5 Top Laundry Customer Complaints
Not having a washer and dryer in your building or close by is one of the reasons why apartment dwellers may opt to move or buy their own home. After all, having a convenient way to wash clothes is much better than needing to rush out to a public laundromat and spend more time, money and effort than simply washing those items at home. However, it's not always possible for tenants to uproot their lives to solve a laundromat issue, and sometimes it's inevitable that one will need to make a trip to the local laundromat -- complaints incoming!
Poor Location
While it can help if your building is conveniently located down the street from a laundromat, various tips and tricks won't help your tenants if the only laundromat in the area is clear across town. Aside from the expense and time of driving, they'll also have to stay with their clothes for the hours that it takes to wash them if they're like most people and don't want to leave their clothes unattended. If a tenant is looking for a place to live and your building doesn't have on-site laundry or a nearby laundromat, they may consider reevaluating the decision to move in. Furthermore, tenants often speak about reliable laundry as a reason to move, and that can impact your bottom line.
No Change
Anyone that's spent time doing laundry at a laundromat knows that an important tip and trick is to always keep spare change on you. That can often mean asking for a roll of quarters at the bank or supermarket so that they'll have enough change on hand to meet their laundry needs. But if your laundry room takes cards or cash, they won't have to spend much time preparing that horde of change in advance.
Besides in the digital age, customers are increasingly dependent on modern forms of payment such as cashless/touchless credit/debit cards to pay for a wide range of products and services. Advancements in payment technology have touched almost all sectors. So it’s only a matter of time before all businesses including local and building laundromats adopted such easy, instantaneous, convenient, and above all touchless modes of payment.
Cash, be it bills or coins, is rapidly becoming a forgotten form of payment, as an increasing proportion of the public today prefers touchless/cashless payment methods. It’s because cash is not only inconvenient to carry but also involves unnecessary hassles like having to procure the right change.
Besides, touchless forms of payment are secure, safe, instant, and avoid contact - a necessity in the pandemic-driven times. Moreover, as the Covid-19 situation has changed the way we do business, it is doubtful people would return to paying for goods and services with cash even after the pandemic completely dies down. In fact cash was considered an outdated mode of payment even before the pandemic, except for some laundromats that still used coin-operated machines.
It's why building owners and managers will do well to solve the public laundry issue with tips and other workarounds that can help make doing laundry on the premises a feasible activity week after week and month after month.
No Attendant
While most laundromats require a few tips and tricks to get in and out with a clean load of laundry, the laundry services in most buildings are rather bare-bones. Change machines are not often seen, and there's rarely ever an attendant on duty to help resolve any problems. Sure, the local laundromat might not have an attendant either, but at least they have many other machines if the one you're looking to use stops working for some reason. In a local building laundromat, there might only be one machine to use, and that can present a serious problem for all the tenants if the washer or dryer goes down at any point.
On the other hand, if a laundromat uses advanced laundry payment technology, it would also pre-empt the need for an attendant. The new laundry payment solution or app can also include other valuable features such as, sending alerts or notifications to users when their load has completed the wash or dry cycle. In addition, it can allow customers to check the availability of machines before they even leave their house, which would help them avoid unnecessary trips or wait-times.
Dingy Environment
A common complaint that can't be overcome by certain laundromat tips and tricks is if a given laundry room is uninviting, dingy or otherwise crude. Broken lights, spills that were never cleaned up and general disorder can do more than make your tenants feel uncomfortable the next time they go to wash their clothes. If it's bad enough, they may consider moving, especially if there are no other laundromat services in the vicinity. After all, if you had to drive across town to wash your clothes, wouldn't you think about moving?
Out-of-Order Equipment
If there's one thing that any laundromat needs beyond the tips, tricks and guidance to help customers wash their laundry, it's functional equipment. People may be able to catch up on their reading or chat with a friend while they're doing laundry, but a broken washer, dryer or coin machine could send them away from your laundromat in the blink of an eye, especially if there are no alternative machines available. Not only can that reduce the number of people that can be served by your laundromat, but it might also send a message that you don't care, and in the long run that can drive more people away.
Indeed, it's best to fix any broken machines and to remedy all issues as soon as you learn about them. It might also make sense to provide a way for your tenants and customers to alert you of any issue, such as listing a number to text or an email address. This way, if there's a problem, you'll be among the first to know, and that means having more time to fix the issue before it starts to affect others.
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Here at SelfOpLaundry, we help building owners and entrepreneurs better serve their tenants and the local community with laundromat services that are designed to meet the needs of anyone that needs a better way to do laundry. Contact us today to get a quote.
