With walking the dog, working all day, picking up the kids, and cleaning the house, there are a lot of tasks to accomplish to keep your household in tip top shape. Laundry is no exception.
The average person spends about 260 minutes per week on laundry, or roughly four hours”. To break that down further, laundry prep time is around 30 minutes weekly, washing and drying is around 170 minutes weekly and folding and putting away clothing is around 60 minutes weekly. That’s a lot of time spent on laundry! Outsourcing a laundry service provider can be the perfect helping hand for a busy week!
That being said, don’t expect to search “laundry service near me” and find a ton of 5 star reviews on Google. There are many laundry services that don’t make the cut, and we’re here to tell you what to look for when choosing the best laundry service in your area.
Here is a beginner’s guide for choosing the best laundry service provider.
What is the average turnaround time?
When you’re giving your favorite clothing items to someone, you want to trust that they’ll be consistent with getting those back to you in a timely manner. There’s nothing worse than expecting your tailored item to be ready to wear for that big event on Friday and come to find out your tailor needs until Monday to complete the task.
Make sure you check and see if there are any negative reviews regarding completion time. Also make sure to ask if there is any policy for items that are late getting back to you. Consistency is key and lack thereof can show a business’s true colors.
Do you know who is doing your laundry?
While it is nice to think that your laundry service provider picking up your clothes is a safe and easy way to get your clothes looking better and cleaner, it’s very possible that they can get mistreated. So many laundry services aim to handle a ton of clothes at a cheap price, very quickly. This means that the care for your individual items might go by the waste side.
Make sure that you know the expert level of those doing your laundry services and if they go above and beyond to provide the care you’re seeking for your clothing. Feel free to get a read on the team and check reviews to see if extra consistent care is something that is important to them.
Making sure that your laundry is in good hands is more important than just choosing the basic dry cleaning services nearby your house.
Damage/Loss Policy?
While getting to know your potential new laundry service providers, make sure to inquire about any damage or loss policies they might have. Since a lot of dry cleaners are dealing with a ton of clothing on the daily, it’s easy to mix up orders or ruin an item of yours.
It is better to find out these policies ahead of time. If you don’t provide accurate, detailed cleaning instructions or if the item of clothing doesn’t have a tag on it you might not be covered if they don’t clean it right or damage the item. This is especially important for those nicer items like getting your wedding dress dry cleaned or comforter dry cleaned.
Getting the policy in writing and preparing ahead of time is better than being upset and pointing fingers at each other after it’s too late.
Pickup and Delivery Options?
Sometimes spending your money instead of your time on tasks like dry cleaning and tailoring definitely pays off if you’re someone who has a full time job, kids, and a book club to manage, or if you’re just someone who simply just hates doing their laundry. Even if you don’t care about laundry delivery and pickup options right now, you might need them in the future.
Make sure the dry cleaning and laundry delivery company you have your eyes on has reliable delivery services; look closely at reviews regarding laundry delivery services, and ask the company questions like: “What times are you available for pickup and delivery?” “How is the protocol with your delivery services?”, “What is the dry cleaning price?” “Is there a limit with how much you can pick up?”, “Are there extra dry cleaning fees associated?”.
How is the laundry treated and packaged for delivery?
If you’re paying for a laundry service that delivers to you, you definitely don’t want them to come back in a wrinkled mess, right? Majority of cheap and quick laundry services focus on just that: providing cheap and quick dry cleaning and tailoring and not much else. It’s super important to pick a laundry service that provides extra care to your clothing items to protect especially those very nice pieces. This is especially true for dry cleaning wedding dresses.
If the laundry delivery service you’re looking at doesn’t seem to have any protocol set in place for how laundry is treated when being picked up, at the facility, and delivered, you may need to keep searching.
Detergents and Special Needs?
You are probably aware of the chemicals you use in your own household, but what about when you outsource for laundry services? This can be super crucial, especially if you have children, those who have allergies to chemicals, or those who have sensitive skin in your household. The last thing you want to do is not ask and figure out too late that the chemicals the laundry service provider uses are toxic to you.
This is a great thing to ask when determining the laundry service with delivery options you are going to be using. Get a full list of the chemicals for dry cleaning they use and check with your doctor or dermatologist to make sure they are safe.
Finding a good laundry delivery service is important if you are a busy person looking for a task to cut back on. It can be such a headache though if the right steps aren’t put in place to ensure they are a credible and reputable company. Follow this guideline the next time you search “dry cleaners near me” to make sure you don’t get bamboozled by the laundry service around the corner.