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I know a guy who advertises the bonus as "unlimited time" after spending $5. Once 20 credits are reached, the time per pulse is doubled. He claims it brings in lots of customers, but he has to explain it a lot. To deter abuse he added a loop sensor in the floor to cancel the time if the vehicle moves.
I think it encourages people to put more $ in initially. I will take a phot of my signs that advertise it.
Bonus time is more about rewarding the bigger spenders. On its own, it doesn't result in more income, if anything it directly results in less, but it builds customer loyalty, and the word-of-mouth advertisement will bring you new customers. Also, do you want the customers who deposit the minimum, then dry-brush or hand wash for ten minutes, then deposit the minimum to rinse, or do you want the timer running?
That's just one opinion. I know that rewarding customers is good for your business. I don't offer any sort of bonus, but I routinely walk through the bays and just drop a buck in for people, especially if I'm in the room and hear someone cycling through all the functions trying to get the foam brush on. I'm thinking seriously about selling dollar value tokens from one side of the changer and giving bonus tokens for larger bills. My customers won't understand anything more complicated than that - they won't read anything.
I called AECO and they said the coin pulses can't be changed beyond switching between one and four per dollar. The simplest way I can see to do what you want would be to not accept $1 bills, which I assume is not an option. I played around with my programmable relay software trying to figure out a way to capture the pulses and send them back out with a bonus payout - I haven't worked it out yet, but if the idea might work for you I'll keep trying. The relays are pretty cheap ($130 IIRC), and one could do up to four bays.
One of the few times we disagree. I think it encourages a bigger spend. My start time is at $2.50 nd $3.00 (Superbay) and Bonus at $5 My signs say "FREE TIME" XXX MINUTES FREE with $5.00 (different for the $2.50 or $3.00 start) so I think it encourages people to put in the extra $. I have had several customers ask about it.
PITA to get, sort, or locks you into dollar increment pricing.
Doesn't necessarily lock you into dollar increments. When I switched to dollar coins, my price was $1.50. I converted my dual Hamilton changer to dispense four quarters with any bill.
