Bradley is hoping to wash away laundry service issues through a new marketing campaign and additional service and technical procedures.
Senior and Vice President for Campus Affairs Emily Corona said improving Bradley laundry services has been a goal of hers for more than a year. With the number of student complaints regarding laundry, Corona and Interim VP of Student Affairs Nathan Thomas decided over the summer to strive to improve laundry services during the 2013 – 2014 academic year.
“I think it is fair to say that there are three sources for issues as they arise within the laundry areas — machine problems, user error and technical issues,” Thomas said.
In hopes of decreasing user issues, such as overstuffing the washer and overusing soap, Corona said Student Senate plans to launch a laundry marketing campaign beginning in January 2014. The campaign will focus on how to properly use the washers and dryers and how to report machine issues.
The campaign will also encourage students to utilize the Mac-Gray LaundryView app, m.laundryview.com. The app lists all of the residence halls and laundry machine locations. By clicking on the respective laundry machine location, students can see whether the laundry machines are available and can report machine problems directly to Mac-Gray.
Corona said technical and machine problems will hopefully decrease with some new administrative procedures as well, such as a monthly complete audit of the laundry machines. This was done in November 2013 but has not been practiced with such regularity or frequency in the past. Complete audits include checking the physical machine, the wiring and the network connectivity.
The lifespan of the Mac-Gray laundry machines is 10 to 15 years, but some have already needed to be replaced in Harper and University Halls, even though they were placed in 2010. Thomas and Corona said they hope that focusing on service issues will lead to machines lasting their appropriate lifespan as well.
“We recently met with Mac-Gray and are committed to working on all three of the areas … at the core [of resolving laundry issues] is communication,” Thomas said.
