Think of a service you recently used. How might this service be restructured to create service inventory as in the example of Zoots? What would they have to do? What advantages would the company gain and how would they better serve their customers? Zoots A good example of how service inventories can be created is provided by Zoots, a dry cleaner that has transformed the task of dry cleaning into a highly efficient, streamlined workflow that results in a higher level of customer service. Consider that at many dry cleaners laundered shirts are stored separately from dry cleaned items and a customer must wait for both to be picked up from the back room. The retailer could save time if the work was performed before the customer arrived. Even more time would be saved if the customer’s items were waiting at the front of the store. Zoots actually does this. Zoots charges orders to the customer’s credit card on file and then places the completed orders in lockers that are available 24 hours a day. Customers can simply arrive at the store at their convenience to pick up their clothes. They spend no time standing in line and waiting. Zoots has reduced the pickup time to a minimum by building up its service inventory. The customers, however, are not the only ones to benefit. Zoots’ employees can work at a more constant rate as opposed to responding to minute-by-minute fluctuations in demand. This enables Zoots to plan employee schedules more efficiently, improving productivity for the company and lowering production costs.