Ellen Seguin started Lakeside Linen Supply in response to a need made clear to her as a Lakeside cottage renter. And now, thanks to integrating Booqable, her linen rental business can cater to hundreds of customers, keeping track of inventory and ensuring customers get everything they order.
At Lakeside Chautauqua, it has been a tradition for over 100 years that renters must bring their own sheets and towels. It’s easy to imagine that this has been the case for many other Chautauqua retreats across North America. That’s why forward-thinking small business owners like Ellen are so crucial to vacation-goers who need to rent sheets and towels quickly and conveniently.
Lakeside Linen Supply
For all of Ellen Seguin’s life, her family rented a cottage at Lakeside Chautauqua for a week every summer. Over the years, there was quite the crowd of family members to accommodate, including supplying sheets and towels for all. This issue is prevalent among other cottage renters who travel by plane or in a small car and can’t pack enough for what they need. In addition, vacationers loath having to do large loads of laundry once they got back home.
Ellen decided to take matters into her own hands with Lakeside Linen Supply and started renting out everything a vacationer to Lakeside may need during their vacation. This includes sheets in all sizes, bath towel sets, beach towels, kitchen towels, and more. This served her core customer base of vacationers perfectly for their needs and saved them a lot of hassle, knowing everything was taken care of in advance.
When COVID-19 hit, the situation became more complex, and the cottage owners became reluctant even to provide blankets and comforters. But, as Ellen had her finger on the pulse of the problem, she quickly added Bed-in-a-Bag sets to her offering and reports that they have been a big hit! They also served to expand her customer base for those attending overnight events like camps, weddings, family reunions, and conferences.
Fluffing the sheets
Of course, every successful business is prone to a few struggles when it doesn’t have the right software to manage everything. One of the main things that Ellen struggled with was keeping track of her inventory and ensuring she had enough in stock to satisfy her customers’ orders for any given week. In addition, she found it difficult copying and printing packing slips which are included with every order.
Both of these processes were prone to human error. Ellen knew these issues could lead to errors in packing and delivery, so she set out to find just the right software to help streamline her process.
Satisfying customers needs
Managing her inventory and orders with Booqable has given Ellen the confidence to know she can satisfy all of her reservations in any given week. She knows exactly what customers have ordered and what is in stock, as well as when to purchase more inventory ahead of running low.
Meanwhile, labeling deliveries has become much easier thanks to the packing slips she can generate within Booqable. As a result, she now knows that all orders are accurate and she can prepare everything perfectly. She even placed the address side of the packing slip onto order bags so that the process from order to fulfillment to delivery is now seamless.
I love the visual simplicity of Booqable. It was very easy to learn and very intuitive in its operating system. That was actually very important to me!
Linen for everyone
Ellen says that Booqable has made scaling her business much easier because the opportunity for human error before using it was too big to enable any real growth. She has streamlined her business, reducing any risk for human error. And having happy customers is her #1 priority. She has seen bookings increase dramatically since she signed up and started using Booqable as her online store.
Now, Ellen is confident that she and her staff can now deliver exactly what her customers order and ensure it arrives at the correct location. She also has more time to manage her business and pursue growth opportunities. She is always looking for ways to serve other markets that may benefit from having fresh, crisp, clean bed and bath linens delivered directly to their location!
