Sticking points

Dishy Wash is an initiative created by British multinational consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser, focused on loaning portable countertop dishwasher products to users who don’t have the space or correct plumbing requirements for a full size machine.

Attaching to the existing sink plumbing, these smaller scale dishwashers are ideal for the segment of the market that live in small apartments, usually - as was already established - the 25-34 age bracket, who perhaps don’t want to commit to a one-off purchase while in rental accommodation.

The Dishy Wash subscription was based on a model similar to that of Swapfiets, the long-term bike hire company in the Netherlands, which offers people access to an always-working smart bike and accompanying repair service for convenience and peace of mind, all for a (premium) fixed monthly fee. In a similar way, Dishy Wash bundled 30 free cleaning tabs as part of its monthly subscription service. Still, the firm’s paying customers weren’t sticking around. When Innoleaps stepped in, the primary goal was to build the Dishy startup from 18 to 100 paying customers per month. 

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Putting trust in the product

‍To kick things off, we wanted to understand why the majority of customers weren’t renewing their subscriptions with Dishy Wash. So we deep dived into the company's business data.

Based on customer research and the initiative’s existing subscription model, it became apparent that the €44.70 monthly fee was incredibly high for consumers, especially considering these small-scale dishwashers could be purchased out-right for $200-300. We also established that providing cleaning tabs for free, which are relatively cheap to buy anyway, wasn’t adding much value when it came to convincing customers to sign up and stay signed up as long-term subscription members.

While we found that a monthly subscription model was still the best, viable option, the price was still a major hurdle, so we landed at a price point that was more than half of the original cost - at €17. However, this was with the caveat of a fixed term of 6 or 12 months, a requirement suggested by Reckitt Benckiser due to the company favoring certainty over risk. 

With this new model in place, we saw customers were converting but way slower than anticipated. It was obvious that the fixed-term contract was a major block for those signing up. The monthly fee was still low and it wasn’t a product issue as we discovered that those who had signed up actually loved their machines.

The following plan of action was to offer the dishwashers on a subscription service similar to that of Netflix, where users can cancel at any time. While there were concerns over the costs involved in shipping hardware, we were incredibly confident that the high product satisfaction would ensure subscribers were unlikely to cancel once signed up.‍

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Worries washed away

Once the new subscription model had been implemented, Dishy Wash sales went through the roof. The startup had an inventory of 100 machines. These were all shipped within a few days, and our assumptions about retention rates were validated to great success.