Skeptical Laundry Owner's Guide to Customer Relations

Courtesy of the Coin Laundry News.

Those who come into our laundries on a regular and repeated basis to do personal or family wash without trying to take advantage of us or our business have to be the greatest asset any laundry owner has. Honest, down to earth people are truly the salt of the earth. God Bless them and please send us more.

But, there are a few, a little less reasonable ones who try shortcuts and scams. Customers tell you someone stole laundry from the dryer and the loser asks to be paid for their loss. When a laundry is on tape, it’s easy to check to see who did it. Or if it ever happened in the first place. If the tapes show them cleaning out a dryer, folding clothes and then leaving the laundry, that would show that it was possible they may have left clothes in the dryers. It may also show they are trying a scam.

Then there is the woman who says she put a ten in the changer and only got back four quarters. If she is a regular, most laundry owners will be inclined to believe her and make the refund. If, however, the machine worked perfectly before her complaint and it works perfectly now, it may be time to see her as an advantage taker.

The second or third time, check camera tapes to see when it took place and tell her no. Politely and firmly say that she must be mistaken. You’ve checked the changer hopper and no such ten dollar bill is in the stack. Someone trying to take advantage will not agree, but won’t be too irate. They will likely stay on as your customer but will be thinking they didn’t get away with it this time.

Some of our regular clientele are really regular about the way they overload -their washers, and then complain to other customers and our attendants that things are not as clean as they should be. Some of the detergent is still on the clothes when they are taken from the dryer. The machine must be at fault! They then tell you to do something about that to make them happy.

This requires some re-education on how not to overload a washer. That too can be very tricky. Most women that overload do it to save a little money. However, some were taught to do it that way by their mothers. When you attempt to re-educate them, some of them will resent your attempt to change how they were doing their wash. The re-education technique needs to be tactfully done.

Since overloading seems to be mostly a top load washer problem, encourage those who have the problem to move up to a front loading washer of larger size. This way you will seem to be uncritical of their laundering methods. But, by showing them the best way to do it is in the bigger machines you can educate without insult. Besides, you’ll be saving them money.

Criminals, cons and crooks.

Across the nation there are reports where people go into an unattended laundry and later tell the owner that they were injured in a fall. In most cases these people say they are willing to just get paid for their medical expenses, or else they will have to bring suit. Laundry owners who have security tapes to review are often able to simply shoo the complaints away by telling the complainer that the fall was faked and let’s go to court.

These cons come to the owner wrapped in bandages and wearing arm slings. They don’t want to minimize their injury, but they are such reasonable people, they just want to be paid for their medical expenses and go away to never bother the owner again.

This type of fake customer is usually very convincing. They are con men after all; that is what they do and this type of criminality is a pure con. The video tapes and security camera systems of a laundry can be the one great equalizer.

The incidences of faked slip and fall accidents has dropped considerably since owners began to install security camera systems in their laundries. In fact the numbers of all types of crimes in coin and card operated laundries have gone down now that what happens shows up in court and on tape.

No one is here to argue that the installation of a security camera system in a laundry will be the end all or cure all against the various kinds of criminal activities we in this industry see. But for some types of crimes, it comes pretty close. Put that together with a good alarm system and a set of motion detectors and most of the bad things done to a laundry are gone.

A good security system together with a good set of laundry books and records can make you impervious to all but the most reckless sort of criminals. Keep your insurance adequate and it will cover the rest too.

Being any sort of business person today is hard enough as it is without having to pay off customers for dumb or deliberate mistakes they make. Most of a laundry’s clientele are never a problem. Many make mistakes and knowing it is their fault never ask for any kind of redress for damages. Thank heaven for those kind of people.

It is the advantage takers we have to look out for. Most think of themselves as being honest folks just trying to get along. For them an itty bitty little scam isn’t really dishonest.

The problem is that they are trying to get along by taking advantage of us by attacking us at our weak spot. That is our willingness to pay off in order to keep customers. When we do, we lose very little.

When we are hit by the con men, crooks and even sleazy attorneys, the costs are much greater when we are faced by those threatening to sue, because we have to hire an attorney of our own,

The harm to our business’ is much greater. They also do a lot of harm to a laundry operator’s psyche.

It never hurts to be skeptical and unwilling to be one who can be taken advantage of. But, try to be nice about it.