Laundryheap's integration with Google’s mobility stack enabled a 50% reduction in delivery windows, allowing customers to book precise two-hour pickup and delivery slots.
Elevating Customer Experience and Business Efficiency with OniGroup and Google Maps
With Google & Oni:
Founded in 2014 in London, Laundryheap is a next-generation laundry and dry cleaning company. They offer professional laundry and dry cleaning services delivered to your doorstep in as little as 24 hours.
Since their beginnings in London, they have expanded globally to 14 countries. Their services are available in the following countries: Kuwait, Ireland, France, Qatar, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UAE, the United Kingdom, the United States, Peru, Bahrain, and Denmark.
Laundryheap's integration with Google’s mobility stack enabled a 50% reduction in delivery windows, allowing customers to book precise two-hour pickup and delivery slots.
Chores aren’t exactly universally loved. For busy city dwellers, doing laundry eats into the little personal time they have, so it’s easy to see why a laundry service app would gain strong uptake. To succeed, the app must deliver a reliable service that maximises time savings.
Predictable pickup and delivery are critical details. After all, you can’t expect busy customers to wait around all day for a laundry delivery. That’s why Laundryheap, a leading app offering laundry and dry-cleaning services to customers all around London, came to OniGroup.
In this case study, we outline how OniGroup helped Laundryheap set up an ETA for deliveries – and how OniGroup recommended and implemented powerful Google Maps Mobility capabilities to fundamentally improve Laundryheap’s business model, helping them outcompete emerging competitors.
As Laundryheap was gearing up to launch a brand-new app, it was clear that customers craved the ability to track their orders – every step of the way, with regular updates on deliveries.
The company’s developers started working with OniGroup, which was then one of the few Google Cloud Platform partners with access to Google’s mobility technology stack. The team’s initial requirement was simple: integrate a delivery ETA into Laundryheap’s iOS and Android apps.
As a tech-driven laundry service, Laundryheap embraced agility, which means fast technology implementation. An ETA could be quickly and easily accommodated. With OniGroup’s extensive experience, this would have been no problem whatsoever.
Yet the OniGroup team quickly spotted the opportunity for mobility services to offer a string of ways to improve the Laundryheap customer experience, including live tracking rather than just an ETA.
However, OniGroup’s suggestions had the potential to positively impact Laundryheap’s entire business model.
Plenty of potential, yes, but for Laundryheap, building comprehensive mobility infrastructure in-house would demand significant time and resources.
Thankfully, Google Maps and Google’s broader mobility stack empower companies to leapfrog those constraints. Google’s mobility stack gives startups access to the same capabilities that mobility giants such as Uber and Deliveroo rely on to deliver a top-tier customer experience.
As Laundryheap and OniGroup worked on the deep integration of Google’s mobility technology, Laundryheap recognised that they could leverage these advanced features to not just enhance existing services but also create entirely new service capabilities.
For example, OniGroup demonstrated how Laundryheap could use advanced mobility capabilities to reduce the delivery window altogether. Rather than booking a delivery day with the time confirmed later, Laundryheap’s customers could now book two-hour windows.
This represents a substantial competitive advantage, as busy city professionals can now request an exact window for laundry pickup and delivery.
Other benefits included route efficiency improvements, reducing the amount of time Laundryheap’s drivers spent on the road – enabling Laundryheap to offer more competitive prices.
Google’s mobility technology stack is powerful enough to function as a transport management system. Using Google Cloud Platform, Laundryheap could automate every facet of the delivery process across all the data points, including exactly where deliveries stop, how long they stop for, and so on.
While the potential of the technology was undeniable, Laundryheap and OniGroup encountered a couple of challenges during the integration process.
Integrating Google’s mobility technology stack wasn’t as straightforward as plugging in a single API request. It involved integrating a stateless system that controls all the different data points and signals around a delivery – while calling on APIs to solve the edge cases generated.
Laundryheap's existing tech stack, built on React, didn’t natively integrate with the Google technology stack. OniGroup worked alongside Google to create a wrapper to make it possible to integrate Google’s mobility stack with the React framework.
This involved a steep learning curve for Laundryheap’s developers, but OniGroup stepped the team through all the key aspects.
Working with OniGroup and Google was nothing short of transformative for Laundryheap – improving the customer experience, adding capabilities to the app, and optimising the company’s business model.
In fact, Google’s mobility stack had a profound impact on Laundryheap’s business model. It not only improved existing services, with features such as live tracking and accurate ETAs enhancing the customer experience, but it also laid the foundation for future growth and innovation.
The platform’s scalability and Google’s extensive data resources across a range of locations also mean that Laundryheap could more readily expand into new markets.
The company can now confidently enter new territories, thanks to the knowledge that they have access to the necessary technology and data-driven insights to navigate unfamiliar terrain and nonetheless deliver exceptional service.
The net result: an app that exceeds customer expectations, a business model that’s transformed, and a popular laundry services app enabled for growth.
