Playing with Dryer Time

[E&R]

How to give the appearance of giving more or identical dryer time than your competitor... My three laundromat competitor, within 1/4 miles from mine, all priced their dryer prices at 15 minutes per quarter; two of the mats has 15 years old single pocket speed queen 30# slimline gas. 3rd mat has 2 years old dexter stacks. Checking more carefully at the 3rd mat, I realized they has set their high setting at 160 degree to give their appearance of giving the same amount of dryer time.

I priced my dexter stacked 30# dryer at 12 minutes per quarter with high setting at 180 degree.

[Andy]

I just had this same conversation with a customer yesterday. One of my competitors sets his at 14 minutes per quarter and my guess was 160 deg or lower.

I am not sure as to the best way to educate the customers. Perhaps a sign that states the number of minutes and temperature.

[KJD]

Usually the customer figures it out all by themselves when it takes them a $1 to dry a load at the comp. versus .50 per load at your mat.
I have mine set on 190 and they tend to peak at 210-212 and I get told all the time my dryers are hotter that the three closest mats.
And if you think your customers don't go to other mats once in awhile to try them out........

[Gary C]

KJD
Do you make any money? If you can dry for 50 cents at 190 degrees they must almost be a lost leader. What about clothes dammage and shrinkage? It just seems to high to me.

Gary

[KJD]

Gary, that $1 versus .50 was only an example that it is going to cost the customer more money not to mention time to dry clothes at the mat that has lower temperatures and that the customers would figure it out.

That(190) is the high setting on the ADC's I have and have never had a problem with damage at that temp, only if a temp sensor fails or something else to make the dryer go hotter than that.

Back to E&R, do not attempt to turn your dryers lower, your current customers know how hot they are.
I turned mine down to 170 from 190 and had so many complaints in my sugg. box I turned them right back to 190 in 3 days

[pete f]

A BIG sign in the window HOT DRYERS

My Dexters are set at 180, with a 1 min cool down on HOT.
They come from the factory 175 and 3 min cool down

People like hot dryers and will not say much about the price of them. A sign inside over the dryers " our dryers are hot for faster drying" or something would be good.

[mike]

KJD is right about customers knowing.

The word about good dryers seems to travel faster than the speed of light !

The only comparison they make is the cost to dry a load, which they know very well !

[Follow]

I am with Pete..a few minutes are Not important, most important thing is that customers want hot dryers..my near Lmat is 12 min. ; I did lower 10 min. to 9 min. and I am getting his customers!!??

[David]

I've had to increase the dryer time per quarter after getting new dryers.

I took out SQ 30lb singles and replaced with ADC330's.

My initial installation had numerous complaints of poor drying. After replacing the exhaust system with proper size, I still was getting complaints about poor drying. I checked temperature and found most of them ABOVE the computer setting. Still, I got complaints.

I assumed (dang, there's that word again) that a 68000 BTU [i]ENERGY EFFICIENT][i/] model would produce the same result as a old, inefficient 105,000 BTU model with the same amount of time. But I've discovered that it takes the same amount of BTU's to dry the same clothes.

So I've increase the time from 12 minutes to 18 minutes. (2 minute cool down. I have a long cool down because so many of my customers start dryer and leave. I've read numerous incidences of clothes in dryers self com busting after stopping.)

[E&R]

KJD, thanks for the advise...I am not planning to lower my dryer temperature. Just want to point out to others how other factors can have an impact: adjusting the dryer temperatures, adjusting cool down time, different igniting system (glow bars vs spark vs ...) impacts how quickly it ignites, dryer btu, type of washers used, etc...

Peter's idea of a sign letting the customer know is good.

David - you may want to try setting your cool-down period to 1 to 1.5 minutes from 2 minutes so the clothes comes out of the dryer hot instead of warm. Have you had any success in discouraging customer from leaving clothes unattended in the dryer for the reasons you mentioned as well as tying up a dryer pocket?

[David]

Originally posted by E&R
David - you may want to try setting your cool-down period to 1 to 1.5 minutes from 2 minutes so the clothes comes out of the dryer hot instead of warm.
I can only set whole minutes. Most of the customers just want dry clothes at the end of three quarters.

Have you had any success in discouraging customer from leaving clothes unattended in the dryer for the reasons you mentioned as well as tying up a dryer pocket?
Since I'm unattended, I have no control over customers leaving clothes. The laundry is close to the community. (2 blocks) As I understand the previous owner, it's like a right they claim. :)