Linen Service

[Inn-Nerd]

When we bought our B&B, we inherited a contract for linen servicing, since our B&B is sorely lacking in "back of house" space and thus has no room for on-site laundry. I'm not very fond of the linens we are provided currently, so I put things out for RFP from some other linen services.
If you've been through this before and have some advice about potential "gottcha" moments with linen services, I'd be appreciative of sharing!
I do like that at least one of the vendors brought me multiple full sets of samples to "try out" for a week or two to see how we like them.

 

[Jcam]

make sure whoever you use you make sure to count what comes in, goes out and what you are billed for and make sure they know it - don't have to do it every time but make sure you keep an eye. ie packet of towels says 5 as standard but actually have 4 in.
We ditched the laundry that came with when we caught them charging twice as much to us as a neighbour - PO's were all like we are such good customers its such a shock - wasn't to me 11 bedrooms to them is small potatoes.

 

[JimBoone]

With present and prospective service make sure you understand what the charges are based upon.
We had a linen service when we took over, I was told we were to be charged for clean linen as we received it, but in fact when we terminated after a few months the actual charge was for all the linen that was returned, had we started and finished it might have been different, but I felt I was paying for linen that was left dirty by the prior owner.
Also ask about turn around time, sheets didn't take too long, spreads/blankets took for ever to get returned.
We found it much less expensive to purchase and clean our own linen and better quality as well.

 

[user 26]

I'm sorry, no experience with a linen service.
I used a laundry service - we owned our own linens. There is no way our septic system could handle all the wash. If you go that route, mark ALL the linen and do a count each time you send out and get a return. It takes a while but better than questioning if you got something back.