The University of Rhode island has turned to Automatic Laundry, a laundry service provider to the colleges and universities in the Northeast, to integrate the company's proprietary LaundryConnect Pay app. LaundryConnect is a closed-loop mobile payment system, which will now tie into the University of Rhode Island's existing campus card system.

Rhode Island students can still elect to continue using their student ID card to pay for laundry, but now have the option to download the mobile app to complete payment. When paying via the LaundryConnect app, students first register with a debit or credit card and then start the laundry machine using their smartphone.

In addition to upgrading the laundry equipment across the campus, Automatic Laundry also outfitted its LaundryConnect system to link commercial washers and dryers installed across URI's campus to the internet. From the mobile app, students can now access a laundry monitoring web page that shows the availability of laundry machines in real-time. Students can also report service needs directly from the mobile app.

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 its 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 over the summer, over 4,600 students have downloaded the mobile laundry app.

For the first three months of this past fall semester, 97% of laundry revenue had 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," says Scott Scarpato, Automatic Laundry's President, and CEO.

With LaundryConnect, real-time service alerts are sent from the washers and dryers directly to Automatic Laundry's support team. Since implementation at URI, 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," says Scarpato.