Linen management:

as unpredictable as…

When you work in a hotel or restaurant, you always want to be prepared for anything. A good preparation ensures the best stay for your guests, after all. At Blycolin, we think this preparation is important too. Especially on special moments, such as the holidays. Is every customer notified of changed delivery times around the holidays? Does everyone have enough linen? Everything was under control, we were ready that one particular Ascension Day. Bring on that beautiful, public holiday!

The temperature was increasing, and so was the stress

It would be the first real sunny weekend of that year. But all hotels rooms and even beach deck chairs being occupied, no one would have thought. Not very surprising, that our rather worried customers called our customer service due to this tropcal surprise. Could they manage with the delivery days? Would the laundry be back in time? Could they order extra table linen, napkins and bath linen? No one wants to go short when everyone ventures out.

Stepping up for a carefree holiday

Our customer service employees must have had about 175 phone calls each day to answer every questions and to confer with all the washing locations. On Wednesday night, the day before Ascension Day, all questions were answered and all doubts removed. We employed additional transport to bring even more linen to our customers. The laundries also put in the extra effort by washing more, so linen could be delivered on Friday and Saturday after Ascension Day. We were ready for the weekend.

Finding solutions in the heat of the moment

That you can’t prepare for everything, appears when Hotel Carlton Beach calls on Friday. Because of all the activity, they require 1,300 extra bath towels, so we send a special delivery to arrive on Saturday. On Monday, they call us again for extra bath linen: they are running out of towels fast! The best solution is to have a partner laundry send a shipment to Scheveningen. Again, the Carlton is helped out of a tight spot.

The beach towels at the Carlton Beach Hotel couldn’t be delivered fast enough during Ascension Day

You can’t predict everything. Bu you can anticipate it.

So there you go: no matter how well we are prepared, we can’t control everything. The weather for instance, we can only react to it. Just as the guests do, by showering more for instance. Or just as our customers do, by putting extra beds in the rooms, for example, because guests show up with more people than expected. That requires extra linen and we at Blycolin try to anticipate to these situations as well as possible. We search for a solution for every problem, no matter what that problem is. Oftentimes, that solution can be found in a good cooperation with the laundries and our customer. By all paying attention to the linen together, also when the pressure is high, satisfied guests will be the end result.

Ready for the next weekend: what will the reservations be like?

While we are still busy finishing up after Ascension Day, the next weekend is already on our minds. The weather forecast is slightly less promising, but we notice that considerable amounts of bed linen and table linen for the terraces are required. And maybe the beach towels will have to be moved to the wellness centers, as the temperatures there are always high!