Adding full service to triple IBA location ??

[robblackburn]

Looking for your comments/advice on adding full service to a IBA location. I have a successful 3 BIA location located in a very high income area of town. My wash prices range from $8 to $13 with two touchless automatics and one friction or combination machine. There is a hand car wash and detailing business that is located about one mile down the road from me. The owner of the hand car wash business is wanting to close his location and move his services to my lot. I do have a better location. His biggest problem is the time that it takes to process a car because of the time involved in the hand wash. The customer wait time is around one hour. He will typically wash about 30 car a day in his current format and he usually has about 12 employees on site. He could obviously process many more cars if the just had to touch up the car after running thru the automatic. We would essentially offer two packages. The first would be $18 and the customer would remain in the car - the wheels would be perfect, tire shine applied and car wiped down after exiting the dryer and clean up any spots the auto missed. The second wash would be $30 and this would be your typical full serve with complete outside done in addition to vac,windows,dashboard, and air freshener. This full service would be offered 6 days week. If customer did not want one of the above washes then they could purchase one of my other washes just as they always would. I am concerned with the perception of full service and if it would hurt my business on the hours that the full service is not available. It is interesting because it would substantially raise my average car ticket and that is exciting. Comments ??

 

[Buzzie8]

I think it would be risky at best. While the offering sounds great, I think you would suffer from an identity crisis. The full service customer is different from the IBA customer and the SS customer, and the detail customer, etc.. When potential customer's drive by your new "concept" it would be difficult for them to disseminate between your offering and the next IBA down the street who offers a pretty good $10 wash. With that said, stranger things have happened in the old ball yard. Maybe you could hit a homerun, but I would bet on a strike out. Lastly, I am assuming you would have a new partner in the business. Partnerships are good if one of the partners is dead. Just my two cents.

 

[robblackburn]

good point with the identity crisis - that is something that I would have to be very careful of. There would be sings saying that full services provided by "the name of his company". No - he would not be a partner - just essentially renting him space on my property in exchange for rent and a commission on his services.

 

[Whale of a Wash]

I was just at the cloister carwash in pa, 3 weeks ago, they have a building for pet wash, a building for self serve and motorcycle wash, a separate tunnel building and a separate building for interior cleaning and about 6 lube bays. While i suppose it's possible to lose your identity, they have the identity of the ability to wash everything. This was the place featured on modern marvels.
I was lucky enough that day to meet Mike mountz, and got a tour of the wash.
It was an awesome place. If you are seriously thinking about the tunnel, I would drive to Sinking Spring,Pa to check out his place. Not sure I like the partner bit either, probably better to let him close.

 

[Waxman]

Another option is to open a detail shop at your wash.

I have a 2SS 1 IBA wash and a f.s. detail center. We do hand washing but not too much of it, as I would rather run a typical SS/IBA. Less labor. I run the detail shop with me, 1 other full time employee and 3 part time employees.

Why not just offer detailing to your current business model. Forget partners. Bad business structure, bad idea. Been there; cost me alot of $ I wish I had today!

 

[Ric]

I was just at the cloister carwash in pa, 3 weeks ago, they have a building for pet wash, a building for self serve and motorcycle wash, a separate tunnel building and a separate building for interior cleaning and about 6 lube bays. While i suppose it's possible to lose your identity, they have the identity of the ability to wash everything. This was the place featured on modern marvels.
I was lucky enough that day to meet Mike mountz, and got a tour of the wash.
It was an awesome place. If you are seriously thinking about the tunnel, I would drive to Sinking Spring,Pa to check out his place. Not sure I like the partner bit either, probably better to let him close.

Isn't that place awesome I also met Mike there in October.

 

[robert roman]

There are several things that you should consider before moving forward.

1) Full-service customers will want amenities, they expect them. This means you will need to have a nice clean, comfortable area for them to wait, possibly up to 20 minutes. You will also need to have nice, clean bathrooms. You will also need something for them to do while they wait like TV, coffee, snacks, etc.

2) Since you have some production capacity with 3 in-bays, say perhaps, 30 to 36 cars an hour, you might be able to capture 50% or more of the in-bay sales volume as full-service customers. Do you have enough property to accommodate the flow, vehicle stacking and parking space for 15 or more cars per hour?

3) In order to efficiently process a full-service wash at the finishing line, you need a wash bay capable of producing a very clean and dry vehicle, including rims and tires. So, you may need to hand prep each full-service customer before sending them through an in-bay.

4) How will the presence of full-service affect people's access to wand-bays, vacuums and shampoo?

 

[smokun]

Small Flex-Serve Makes Sense

Why not offer hands-on after-care services to those customers who seek more than an exterior-only wash... and avoid the confusion of the terminology of "full-service". Bob is right when he cautioned that full-service customers have preconditioned expectations.

Offering customers a choice of various services, and calling your operation a TOTAL-SERVICE Wash offers the marketplace the diversity of exterior-only, deluxe-exterior (hand-finishing), and numerous choices of hands-on detailing (weather permitting). Offer self-serve vacuuming or after-care vacuum services done by detail staff. The flexibility can be tailored to your marketplace demand, and easily adapted to changes for special week-end and holiday services. Flex-Serve provides the adaptability and the flexible format. No more than 2 cross-trained detailers needed; more as business demand grows, and only at select times. YOU can offer more than full-service... while avoiding the huge overhead... with a staff of TWO!

Waxman had it right; enjoy both worlds.