Offering value add services on top of my top wash? Advice

[dukeofsuds]

I'm in a rural town with a 3 SS bay/1 touchless IBA. I bought a barely functioning wash a year ago, and have built it up. We've been open a year, and the results have been quite good. Now looking at finer details. My nearest competitor offers a brush-based hand wash with an old IBA doing the rinse. It's not very good. I now have the nicest wash in town, with automated pay station, better chems, light show, better everything -- and I'm more expensive on like for like basis to account for that. Ironically, but this cheaper competitor offers a $10 upgrade on their top wash to do things like:

Tire shine
Interior vac
dash wipe
Window clean
door sill wipe

This competitor is still as busy as I am. I'm sure some of it is their lower wash prices, but my recon says it's this package. In fact, I found out from a few customers they come for my wash and then go down there and get them to do the $10 upgrade part. Argh.

That latest observation started making me wonder if I should go there with a similar service. I'm unattended, and obviously he has labor already. But I am inclined to run an experiment and see if this work. Before I do, I thought I'd ask some of you experienced guys for your sage advice.

• Has anyone tried this kind of added services. Would you say it worked well, or regretted it? If so, why?
• The money on the table here is NOT in the $10 upgrade due to labor costs, but more from additional washes. Did that happen if you tried something like this?
• There's obviously a labor component here -- how to compensate workers to get the right balance from: customers feeling "hammered to buy" vs. hourly paid employees vs. quality results. I assume there's some hybrid model, just wondering if someone found a good one already.
• Any technical advice - this isn't detailing, complicated stuff they are doing down the street but I presume there's some tricks to help productivity that some could know already.

Thanks for any info!

 

[JGinther]

This competitor is still as busy as I am.

Have you ever wondered if he drives by your place and wonders how you do it without all the labor and extra nonsense? Wondering... What attracted you to this business anyway... The no labor part?

Another part to keep in mind... Once you start any of that, you can't stop! Yes, people may like it, but its your business.... Not theirs.

 

[dukeofsuds]

Thanks JGinther.

Funny, I imagine he does drive by and wish that he had more capital to have machines do the work. I imagine the owner there makes far less money than me except he is actually washing cars (i.e. working as an employee there, too). As for my motivation to get into the car wash business, it was a good business opportunity. And I quickly realized the industry is a good one. I'm in the middle of transitioning from being a corporate marketing and finance exec/employee for 25 years at IBM and other companies to being an entrepreneur -- pricing/marketing consulting and car wash owner and whatever else that's fun to me. I'm actually building a second EE now in a bigger town, and who knows after that. So, I'm not afraid of labor, but it has been surprising to me that I didn't take as much market share from him as I expected. Instead, I likely increased the number of car washes going on in the market. And I still have capacity. And surely, I underestimated this guy's upsell package.

To your point, it's more work for me to offer this package. And I'm trying to balance the "hassles" of the work with the additional gross margin dollars. I guess I just don't like to leave money on the table. If it works great; but if it is that much of a headache I never wished for, then I hope someone here tells me.

Do you have this model, JGinther?

 

[soapy]

We offer a few upgraded services at my washes without having to do the additional labor. IN front of our automatics we offer a free prescrub bucket that let customers self apply tire and wheel cleaner and windshield cleaner using a small wheel wizard brush. We also offer a free vacuum/ tire shine token with every automatic wash. I made my own tire shine units retrofitting old vacuums. Since we began we have offered free cotton drying towels for customers so they can do the final detailing services after the automatic wash.

 

[JGinther]

I haven't tried all of those on a self service/ automatic car wash... But tried one simple one as a test market like you mentioned. We added a 4th wash package called ultimate w/hand drying. Goal was to add 2 dollars upsell and for that to justify paying the attendant to be there all day. We added a switch to the auto cashier to make that option only available when the attendant was on duty, and made a sign saying tips only allowed if purchasing that wash package so as not to scare off regular automatic customers. People absolutely loved it. It made a little more money in revenue, but costs went up also... Biggest problem was I ran into a help issue where now I was having to schedule people, hire more, and all together become a general manager. Decided to nix it and never looked back. Many customers called and asked about it afterward. None said they wouldn't be back. If I were geared to be an employer / people manager it may be a better fit, but that is just not my thing. And that goes for most car wash owners out there I think... One of the only good things the car wash business has going for it is the indirect labor component. Making direct labor sticks that right in the pit with the mud. However, if it's something you already employ, it will probably be well received by the customers...