Laundry Room Technology: Mobile Payment App Integration at University of Rhode Island

BOSTON, Dec. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Automatic Laundry, a leading laundry service provider to the college and university market in the Northeast, has recently integrated its proprietary LaundryConnect™ Pay app, a closed-loop mobile payment system, with the University of Rhode Island's legacy online campus card system.

Students can now choose to continue using their student ID to pay for laundry or download the mobile app, register with a debit or credit card, and start the laundry equipment using their smartphone.

Automatic Laundry has partnered with URI for over 20 years and both parties recently agreed to extend their relationship. URI reviewed multiple options for laundry payments systems including a complete upgrade of their legacy online system which was cost-prohibitive. Automatic Laundry was able to integrate their mobile app with the existing online system eliminating the need for a costly system upgrade.

Since the implementation of the mobile payment platform campus-wide this past July and August, approximately 4,600 students have already downloaded the mobile laundry app.

For the first three months of the semester, 97% of laundry revenue has been derived from the mobile payment app. "Given the importance of smartphones to our student customers, it only makes sense to align points of sale on campus with the way they manage their daily lives", said Scott Scarpato, Automatic Laundry's President, and CEO.

Upgraded Commercial Laundry Equipment

In addition to upgrading the laundry equipment across the campus, Automatic Laundry also implemented its proprietary LaundryConnect™ which links the commercial washers and dryers installed across campus to the internet. From the mobile app, students now have access to a laundry monitoring web page that shows the availability of laundry machines in real-time. Students can also report service directly from the mobile laundry app.

With LaundryConnect™, real-time service alerts are sent from the washers and dryers directly to Automatic Laundry's support team. Since implementation, Automatic Laundry has remotely repaired 78% of equipment breakdowns before students and staff become aware of the issue. "As a leading service provider, we have been aggressively moving from reactive service model to proactive service experience for our clients and their customers", said Scarpato.

Automatic Laundry, a preferred service provider for more than 50 years, manages and services community and student laundry facilities. For more information, please visit https://www.automaticlaundry.com or call 617-969-4340, ext. 137.

SOURCE Automatic Laundry