Today we interviewed one of the owners of "La Lavandería Company" located in a tourist city in Peru. They started as a touristic entrepreneurship, but due to the pandemic and the lack of tourists, they decided to take a risk and expand for local customers.

Could you tell us how you started your business and what your experience has been over the years?

We have been working for 4 years in Arequipa, a city in the south of Peru. In the city, the main customers were tourists, we were located in the historical center where many tourists arrived, and because of their needs, we realized that it was a good opportunity to create a laundry that delivers the service on the same day. Everything was going well until there were no more tourists because of the pandemic, and we had to close, but it was a push that led us to think about offering our services to local people. And that's when we opened in other places around the city, and we did quite well, at the moment, we have 3 laundromats.  Now the tourists are coming back and little by little we are also covering that sector again.

In relation to Loyverse, how did you find it and how did you adapt the Loyverse application for your business? 

I have been working for 10 years in the area of technology, in the area of networks, and communications, it is not the first business we are starting, but it is the one we have been running for the longest time. When starting a business, it is always necessary to look for tools that are already available, so I tried several programs, but every time something was missing, and I found some limitations such as needing a computer, needing an internet connection, etc. until I found Loyverse. I used it day and night, the first requirement we needed was the printing of tickets, I looked for a printer, configured it, and it worked perfectly, also in our business the customers in some cases pay in 2 days, I solved this with the Open Tickets feature. When we were opening the other store, we found a problem, since the employee would use the app, and we did not want him to have the same access as the owner, for this reason, we took the option of employees which is fabulous, we manage which tools the employee can use and which not. I have also used the kitchen printing tool, in our case, there is no kitchen, but we use this option for the laundries in the back, and there we can print customer orders. 

Since Loyverse adapted very well to what we needed, after some time we created several stores in the system, and we got the reports of each of them in excel files. Now I want to learn more about integrations and APIs to be able to connect our business with other programs. 

What is the feature you like the most, and the feature you use the most in Loyverse? 

There are many things that I like, but for the relationship with the customer, which in my opinion is what has generated the most revenue for us, are the impressions and personalization of the tickets, every day if we want we can add information on the receipt. I can quickly write a promotion or information from the Back Office, and in a simple way when the receipt is printed, the customer receives the information about the promotion of the day or whatever I want to transmit.

I use the footer, or the final part, where I add promotions or little messages like "thank you for visiting us" or phrases that can encourage and change someone's day. This works very well for me from a marketing point of view, customers are happy to read it. As we create the branches in the system, we create and customize the tickets for each location. This would be the option that I like the most because, in other applications, they don't allow you to be adding anything or just a small text and that's it.

Something that I particularly like a lot is also the reports, at any time of the day I have access to them, in real time I can review the sales of my employees, and these reports help me to analyze, for example, the dates in which one service/item is more sold than another, that helps me to plan for the future, how to continue to improve our service. We are in good sync in every sense with your system because, for example, when the internet is not available we can continue working and when the internet comes back everything is synchronized. We make our deliveries, we go with the cell phone, with the hand printer. Everything is great, that's what I can say.

Thinking long term, a goal you have for your business?

Our goal, for now, is to have new stores in a neighboring city, which is Cuzco, and that is our goal as a company, and of course, I would continue with Loyverse, I already manage the methodology, and I have even created a document that I send to my workers on how they should use the app.

Finally, if you want to leave a message for the readers and those starting a business, what recommendation would you give them? 

I can tell them that Loyverse is a system for entrepreneurs, for those who want to start Loyverse, adapts to each stage, the free version to start, and then using the employee management tools as in my case, to have more and more control over your business, I think it is one of the first tools that an entrepreneur can find. 

And with the topic of recommendation, I can tell you that Loyverse is very functional and very simple for anyone, no matter the age. In my case for example, my family has seen how I use the app, and they ask me how it works so I have also installed the application for their business, they have a restaurant and cafeteria, and they are doing great with the app. This is my experience for 4 years now, always looking to improve and learn. 
 

Thank you Mr. Jesus Nicolas for your time and for sharing your experience with us.