Franchise Focus
Tailor-made for success
Richard McConnell, of The ZipYard Altrincham, explains how he has built a hugely successful business in such a short time
INVESTMENT LEVEL: £38,500
her clothes to be taken in, all bundled into storage boxes and carried up the high street to us.
Nowadays, very few people have the time or skill to mend their own clothes and a lot of our work involves repairs, but even I was surprised when one of our regular customers brought in a pair of her son’s Y-fronts for us to fix a tear!
“We want our customers to believe that nothing is too much trouble. We often carry out additional minor repairs for free”
Richard McConnell “O
ur award-winning business is all about outstanding customer service. Whilst there are no other specialist
alterations and tailoring centres in the area, there’s numerous businesses offering similar services and competition is great. As the top-performing ZipYard and 2012 Franchisee of the Year, we have raised a total of 22,500 invoices. Turnover in the first year was £174,500 from 9,978 customers.
As a former driving instructor, I was used to dealing with members of the public and took pride in my level of service, so, when I decided on a career change, I already had a very strong customer service ethos.
When we first opened it was easy to turn jobs round incredibly quickly, but as word got around and our customer numbers soared, ensuring that our clientele was happy 100 per cent of the time became more of a challenge. We soon expanded our team of seamstresses
from two to five and now employ eight on a full-time basis.
We want our customers to believe that nothing is too much trouble. We don’t charge any extra for the express service and often carry out additional minor repairs for free. If one of the seamstresses notices a button needs replacing whilst they are turning up a hem it takes very little additional time to do the complimentary work and customers are always surprised and delighted. Often, people come in off the street with a button that’s just come off and we’ll fix it there and then – again for no charge – confident in the knowledge that he or she will be appreciative and talk about The ZipYard to others. We frequently see brides who have bought a dress online. On one occasion a woman came in to the centre in tears with a dress that fitted terribly but, by the time we had finished, she was parading up and down with a big smile on her face. Another customer spent over £400 altering her wardrobe after a successful diet, and an elderly lady brought in all of
For many of our customers, we have become their personal tailors. One well-heeled man left a message on our answering machine to say his wife was bringing in a ball gown the next day so to ‘please leave space on the machine’ for her. They expect a very fast service and we rarely disappoint. A regular moved out of the area but saves up his repairs until he comes back to visit friends – travelling over 160 miles for our quality of service. Managing customer expectations isn’t easy and it has been a big challenge for us to be able to turn round work quickly as the volume increases. Recently we dealt with 90 paying customers in one day, which is 10 an hour! We already open seven days a week and are looking to employ another seamstress to focus full time on express work. We have also installed a second till to cope with the queues that had begun to form outside the door in busy periods.
We are looking at ways to extend the range of services we offer, including a paid-for delivery and collection service, which will appeal to our busier user clientele.”
Nigel Toplis, managing director of the group says: “We are all very proud of Richard and his team, who have developed a great business in Altrincham. So successful has it been that Richard has now opened a second centre in Wilmslow, which is testimony to the tremendous potential of the brand.” n
THE ZIPYARD
WEBSITE:
www.thezipyard.com EMAIL:
edownes@thezipyard.co.uk PHONE: 01530 513 307 CLASSIFICATION: Retail
July/August 2014 |
Businessfranchise.com | 61
Investment: £20k-£50k
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