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!

FasCard is an electronic payment and management system designed to allow laundry businesses an easy way to improve profitability by allowing their customers multiple payment options. FasCard is perfect for any business that currently accepts cash or coin payments on laundry equipment that wants to either eliminate coins or supplement coins with debit and credit card acceptance. FasCard can also be configured to accept loyalty cards which can greatly improve customer retention and increase profitability. FasCard not only provides additional payment options but can monitor the existing coin/cash payments.

FasCard readers can be installed on almost any kind of self service equipment that natively accepts coin or cash. FasCard not only lets you accept debit cards, credit cards and loyalty cards on your washers and dryers, but now also lets you accept these alternate payment options on your vending equipment. By installing FasCard on your vending machines and accepting card payments, you can increase your revenue and provide a faster, more convenient experience for your customers.

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FasCard is compatible with many different makes and model vending machines, as long as the host vending machine is MDB Level 1 compliant. Increase your soap sales and install FasCard on your soap vending machines. FasCard is compatible with all of the electronic vendors from Vend-Rite Manufacturing, including the VendMaster 360, VendMaster 240, and all Vision glass front vendors.

When your customers are able to use card payments on your vending machines you will sell more products and bring in additional revenue to your buisness. Ready to install FasCard in your facility? Contact us today to learn more about implementing FasCard in your laundromat!

There are more than 35,000 laundromats in the US alone, making up an industry that nears $5 billion in revenue annually. For each laundry store, sales range from $35,000 to $1 million a year depending on a number of factors, like location, rent and the cost of equipment. But as any business owner knows, it’s always wise to look for ways to increase your bottom line and make more money at your laundromat.

Bring In Additional Revenue and Increase Profits at Your Laundromat

The easiest way to increase your laundromat earnings is by adding additional revenue sources. Additional revenue sources will provide more value to your customers and give them more reasons to choose your store. By adding other ways of bringing in profit, not only will you make more money from your current customers, but you will also draw in new customers who come to you because of the additional services you offer.

Food and Drink Vending
This is the quickest way of bringing additional revenue to your laundromat. Profit from vending machines vary based on volume and whether or not you stock and manage your own machines, but can add valuable revenue to your store.

Sell Upgrades on Your Machines
Traditional laundromats are coin operated, and customers receive a standard wash in exchange for a standard fee. However, cycle upgrades (extra rinse/wash) and variable priced cycle options (more for hot, less for cold) are unique capabilities that make a positive impact on a store’s bottom line. You can use a laundry payment system like FasCard or LaundryCard to facilitate this and charge more than your standard price for these upgrades, boosting profits.

Use Our Profit Calculator

See how much a small increase in your prices can make a dramatic affect your bottom line.

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Vending That Offers Detergent, Dryer Sheets, Fabric Softener and Other Laundry Items
In addition to offering food and drink vending machines, provide machines that sell small sizes of laundry necessities, like laundry detergent, boxes of dryer sheets and bottles of fabric softener. While a laundry vending machine is another way to make money, it also makes doing laundry at your store easier and more convenient for the customer, which increases profit as well.

Laundry Drop-off Service
Commonly called wash and fold, adding a laundry drop-off service to your laundromat expands your customer base. Clients that are too busy to spend time at your laundry store will love the idea of being able to drop off their clothes and pick them up clean and dry at their convenience, and your profit will grow.

Pickup and Delivery Service
Though it might not make sense for every store, high volume stores and busy locations might find it valuable to give their customers the option of scheduling laundry pickup and home delivery. Like with offering a drop-off service, pickup and delivery will allow your store to reach more people who might not typically use a laundromat.

Arcade Games
Another popular way to diversify revenue at your laundry store is by adding arcade games. An upfront investment is required, but over time these machines will pay for themselves and encourage your customers to stay at your store for longer periods of time.

Car Vacuums
You can also make more money at your laundromat by adding one or two car vacuums outside your store. Many customers will see this as a convenient tool and vacuum their car while their laundry is going inside, netting you extra dollars per month.

Free Wifi
While not technically an additional revenue source, giving your customers access to free wifi will encourage people to hang around your store while they wait for their laundry to finish, increasing the likelihood that they’ll spend their cash at your vending machines or vacuums.

Distinguish Yourself from Competitors

When you diversify the revenue sources in your laundry room, you provide new ways for your clients to receive value from your store, which differentiates you from your competitors and increases your profitability. With only small tweaks to your current operation, you can increase your margins and serve more customers. Services like FasCard and LaundryCard simplify this process and make it easy for you to sell upgrades and adjust your vend price based on demand.

See how much more money you could make with a system like LaundryCard by using our profit calculator.

Make more profit by increasing vend price incrementally

All coin laundromat owners have to deal with the rising costs of utilities. Things like periodic water rate increases and surging electricity bills are making it more expensive to own a laundromat—not to mention fixed cost like rent, regular machine maintenance and repairs. For coin laundromat owners, steady cash flow and liquidity are crucial. Profits need to keep pace with rising costs for the business to grow and thrive. And for coin laundries, sometimes the only way to offset expenses without going into the red and also making a profit is to raise vend prices on machines.

But raising coin-operated laundry machine prices can be clunky and conspicuous: many coin-only laundromats can only increase vend prices by the quarter. This can be a rather delicate matter for a business owner: Raise your vend prices too high and you’ll lose precious customer lifetime value and loyalty. On the other hand, if you keep the same prices for too long, you miss out on potential revenue—or worse yet—don’t hit your breakeven point.

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See how much a small increase in your prices can make a dramatic affect your bottom line.

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From a financial perspective, increasing vend prices—whether due to a cumulative uptick in variable costs (water, electricity or gas) or lowering prices in order to compete with more established coin laundromats in the neighborhood—25¢ cents may not make much sense for you as a store owner either.

Furthermore, If you try to increase your washing machine cycles by $.50 overnight, you may end up losing some of the loyalty you’ve slowly built up and valuable customers in the process. You may find that a vend price increase of $.09 may be closer to what customers are willing to pay for, and also more in line with healthy revenue growth. Penny incremental pricing also allows you to stair-step or stagger pricing so you can split up increases over time.

Penny incremental pricing has a powerful effect on your bottom line. You can actually see how LaundryCard would benefit your laundromat with our online Profit Calculator.

Simply input a few figures and see how much you could be gaining with LaundryCard.