Business View Magazine | July 2020

59 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JULY 2020 T IDE CLEANERS what was then called Tide Dry Cleaners within the services sector. The first three stores were in Leawood and Overland Park, Kansas. We had some good success with those initial stores, developed a corporate store here in Cincinnati and began franchising the concept in 2010. Since then, we’ve learned a lot from other great retail and franchise concepts and have expanded across the country – our franchise network began developing stores in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Chicago, Omaha, and South Florida and as those seeds began to grow, so did the external interest in the franchise concept. “As we grew from 2010 to 2015, we were focusing on our understanding of the dry cleaning industry and how to deliver the Tide Promise to our guests, every time. Really polishing the investment model and the return on investment for our franchisees. By the beginning of 2016, we had about 40 stores. Since then we’ve experienced explosive growth. Currently, we have 180 stores and we’re franchising in all major U.S. cities. We have a high focus on net promoter score (NPS). Our overall, network-wide NPS over the past three years has been above 70 and at last tabulation it was close to 75. That’s something you earn every day with every transaction with every guest, but it definitely upholds and builds the Tide brand.” BVM: What is different about the Tide Cleaners approach? Gibson: “When P&G does anything there is extensive research involved. So, when we wanted to get into the dry cleaning space, we did a number of different consumer/guest understanding research programs. Consumers told us that they were completely dissatisfied with their dry cleaning experience; everyone had dry cleaning horror stories. They didn’t have your shirt ready, they ripped your dress, they’re open on their schedule, not yours. But what was really fascinating – at the time, this was a $9 billion industry with no major player. So, when we saw guests that were dissatisfied in such a big, highly fragmented industry,