Pool Linen vs Dedicated Linen
Pool Linen Service
Majority of hospitality laundries provide a pool linen service, this means the hotel is sharing the linen with other hotels. If the laundry is closely monitoring the usage, stock levels, reject levels, misused items etc then this does not cause any major issues.
The reality is most laundries are not able to monitor these metrics at a hotel level, it is time consuming and costly. As a result of lack of monitoring the following can happen:
- Over stocked linen at one hotel location can result in shortages within the laundry. Many a time we hear how laundries struggle to supply hotels during the summer peak periods, these struggles are due to hotels over ordering due to past bad experiences.
- Misused items from one persistent hotel goes unnoticed and without a doubt will impact the quality of linen other hotels receive.
Both of the points above are clear disadvantages to a pool linen service.
Dedicated Linen Service
A number of independent laundries provide a dedicated linen service. This general involves the laundry purchasing new linen for the hotel on a linen hire and laundry basis. The linen is dedicated and therefore exclusively used by the hotel only.
The stock is rotated between the hotel and the laundry. The requirement of placing orders no longer exists and as a result removes the risk of orders being forgotten and no deliveries being received. The process removes the risk of the laundry running out of items as the dedicated linen will always be in circulation.
If the hotel fails to look after the linen, maybe linen bags are dragged on external floors, maybe towels are used to clean toilets etc then due to it being a dedicated linen service the linen does not impact other customers. The laundry will notice the quantity of linen rejected in the laundry at customer level and depending on the reasoning discussion can happen with the hotel.
Bluebird provides a dedicated linen service! No Ifs, No Buts.
– Some laundries provide a dedicated linen service, but six months down the line, the linen is automatically changed to pool stock hoping the customer does not notice.
– Some laundries provide a dedicated linen service but rejected items are swapped for off the shelf items, thus not truly dedicated.
– Some laundries provide pool stock only
At Bluebird when we say dedicated, we really do mean dedicated. All the linen we supply to your business is discreetly labelled with your unique id and therefore ensuring your exclusive use only.
