unattended drop off design

[Anonymous]

We are looking for design help and ideas. We have a small room that is a trapezoid in shape. One wall is 8', the other 6', and the ends are 4' approx. We want to build it into a drop off collection area. We have a scale that could be built into it, and invision that the customer could open up a chute and send thier laundry bag safely down into this room. This is for a small unattended laundry.

[KJD]

Drop off for what?

I assume wash,dry,fold.

But how are the customers going to pay you and get their laundry back?

[Anonymous]

W,D,F exactly. Commercial account dropoff and delivery too. $$, payment and procedures; that's been discussed before on other threads, not to worry. Laundry's that have automated -unattended dropoff sites- lets hear about 'em.

[mike]

I did happen to see a drop-off chute last week on the outside of a

laundry/drycleaner, but it was on the outside wall of the store.

It had a key to unlock it, so I guess every client has to have a key in advance.

I guess you can't leave it open to the world in this day and age of vandals :(

[srhaz]

I would think a lock is a must to prevent the next person from reaching in and getting a free wardrobe.
How about two or three chutes, seperated inside by a sheet of plywood, and each chute has a 'open lock' hanging on it. The customer inserts his laundry and takes the lock and locks it. You have keys, open it up, take the laundry and put the open lock back out for the next customer. Or go fancy like a big airport locker - insert a quarter and make more money :)

[William]

We have cabinets with locks on them assigned to customers. We check the cabinets daily for drop off. We do the laundry and put a bill in the cabinet with the laundry. The customer puts payment in the envelope and slides it under the door when they pick up their clothes. Never a vandalism problem (knock on wood) and only one time have we been stiffed.

[Anonymous]

I am thinking through the same concept. The chute could work, as long as the vertical drop is long enough so that laundry bags wouldn't back up.

My mat doesn't have a basement so I'm not sure how you can insure the chute provides enough capacity.

Where's the engineer in the group? or the person with enough common sense to figure this one out?

[Ken]

Drycleaning supplier sell night drop box,it is a large steel box build in the well.I saw them in a few clean show.It is good idea but I won't trust my customers not to put junk in the drop box.

[Ryano23_98]

we have a after hours drop-off
its about 2x2 feet for bags only they place it in then pull the door close sideways it drops the bag on the floor . we have a small pad of paper for there name and when they be back we are only attened 10am-2pm 4pm-9pm for drop-offs luandry open 24 hours

[Neil]

I have been considering this for some time and did a lot of research into ways of having an unattended drop off.

I looked into airport lockers but they were quite expensive. The benefit is that with the electronic ones, the customers can pay a flat fee for each locker (say $5) which would cover what the locker will hold.

My next idea was gym lockers. I would purchase a quantity of locks from Master Lock that are keyed differently but have one master key to open them all. The customer would drop off their laundry with a padlock I provide and pick it up that night and I would leave a bill. I found gym lockers to also be somewhat expensive.

I finally installed some inexpensive kitchen cabinets with padlock clasps. These hold a lot of laundry and were much cheaper to buy. The locks cost me just under $7 each (I bought 72) and if a customer wants a lock, they pay a $10 deposit. The lock has a unique number on it which is their account number. When the customer picks up their laundry, there is an envelope for payment that they drop into our lock box. If they do not pay for their laundry, the next time they bring in clothes, we secure the clothes in the office and wait for them to contact us before we wash them. The benefit is that they can drop off and pick up any time the laundromat is open and I do not need to keep an attendant there. Now I just need to get the customers interested in it!

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your comments. It looks like three common areas of apprehensiveness appear with regards to automated drop off...

1. The drop off itself. Concern about volume of the room not being big enough to handle all the bagged laundry. Perhaps an experienced attended laundry can help us here... How much volume, size not weight, do you generate per week? 100 cubic feet? Common sense should show in the design of the drop off. Child proof it: Keep the openening child latched so kids can't tamper with it, and high enough so someone reaching in won't find anything. Make sure the door doesn't slam shut. No parts that can pinch fingers. Opening should be large enough for the biggest bags. etc...

2. How to handle Customer Pickup.
A) Lockers: pros: novel idea, customers pick up on their own time. cons: expensive initially. What happens when you have more laundry then lockers?
B) Set regular pickup hours. pros: cheaper initially. Can grow (offer more pickup times) if business picks up cons: must hire someone or do it yourself.

3. How to handle Payment. The inherent problem is that unlike attended drop off, payment is made at pickup - after the clothes are washed. This makes collecting $ a bit tricky.
A) Automatic: either under the door or in the locker. Lots of trust involved.
B) Set regular scheduled hours: Hire an attendant to handle transaction at time of pickup.

Did I get it all?

[Anonymous]

Have customers estimate payment at time of drop-off and enclose money with dirty laundry. If they over estimate you can include the change with the clothing. If they underestimate it you can either collect the balance due next time, or only return some of the clothing until more money is left.

[Anonymous]

Here's the direction we are considering.

We will have an unlocked chute opening about 5 feet off the ground, which will give us 120 cubic feet of storage space. We have a contractor ready to build this thing.

First time customers fill out an application / instruction sheet. They ID their bags and drop it in. We set our initial schedule. Drop off by Monday (the last of the busy weekend days), pick it up Tuesday pm. We can grow this schedule as volume necessitates. We wash at night. Someone is there to facilitate pickup and $ transactions, maybe 5 hours a week. We set the schedule, the customers adapt.

To start off, we target our weekend customers via in store ad's. We may do this as a limited time "at cost" special - as opposed to per pound charges. We would bill them what they would otherwise feed into the machines. After they are hooked on convenience, we migrate to $1+ /lb. Our store is small-ish and overcrowding / waiting in line is a concern, especially during the weekend. By targeting our existing customers, we reduce the overcrowding without any loss, quickly establish our drop off service with sufficient volume, and in a longer view of things, the normal hour business would return as it was.

After the initial period, we would solicit commercial accounts, and later perhaps residential / commercial delivery. while remaining unattended.
Comments?

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by kirby
Have customers estimate payment at time of drop-off and enclose money with dirty laundry. If they over estimate you can include the change with the clothing. If they underestimate it you can either collect the balance due next time, or only return some of the clothing until more money is left.

I couldn't make a scale safe or secure in an unattended mat. Though with the "at cost" special I mention, It could be done easily, just have them write down what machines they think they would use. Of course, I would choose to wash it in the most effective way possible.

[Jim]

Originally posted by Highnthemnts
Someone is there to facilitate pickup and $ transactions, maybe 5 hours a week. We set the schedule, the customers adapt........................

After the initial period, we would solicit commercial accounts, and later perhaps residential / commercial delivery. while remaining unattended.
Comments?

Just a thought....if you plan on building this part of the business up, it sounds like maybe you should consider being attended or being the attendant (depending if you work another job or not).

1) No worries as far as the scale being in the open.
2) No concerns with accepting and returning laundry.
3) No concerns with receiving payment.

(I personnally am going in the opposite direction...I'm in the process of selling my last attended mat and just keeping the unattended mat)....

[Anonymous]

I would think twice about installing a drop chute that is 5 feet off the ground. While that will stop kids from climbing in (maybe) it will be impossible for many of you potential customers to lift the laundry bags that high to drop it in. I routinely get bags that weigh over 40# and many of these customers can bearly lift them out of their cars and there is no way they could lift them five feet.

As for advertising, if your area is anything like mine, few if any of your in-store customers will be WDF customers - it is typically and entirely different demographic. Thus, in-store advertizing is unlikely to get you much WDF business.

I typically tell people I have two businesses in the store: self-service for people that have more time than money, and WDF for those people that have more money than time.

[mike]

Someone has to be there to pick-up, do, and give out drop-offs.

Don't leave an unlocked chute, (even 5 feet off the ground)

Kids will stand on each others shoulders, also, any opening big enough to take a bag full of laundry is big enough for a potential thief, (or so they will think)

The big thing that has to be "managed" in drop-off is the storage.

You have to find a way to get people to pick up their laundry immediately after it's done (within 24 hours) you can't be storing weeks of laundry at a time, and having your attendants search through all that laundry every time there is a pick-up.

You need to have enough volume to be able to pay staff.

[Neil]

With my system, the laundry is secured. Theft could still be a problem but they would make a lot of noise getting to it.

As far as payroll, I go in at 10:00 AM and do all the laundry. I don't anticipate a lot so I suspect I should be able to complete it all in about 4 hours on a heavy day. My 18 lb washers take 36 minutes and my 35 lb. washers take just under 30. About 36 to dry and they are ready to be folded.

They have 24 hours to pick up (from the time they dropped off). If the same laundry is there the next day, it gets secured in my office for a later pickup (which they need to set up with me). They are all instructed that laundry left for 30 days is considered abandonned and goes to Good Will.

Not sure what the legal implications of that are but I am sure I will find out the first time it happens.

[Jim]

Originally posted by Neil
They are all instructed that laundry left for 30 days is considered abandonned and goes to Good Will.


Yikes...30 days seems way too long, I give my WDF 1 week, no longer...

[Neil]

What do you do with the clothes after a week?

Have you had any legal issues?

[Jim]

90% of our WDF is picked up the next day...

I honestly can not remember it ever going over a week...so the answer to your question is I don't know what I would do...probably just call them

[Neil]

OK, that clarifies it. I have never had someone go beyond 3 days and I do just that, I call them. The 30 days is just a policy I have set and I let my customers know.

I have had laundry left in a machine for 4 days, I have taken it into the office and I have donated that at the 30 day deadline. That was over a month agao and I still have not heard from that customer.

[MSKLAUNDRY.]

While I agree that 30 day is ample time to give to someone to pick up there clothes it does not give you the automatic right to disperse of there property regardless of your sign or posted policy. Under most states or local law you are required to take reasonable steps to notify the owner that the property is about to be discarded if it isn't picked up.
Most laundries do not but the fact is they are required to.

[Neil]

What would be reasonable attempts? In the case of WDF, I would have their phone number and address so I would call and then send a letter after 2 weeks.

In the only case that I did dispose of laundry, it was left in a machine so I had no way to contact them. Should I have put a flyer up for the customers to see? I did leave the laundry in the machine for 4 days. Then I left it in clear view in the office for a month.

I really don't want to do anything that could casue a legal problem.

[mike]

I believe I mentioned in an earlier thread,

the downside of disposing of laundry too quickly:

One of your "clients" just got out of prison, after doing 6 months, and he wants his F-----g laundry NOW ! (it happened to me !)

I would love to be a fly on the wall as Jim explains his "policy"

to the tardy client :-) (I'm just learning how to walk again)(not really)

They went to the hospital after a traffic accident,

they went on vacation for a month, forgetting about the laundry.
(she told him to pick it up, he forgot, she didn't know)

Just put it in the basement.

[Neil]

All very valid points but in Key West there is no such thing as a basement. Storage is at a premium here and I guess I could find space for a few loads in the room behind the stack dryers but for how long? At what point can I consider it abandonned and get rid of it?

(This happened 3 weeks ago so we are now at almost two months that the laundry was left here.)

I suppose it is possible that the owner came in on the 5th day, found the laundry not in the machine and just assumed it was stolen?

[Jim]

Mike......lol...just learning how to walk again..thats good...

Although I have heard it mentioned before that you can not just toss out someones cloths, I still would not hold on to them that long. I don't have the room or the time to worry about someone elses property....I'm not trying to just write them off at my customers expense but, don't they have to responsible for their own actions, I do.

Since when is it our responsibility as mat owners to watch someone elses property? If it is WDF then I would do everything possible to get ahold of my customer (phone or go to the home).

But if someone leaves their cloths in a washer or dryer how are we as mat owners responsible? How do we know they even left them behind... and if another customer decides they want them are we then responsible for replacing them? Is this considered the cost of doing business....not in my book. If their clothes are that important why would they leave them in a mat for days or weeks on end ?
As business owners (or let me speak for myself) as a business owner I have to draw the line somewhere. I do have a sign in my mats saying " NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CLOTHING THAT IS LEFT IN LAUNDROMAT".Does this protect me? probably not but it is their to inform my customers.

[Neil]

I have the same sign and I agree that when it comes right down to it, I am probably not protected.

[Anonymous]

Who has had their laundry chutes burglarized? If it happened to you, what kind of demographic are you in?