Criteria #1: Customer Appeal
The system should address the basic customer needs with respect to payment preference and usability. To this end, it helps to analyze the appeal of a payment system to the following four customers types:
- #1: Only has cash
- #2: Only has or prefers to use a credit/debit card
- #3: Does not speak English well, prefers Spanish
- #4: Not very good with technology
Laundroworks can accept both cash and credit/debit cards, has an “Espanol” language option on the Value Add Center, and is remarkably simply to use – reload a laundry card in 5 seconds, then present laundry card to the reader on the laundry machine to start the cycle. Anyone who has used a payment card of any kind will learn to use the system very quickly.
So Laundroworks appeals to all four types of customers!
Now consider, for instance, an App-only payment technology. To what degree does it appeal to customers types 1,2 and 4? It likely has little to no appeal; these customers will still be using quarters.
Criteria #2: Reliability and Resiliency
There are important reliability and resiliency factors to consider:
Reliability factors
- 1. The reliability of the card technology.
- With our contactless card technology, there is no wear-and-tear and there is no maintenance required. The card technology is very reliable.
- 2. The reliability of the kiosk.
- Our Value Add Center kiosks use customized high-end components, including an MEI bill validator, an Asahi-Seiko card dispenser, custom-built Linux-based computers, solid-state flash memory, vandal-proof and splash-resistant touch monitor, and more. It is one solid piece of hardware.
Resiliency factors
- 1. The resiliency of the system to outages in the internal network, which connects the payment device/reader on the machine to the main gateway or hub in the store.
- Our readers are connected to the local hub (embedded in the Value Add Center) using a wireless network. This network is used for reporting and control purposes only. Any outages in this network do not affect a customer’s ability to reload a card or to start a machine, since the balance is stored on the laundry card.
- 2. The resiliency of the system to internet outages.
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During an internet outage in the store with our system, customers can still reload their laundry card with cash (which is the most common way to reload a card) and start laundry machines without any issues. Customers cannot reload the card using credit/debit cards and the real-time reporting functions of the cloud software will be not be available. However all usage data is buffered locally in the Value Add Center and sent to the cloud servers when internet is restored.
In short, the system is still functional at the core and most customers will not even feel the internet outage. Contrast this with other payment systems, where internet outages effectively bring the entire payment system down.
Criteria #3: Coinless Support
Does the system allow you to move away from quarters?
With Laundroworks it is possible to do a hybrid (card+coin) setup for many types of laundry machines. But because it accepts cash at the Value Add Center and is so simple to use, you can safely move away from accepting quarters. In fact the vast majority of our customers operate pure card stores and benefit massively from this.
With other systems, unless the system offers a way to pay with cash, you’ll still be dealing with quarters and most of your store customers will likely continue to pay with quarters. All you will get is a slightly “elevated” coin store.
Criteria #4: Price Control
Can the system support multi-pricing?
Does it support penny-increment pricing?
Most customers are willing to pay more for hot water or for the extra rinse, so it’s important to be able to have control over these cycles. It’s also important to be able to make slight increases to vend prices.
With Laundroworks, the vast majority of machines can be multi-priced down to a penny resolution. For example, you could charge $3.24 for a cold wash and $3.51 for a hot wash if you wanted to. Our system also supports various cycle modifiers (e.g heavy soil) on the machines.
You will be missing extra revenue potential if choosing a system without these capabilities.
Criteria #5: Ease of System Management
What tools are provided for managing the system? Some important questions might be:
- Would you be able to provide an activity report for a particular customer?
- How do you refund customers
- How do you change vend prices?
- Could it provide daily or monthly summary reports?
- Can the system notify you by e-mail if there’s a critical problem?
With Laundroworks, many management functions including refunds and activity reporting can be carried out directly at the Value Add Center with an authorized management card through the touch screen.
These and many other functions are also available on the LaundroPortal, a cloud-based application with real-time control. With a simple web browser-based login from anywhere in the world, you have access to diagnostics, a myriad of reports, and control capabilities.
Criteria #6: EMV and NFC
The payment industry is moving away from magnetic stripe credit/debit cards and terminals, towards more secure Chip-based and Contactless (NFC) payment methods. There’s a liability to operating non-compliant payment equipment. Search “EMV liability shift”.
The Laundroworks system is EMV compliant. It accepts credit/debit cards with a Chip and NFC payment methods like ApplePay. It is future-proof.
Criteria #7: Promotional Capabilities
Does the system have promotional capabilities that might incentivise customers to spend a little more, to come back to the store, or to visit the store during slower hours?
Laundroworks has a number of promotional capabilities, including various bonus/loyalty features and powerful time-of-time/time-of-week vend price scheduling.
Criteria #8: Cash Intake
Ideally, you want to maximize cash intake without turning down credit card acceptance.
With Laundroworks, unlike with some others systems, you’re not incentivizing customers to use credit cards by making them more convenient than cash. The systems provides a great experience for both cash and credit card paying customers. In fact you can even provide bonuses when customers reload their laundry card with cash, but not with credit cards.
Our laundromat clients see Cash-to-Credit-Card payment ratios of 2:1 or 3:1.
Cash is still king with Laundroworks.
Criteria #9: Support
We offer support 7 days/week by phone and by email. With our flat organizational structure, you will often be speaking directly with the engineers and developers.
Criteria #10: System Cost
The system is very competitively-priced with other fully-featured payment systems. Additionally because Laundroworks card readers are wirelessly-networked, you will also save a bundle on installation in comparison to systems that use wired readers.
Whether switching over from coin laundry operations, or other existing card systems, our clients have quickly regained systems costs in increased profits.
Criteria #11: Company Reputation
Laundry card systems is all we do. We’ve been in business since 2008 and have close to 2,000 locations that use our system. We encourage you to visit one of our stores and speak with the owners. See the About us page to learn more.