Guest laundry facilities at resorts and extended-stay hotels can cause distractions for staff members, especially when guests need to exchange bills for quarters or if machines malfunction. Laundry rooms can also inconvenience guests who lug their dirty clothes around only to discover that all of the machines are in use, or if they can’t remember what time their wash cycle will finish.
Thanks to wireless technology, laundry has gone digital, eliminating some of the more burdensome aspects of the task at hand. Earlier this year, Mac-Gray Corporation, provider of commercial laundry equipment and management services, introduced its Internet-based Change Point payment and monitoring system (below). Although the company primarily focuses on multi-housing laundry facilities management, Executive Vice President of Technology and Information Systems Bob Tuttle says hotels are a significant and growing part of the business.
“It allows the hotel personnel to focus on guest services,” Tuttle says, “and not be making change and dealing with complaints about machines not starting.”
Change Point connects washers and dryers to the Internet, allowing users to pay for each wash or dry cycle with a debit card, credit card, or coins. Change Point also utilizes Mac-Gray’s LaundryView monitoring system, which has been redesigned to provide new features, such as service and revenue tracking capabilities for property owners or managers. “We provide a portal for our customers to be able to go in and look at that information by machine, by day, and slice and dice it whichever way they want to look at it,” Tuttle says.
Guests can also check the availability of washers and dryers through a Web browser before heading to the laundry room, and receive a text message or e-mail when their cycle is done.
One configuration allows guests to pay at a wall-mounted “laundry center” that communicates with the machines, while the other allows users to pay directly at each machine. If users notice an equipment malfunction, they can report the problem via the laundry center touch screen. “It allows guests and residents to do a lot of things they normally would need to make a phone call or go to the front desk to resolve,” Tuttle says.
When problems occur, Mac-Gray receives the information and links it through to a service dispatch. “Every property we manage, the laundry room is assigned to a group of techs,” Tuttle explains. “Each tech has a handheld device, so if a Maytag washing machine in an extended-stay hotel in Burlington, Mass., says it’s leaking, that information gets relayed to a tech that covers the property.”
Mac-Gray tracks every quarter put into the machine, in addition to all credit card transactions. When properties consider outsourcing management of laundry facilities, Tuttle says allowing a third party to handle unsupervised cash is always a concern. When coins are collected, the company can report the exact amount of money that should be accounted for to its client.
Locations that have implemented the system so far include Nickelodeon Suites Resort and a DoubleTree hotel, both in Orlando, Fla. “We are very happy with the new laundry system,” says Jim Struna, director of marketing/sales and revenue management at Nickelodeon Suites Resort. “The installation was a simple conversion and the high-quality, energy-efficient machines are extremely dependable. If one needs repair, it is fixed immediately, which has increased our guest satisfaction and increased the time they can devote to enjoying their vacation.”
Tuttle says Mac-Gray is reaching out to mid-market, extended-stay and resort hotels that have guest laundry facilities to expand digital laundry accessibility for travelers.
