Success Stories
Connecticut CollegeCLIENT OVERVIEW
Connecticut College was founded in 1911 in the belief that all students – men and women – deserve an opportunity to secure an education. As a private liberal arts institution located in New Londong, Connecticut, the collage provides housing to over 1,800 undergraduate students in 23 residence halls.
PROJECT QUICK FACTS
Eliminated pay-per-use laundry system
Technology upgrade
LaundryConnect™ – real time laundry monitoring system implementation
Results
60% reduction service calls
Eliminated future hardware expense and recurring transaction fees
Focus campus IT resources on other projects
CONNECTICUT COLLEGE PROVIDES FREE LAUNDRY TO IMPROVE THE OVERALL STUDENT EXPERIENCE
Challenge
Connecticut College became one of several schools in New England to recently abandon their expensive, hardware-heavy online payment system and provide free laundry to students living on campus. Now students no longer need a student ID or quarters to pay for laundry. Automatic Laundry, Connecticut College’s laundry service partner, was able to implement its exclusive LaundryConnect™ monitoring and maintenance technology which provides remote service and continued improvements across the 69 laundry rooms in 23 residence halls on campus. The internet-enabled machines immediately alert Automatic Laundry’s service team of potential problems before they arise. In most cases, the issue has been identified and rectified before students are even aware there was ever a problem. Students also now have access to a residence-specific web monitoring page which displays real-time availability of the washers and dryers in each laundry room. Students can choose to be e-mailed or texted when machines are available, allowing them to plan when to do laundry – the ultimate time-saving tool for busy students.
“Automatic Laundry has always been a terrific service partner. The recent payment system removal and technology upgrade was completed ahead of schedule. The silence from our student body speaks volumes on both fronts.”
– MERRILL COLLINS, Director of Auxiliary Operation
ONLINE PAYMENT SYSTEM FAILURES AND HIGH STUDENT DISSATISFACTION DROVE CHANGE
At the start of the 2018–19 school year, Connecticut College students became frustrated by the malfunctioning online payment system associated with the laundry machines. They were also unhappy with an unannounced planned price increase. Administrators met with Automatic Laundry on both matters and soon discovered that over 50% of the service calls being reported were directly related to the online campus payment system.
AUTOMATIC LAUNDRY PROPOSES TWO-PRONGED SOLUTION
By eliminating the pay-per-use system for laundry across campus, students would no longer need to budget money on their campus card or use quarters to do laundry. Additionally, Automatic Laundry could utilize the existing infrastructure in each laundry room to implement its LaundryConnect™ monitoring and maintenance technology. Students would no longer need report machines out of service – the machines would self-report issues with many being resolved remotely.
IMPLEMENTATION AND RESULTS
Connecticut College staff disabled and removed their online campus payment system across 69 laundry rooms while working in conjunction with Automatic Laundry’s field technology team to install and enable LaundryConnect™ in 164 washers and dryers. The overall response from students has been extremely positive. In addition, the number of service calls to date are down almost 60%.
Merrill Collins, Director of Auxiliary Operations at Connecticut College, said “Automatic Laundry has always been a terrific service partner. The recent payment system removal and technology upgrade was completed ahead of schedule. The silence from our student body speaks volumes on both fronts.”