Not Set Up for That? Then Why Are You Doing It?

I like my dry cleaner. He’s a nice guy in his 20s who is thoughtfully building a small chain of environmentally correct dry cleaning shops. He remembers my name, which is more than I do most days, and he is cheerful and returns the countless bits I leave in my pockets.  I chose him because I am trying to do my bit for Al Gore ,and a cleaner who sends his stuff to a plant that uses non-toxic chemicals is a good thing.  Plus he gives me a handy reusable vinyl bag with my name on it to put my clothes in so I can fling them across the counter without all the paperwork. But it’s only part of the thing.

Beyond the chemicals used in dry cleaning I am also unhappy with the large ball of plastic wrap, little plastic clip things, paper hanger covers (what they do, I have no idea) and the wire hangers themselves left over when I’ve put the cleaning away.

Because I hate throwing things out and because I like to make my point, I have always returned the hangers to my cleaners to reuse, which I assume they do. I recycle the mystifying paper hanger covers and I even keep the straight and safety pins in a little plastic thingy on my dresser should the need for such things arise.  But I don’t know what to do with the damn plastic that encases the clothing. Mostly I ball it up and send it back with my dirty clothes to remind them it’s their problem. A move, I’m sure, that has zero impact.

A typical order has at least three separate bags of plastic over it. Each is about eight linear feet by 30 inches. So that’s 60 square feet or so of plastic every week or two. I’ve asked my guy why he uses plastic instead of supplying a handy vinyl garment bag for me to pick things up in. I’ve offered to pay for the handy vinyl garment bag. His response (and remember, this is a Gen Y tree-hugger). “We’re just not set up for that…”

It seems the process of dealing with things when they come back from the green cleaning plant is to figure out whose clothes are whose and aggregate the orders on hanging stand things located, conveniently enough, below a roll of plastic wrap, making it a very quick job to bag and put it on the thing that spins around. (which device has alternately fascinated and terrified me since I was a child).

So to put my stuff into a front-loading vinyl bag instead of into a bottom loading plastic bag is not efficient. They’re not set up for that. They’re not set up to recycle the plastic. They’re not set up to recover and reuse the little clips, safety pins or collar things. So the brand promise of an environmentally benign suit cleaning is largely unmet since the only parts of the entire process I can see are pretty rough on old Mother Earth.

Ditto my grocery store which charges me, as they should, for plastic bags. I take a ratty collection of cloth bags to the store each week (I have teenage boys, so perhaps I should consider a dumpster). And each week it takes me and the cashier about twice as long to bag my groceries in cloth than it would in plastic. It seems they’re just not set up for cloth. They sell cloth bags. They make a great big noise about saving the planet one 99 cent bag at a time, yet their infrastructure and process are set up only for plastic.

There are countless other examples of terrific ideas, well meant, carefully formulated, beautifully communicated and horribly implemented. So next time you’re working on your new positioning/mission statement/brand promise/value proposition or whatever you call it, take a few moments to consider this: Are you set up for it? If not, why would you do it?

BizMarketer is written by Elizabeth Williams,
I help companies have better conversations
Drop me a line at ewilliams@candlerchase.com
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