Your customers are the key to the success of your laundromat. Understanding what their needs are, what they have come to expect in a laundromat, and their frustrations can help you increase customer satisfaction and in turn, the profits of your laundromat. On the other hand, failing to understand those needs can be detrimental to your business.

Below are four common laundromat customer complaints and how you can turn those problems into opportunities, by using the latest technology in your store.

Customer Complaint #1: “I never have cash on me.”

A large percentage of your customers rarely, if ever carry cash and find that it’s a big hassle to obtain cash and quarters. With our world becoming a cashless society, people don’t want to have to visit a bank or an ATM to do laundry, carry around a bag of coins or find out they can’t keep a load of laundry going because they’re shy a couple of quarters.

Solution:
Eliminate the need to pay solely with coins by offering card acceptance. Give your customers the choice to pay any way they choose! CCI systems allow you to accept credit/debit cards and loyalty cards. With FasCard, customers can even insert some coins and swipe their card for the remaining balance.

Customer Complaint #2: “I don’t carry a wallet. My wallet is my phone.”

Smartphones play an integral role in our lives. Today’s smartphone wallets store credit cards, tickets, coupons and more. Everything that was once in a consumer’s physical wallet is now in their digital wallet on their phone. Customers want to be able to pay with their phones and have come to expect to be able to do so with most goods and services.

Solution:
CCI’s FasCard system has a smartphone app that acts as a loyalty card. Customers who use the app no longer need to own a physical card but can use the app in the same way. They can take advantage of any of the loyalty programs you offer, and the app will keep track of it all.

Our complete card systems allow you to accept mobile payments, credit/debit payments and can even work with existing coin laundry machines.

Customer Complaint #3: “I don’t have five hours to sit and wait for laundry.”

Your customers have busy schedules and don’t want to spend leisure time doing laundry. Their time is valuable, and they don’t want the process of doing laundry to be time-consuming. If a customer’s laundry takes longer than expected due to events such as all machines being in use, it can create frustration and turns the experience of doing laundry into a negative one, likely preventing them from returning to your store.

Solution:
FasCard App users can see what machines are available without needing to physically be in your store, and they can also see the remaining cycle time of machines currently in use, giving them time to plan their commute and how long it will take to do their laundry. In addition, app users can request cycle completion notifications and even start a machine. When your customers do have to wait in your establishment, consider making it convenient by providing amenities such as free Wi-Fi or coffee (which can also increase your revenue).

Customer Complaint #4: “I want a personalized experience.”

It’s like the lyric in the Cheers theme song, “You want to go where everybody knows your name”. It’s cheesy but true. Customers desire to feel like they are wanted. They want to be appreciated and treated like a valuable part of your business. If a customer doesn’t feel welcome, they will most likely go to a competitor, and might even leave a negative review on your Google or Yelp page.

Solution:
FasCard and LaundryCard loyalty programs offer personalization by letting you establish discounts for certain groups (i.e. college students) or giving bonuses near your customer’s birthday. They also provide the ability for your customer to choose the language they prefer, and the system will remember their language preference and continue to display appropriately in the future. CCI systems offer many features that help you truly get to know your customers and effectively market to them, creating a memorable customer experience that can increase loyalty to your store.

Upgrade Your Laundromat

FasCard and LaundryCard from CCI offer the industry’s most advanced card payment systems, designed with both the operator and end user in mind. Contact us today to learn more about our payment solutions and how investing in the right technology can help you meet the needs of your customers and increase the profits of your laundromat business!

Marketing is a large component of increasing business for your property. Having a marketing plan in place will help you attract renters to your property and turn them into residents. Here are five steps to developing a winning marketing plan for your property.

Perform a SWOT Analysis

Make a list of your property’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Define the amenities and services that offer value to your residents and give you an advantage over competitors. Outdoor spaces, extra storage, ample parking, a modern laundry room, smart technology, a fitness room, and new kitchen appliances are examples of value added amenities to advertise.

Describe Your Target Audience

Look at your current residents and what they have in common. Analyze your competing properties and their residents. Decide what your ideal resident looks like. Define the demographics, lifestyle and motivations for the market you are trying to reach. Consider what that ideal customer will be looking for in a property.

Set Marketing Goals

Make your goals measurable and time specific. If you want to reach prospective residents on social media, make the goal clearly defined by saying you want to reach X number of followers on X social platform by X date. If you want to increase sales, you can make it quantifiable by saying you want to increase new leases by X percent in the next X months.

Define Your Strategies

What marketing strategies will you put in place to reach your objectives? How will you market to your target audience at every step of the sales process, from those who aren’t aware of your property to those that are ready to sign a lease? Consider print, email, online advertising, direct mail and promotional products.

Build a Plan

List which marketing strategies you are going to implement at each stage of the customer life cycle, from a cold prospect to a hot lead. For example, you could use social media advertising to build awareness, email marketing to those that have taken a property tour and promotional gifts to those ready to become a resident. Make sure your strategies are aligned with your marketing goals.

Our FasCard system for multi-housing properties is a great way to market to potential residents. FasCard gives your property a valuable amenity and helps attract new residents to your property. Our “Roll into Rent” feature allows you to advertise your property with “Free Laundry” and our Smart Technology adds a cutting-edge service to your property’s laundry room.

Want to learn more about how FasCard can add value and an additional revenue source to your property? Let’s Talk!

LaundryCard is not just a ‘Card System’ – it’s a holistic laundromat solution that gives store owners all the tools they need to succeed in one integrated system. From managing employees to marketing and loyalty programs, LaundryCard offers more features than any other product on the market. In this blog post, we are going to let you know about a few of LaundryCard’s features you many not be aware of.

Manage and Track Service Repairs

When you have machines that are in need of service, a LaundryCard system allows you to disable a machine for service, track the history of service for each machine and track time spent by technicians. LaundryCard allows you to issue Technician Cards to service technicians which gives them the ability to view the machines marked out of service and the problem inputted. Once the equipment has been serviced, the technician can mark the machine back into service and record the solution into the system. This action creates a service log for the machine which includes the time and date of failure, description of failure, attendant who recorded, service technician who repaired, amount of time a technician is working in the store and solution to failure. With LaundryCard, an owner can easily see how many machines are ‘marked’ out of service, compare time logs with service bills to validate service time and review the service history of each machine.

Remotely Access Advanced Sales Reporting

One of the major benefits of owning LaundryCard is that you have access to an in-store snapshot of your stores current sales at any time whether you are standing in front of the X-Changer or sitting at home in front of a computer. The store owner has the ability to check store totals without opening the cabinet or counting a single bill. All sales and usage information is recorded centrally and available for reporting and analysis. LaundryCard has the ability to provide detailed transactional reports for almost anything a store owner may want to know. All reports are live and require no data to be imported or downloaded. Hourly totals, Today’s totals, Week to date, Month to Date, Last Month and Year to date sales information is all available instantly and can be accessed remotely from any internet device. There is even a custom download tool to extract raw data that can be used to generate your own custom reports.

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Gather Customer Data and Market Effectively

Getting to know your customers is a valuable commodity in business. By being able to store your customers personal information, you can offer them extended services and help to build customer loyalty. LaundryCard allows you to collect a customer’s address, phone, email and birthday information when they register. There is a comments field to hold special ‘private’ notes regarding a customer. All of the collected information can be exported and used to market to your customers. You can easily create email blast marketing campaigns or traditional mailings. The LaundryCard system even has the ability for your customer to choose the language they prefer. The system will also remember a customer’s language preference and continue to display appropriately in the future. LaundryCard will help you truly get to know your customers so that you can effectively market to them and encourage customer loyalty.

Unlike other products that simply allow you to remove or supplement the quarters from a laundromat, LaundryCard helps you automate and grow your business. LaundryCard is a feature rich, management system that was built specifically for the laundry industry. Contact us today to learn more about LaundryCard and how its tools can help your laundromat business!