Remote viewing isn’t scientific or a proven way of seeing the future, but it has a lot of people who believe that some can see what’s happening somewhere else with only the assistance of their brain waves. People write about it, even the Readers Digest. We in the laundry biz know that it’s true. We’ve seen it. It just needs a bit of help from computers, TV cameras and electronics.
When the promotion opportunity came, this laundry owner was faced with the prospect of -selling his successful laundry business and moving to another city. Being close to retirement, the idea of selling the business didn’t have the appeal it might have. On the other hand, he did not want to give up his position with the company where he’d worked for nearly twenty years. To do so would mean giving up his salary, benefits and excellent retirement package.
On one hand he had really good employees, but he did oversee their activities, which is what made them into good employees in the first place. He also had a very good service technician he could rely on. The new city location for his employment would also be close enough so that he could return on some weekends. That really was not satisfactory.
What he really needed was to be able to watch what was going on, so he decided to add a television monitoring system so that he was able to see the laundry from his office computer and supervise it that way. The monitoring was such that he could know when the laundry was opened and closed by tuning in. He could also communicate with attendants by phone through a system hooked into the computer at the laundry.
With the six cameras, he could see the cash register, change machines, washers and dryers, plus the flow of customers in the business. He could see what was going on at any time of the day or night from his office, home or from anywhere in the world.
Now his only concern was the collection of the coin boxes, banking and re-supply of the change machines. Since those were important to him, he would have to find a way to get that done before he would be satisfied that he would be able to move.
His son was a junior at a nearby university, living in the dorms, and would not be moving with the family. He could do the collecting, changer reloads and the banking. The father would continue paying the bills and do the bookkeeping. Since the son had been partially involved in the laundry since high school, and because he had such good rapport with the employees, he could be trusted and relied upon to report any problems that might arise.
Now this laundry owner thought he was ready to move the rest of his family to the new city. He would be able to watch what was going on at the laundry and had someone he trusted to handle the money and deposits. He could talk with employees on a daily basis and could supervise from the new city from either his home or his new office.
This all took place a bit over seven years ago, and everything has been running smoothly since. The owner comes to his laundry every few weeks. It was a short non-stop hop and he flies in the morning and is back home that night. He had only three more years to his company’s retirement age, and is so content and happy with how it’s going now that he did not move back to the city the laundry is in.
In the vended laundry business today, there are so many relatively new devices making it possible for owners to view their businesses from afar and to manage two or more operations just as well as those who own only one.
First up are TV security camera systems. They range from the do-it-yourself installations to quite expensive and professionally done. Costs go from the hundreds to the thousands. Security cameras need recording machines similar to a DVR for play back. The remote laundry owner will often want to run these recordings to get a better feeling of how and when his operation is the busiest. Computers, of course, can access and play them from anywhere in the world. Thus, if there is an accident in the laundry, such as a slip and fall, the owner can see it happen on his computer simply by finding the proper recording.
One of the neatest things about the system is that audio cards can allow the owner to hear and respond to things that happen in the laundry. They let the owner and attendant communicate right then and there. It also allows laundry owners to respond to strange sounds in the night, such as someone breaking into the laundry through the back wall. The sooner police are called, the less damage will be done.
There are also some aftermarket recording devices that one can add to their washers and dryers that will allow an operator to know which machines were used, how often and at what price. Such a tracking system allows an owner to notice which machine is not being used and therefore indicates that it may be out of order. A quick call to the repair technician is then in order.
These systems are expensive as retrofit add-ons, but are inexpensive when one compares the cost of selling off a successful business in order to personally relocate.
Some changer manufacturers are offering audits from the owners computer so that he or she can tell all of the activities done on that changer. This offers owners one more key device to have control of their laundry from afar.
Owners of card operated laundries appear to have a much easier decision to make when it comes to moving to another city. First of all, there is no weighty coin to worry about counting, bagging and banking. The collected cash is in the cards paid for in advance by the customers. There is security and confidence for the owner’s accounting for cash.
The Value Transfer Machines in the card-op laundry electronically record the amounts of currency both by denomination and total. So it is possible to have an employee prepare deposits and go to the bank. One does not have to trust them simply because the deposits can be checked on through the banks electronic verification system. Many businesses do it daily. That includes laundry owners doing it by computer from anywhere in the world.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of all this electronic and visual surveillance is that it helps keep good employees honest. They don’t know when the remote owner is listening, watching or both. When they take money to the bank, they know how much it should be because the owner told them it was that amount. Workers are less likely to take money from the till when they know it could be seen by their boss over the miles on his computer.
Vended laundry experts all seem to agree that television security and electronic audits of washers, dryers and change machines seems to benefit multiple laundry owners more than single laundry owners. It does cost more and there is a benefit to extending the costs over more than one laundry.
However, all that electronic gear does let the single laundry owner be an absentee owner and remote from the business. If you are faced with a forced move, it will be beneficial to check out the new tools for remote viewing.
