Smart Card Technology in the Commercial Laundry Business

Smart card technology for self service laundry programs operated at rental properties, condominiums, multi-housing properties, hotels, or other businesses  is a convenient, flexible system of payment whereby the consumer uses a plastic card – much like a credit card or debit card – rather than traditional coins. Depending on the type of system installed, payment can be made  by cash, debit/credit card, or over the internet.  

The smart card is embedded with a microprocessor chip that stores and processes a dollar value that is reduced as the card is used, and may be increased with dollar bills, credit cards, debit cards and other methods. The smart card’s computer chip holds more information than traditional magnetic stripe cards and is more dependable, since it withstands wear and tear better than magnetic stripe technology. The microprocessor also makes it easy to add information and program different applications whenever necessary.

Customers like the convenience of the smart card’s coinless technology, and property managers and owners like its influence on client satisfaction and retention, which is their primary mission. For property managers and owners, smart cards make money collection and bookkeeping easier, since bills are gathered from one location as opposed to coins being collected from each machine. Smart card systems provide a better audit trail to the finance office. To fully benefit from the cashless payment system, owners and managers need to understand the principles of vending management. For example, smaller, more frequent price increases are much easier to institute on a card system, rather than jumping the price up a quarter or more at a time.

Commercial Laundries’ new CleanPay kiosk system provides a host of flexible solutions for every laundry operation. CleanPay is designed to provide a convenient, reusable payment solution for users. The kiosks provide a rechargeable, contactless (RFID) card that is credited by the kiosk and then read by the laundry machine’s contactless control unit (LMC).

CleanPay offers customers the flexibility of using cash, credit, debit and Value Code payments [system-generated numbers that, when inputted at the kiosk, will generate laundry credits for the user.] And it provides operators with all of the reporting functionality necessary to properly manage these locations.

To learn more about smart card technology and the CleanPay system, call 305-592-7990.