For anyone in or getting into the car wash business, congratulations. It’s a great business for those who are committed to satisfying customers, and it’s never been more true than today.
That was the message from a panel of industry veterans at the recent Car Wash Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center who shared insights on keys for success. The session, moderated by Bob Dubinsky, president of Waterway Car Wash, was titled, “Keys for success, today and tomorrow.”.
The panelists agreed that today’s car wash technology allows operators to deliver a high level of customer satisfaction providing they are committed to delivering high quality service. During the session, the panelists honed in on the key elements of this commitment.
Element 1: employees
Element number one: nurturing your employees.
“I’m totally convinced that the way to success is starting with your employees,” said panelist Richard Enning, CEO of Mr. Wash Autoservice AG. “You have to treat your employees with the same criteria that you consider about your customers.”
“People are at the top of the list,” agreed panelist Bill Martin, founder of Metro Express Car Wash. “It’s the people that work for us, the people that serve. We want to give the customer a great experience. If we take care of our people, they’ll take care of the problems.”
To strengthen employee commitment, the panelists agreed a company must foster a positive company culture that offers a career path.
Panelist Austin Esecson, CEO and co-founder of Rinsed, a provider of customer relations management software for car washes, said his operator customers in general excel in this area. “They’re not just giving jobs, but careers for people throughout their company, and that’s just so evidently clear in their numbers,” he said.
The 4 Ps
In addition to people, Martin cited three other Ps for success: processes, products and places (locations). Regarding processes, Martin said it is important to have the same processes in place in all the car wash company’s locations.
“We want the process to be the same at every location,” Martin said. “That’s the challenge. It’s something we work on constantly. We want to get them (the customers) back on the street as quickly as possible. As far as I’m concerned, you can’t do it fast enough, as long as you have provided a great product and a great experience.”
The panel agreed that cleaning chemistry, equipment technology and data technology have all improved over the years to allow car washes to provide a high level of customer satisfaction.
Customers are now making the car wash decision for longer time periods, as long as two years, Enning said. “And this decision is not mainly made by the price. If you do it in a correct way, you see the numbers growing very fast.”
Continual reinvention
Esecson said it is encouraging to see that many car wash operators continue to reinvent their business by offering new products and utilizing new technology. He described it as an industry of inventors, innovators, entrepreneurs and tinkerers.
“Building for an industry that’s full of inventors and people who really care about the new and being better is just super exciting to us,” Esecson said. His own company focuses on learning from its operator customers how its software is used on a daily basis.
“Part of that is we invite our entire team to the show every year,” he said.
Competition makes you better
While everyone knows that competition has increased over time, the panelists viewed this as a positive development.
“When you see what somebody else is doing, it causes you to raise the bar,” Martin said.
“If you want to be the best, you have to be the best,” Enning agreed.
Top KPIs
As for the most important KPIs, the panelists expressed different ideas.
Martin said his company focuses on customer conversions to service subscriptions. A car wash should have at least 10,000 subscription members if they are operating from a good location.
Esecson said the top KPI is conversion rate by sales person. “At the end of the day the change happens by the individual and you have that one opportunity to make the sale with the customer.”
Enning said the number of conveyor stops per 100 cars is the top KPI. Preventing equipment failure is a major concern since it creates a bad customer experience.
He further noted that input related concerns in a car wash are more important than output concerns. Input related issues include the investment made in the business.
Given the changes in equipment technology, Enning said equipment purchasing decisions are one of the most important inputs. He cited considerable change in tunnel control equipment.
Vacs: free or not free?
The panelists disagreed on whether or not they should provide free vacuums. Marin said paid vacuums are one of the industry’s biggest opportunities, one that could significantly change the economics of the business.
Enning disagreed, saying customers appreciate free vacuums a lot.
Esecson agreed with Enning, noting that the vacuum area is the most active customer experience, and differentiating this experience can create more brand loyalty. “I think we’re seeing people having great benefit by having more value in the vacuum area.”
What’s ahead?
Asked what innovations they are looking to see in the future, Esecson said AI will have a major impact, such as being able to tailor individual customer experiences.
“It’s going to give everybody here a ton of leverage to ensure excellence throughout their organization,” he said.
In addition, subscription memberships will include more services than cleaning the interior and the exterior, such as annual subscriptions for all of their car care maintenance. Such memberships can also include privileges in the community.
Martin concurred, adding that it will be important to sell memberships in different ways, such as pre-sold washes.
Looking 15 to 20 years into the future, Enning said self-driving cars could change the business, which would make location less important.
One thing the panelists were unanimous about is that the industry has a bright future.
“The general public really didn’t trust what we did, part of which is because it was hard for us to get a consistently good product,” he said when thinking back 30 years ago. “Today the chemistry, the equipment and the technology is so much better.”
“Our business and our industry have a bright future,” Martin agreed.
Article by Elliot Maras, Content Writer
