II,
Pioneer St., Mandaluyong City at +63 2 720-5445 or e-mail at joe@thirdrow.ph.