Has Anyone Done Away With Free Vacs?

[Grey 2003]

I've owned the wash for over two years now, and we are looking at increasing our revenue. Besides raising our prices, which I feel are high enough already, I have thought about doing away with our four aging JE Adams free vacuums and adding four new vacs with Mars bill acceptors and including one shampoo vac in the mix.

No one else in town has free vacuums and for what it's worth, there is no other conveyor wash in town at all, only a "hand" converyor wash that does not have free vacs either. So in a nutshell I am the only one giving away free vacuums with a wash.

I realize that I would lose some business at first, but with the abiltiy to have the vacuums on 24/7, well hopefully it would work. My vendors tell me yes, but what do you folks think.

BTW we wash about 50k cars a year. Wash prices are $7.50/ $10.50/$13.50
EE only.

PS: Two of our current vacuums are converted coin vacs. We have a sign out front that says free vacs with wash, and a sticker on the vacuums that says free. I still collect $10-20.00 a month and that's with a $0.50 old start sticker still on them.

 

[smokun]

Forget FREE... and move on to better business.

I suggest that you upgrade your vacuums to the most powerful you can find... and charge for their use. Promote the fact that you upgraded the vacuums to better serve your customers... and are simply passing on their cost to those who really appreciate a high quality vacuum. No need to keep the old ones... and your customers will recognize the benefit of having really good vacuums available when they need them. You probably will see an increase in their use, even with more sensible pricing. Instead of giving things away for free when there's no need, save the money for continuous upgrades that keep your business up-to-date.

 

[Grey 2003]

Thanks for your reply. I probably wasn't clear enough in my first post, but we are not keeping any of the old vacs at all. I am looking at the JE Adams turbos. Just a question though, does anyone know if the three motor turbos have less suction with just two motors running than our current two motor vacs. I would assume yes since suction would be lost through that non functioning motor.

 

[MEP001]

The vacs with the "turbo" mode and a third motor use a check valve to prevent loss of suction through the third motor when it's off, so the suction is the same as a normal vac in 2-motor use.

 

[Grey 2003]

The vacs with the "turbo" mode and a third motor use a check valve to prevent loss of suction through the third motor when it's off, so the suction is the same as a normal vac in 2-motor use.

Thanks so much.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Have you given any thought to how much $ the pay vacs will generate?

Let's say 20% of your wash customers use them at $1.00 a vend. That is an extra $5000 a year. Now, if your average ticket is $10.00 (just guessing) your annual sales are $500,000.00. So, this change has increased your revenue 1%.

If you lose 1% of your wash volume, you are at about break even.

 

[Grey 2003]

Have you given any thought to how much $ the pay vacs will generate?

Let's say 20% of your wash customers use them at $1.00 a vend. That is an extra $5000 a year. Now, if your average ticket is $10.00 (just guessing) your annual sales are $500,000.00. So, this change has increased your revenue 1%.

If you lose 1% of your wash volume, you are at about break even.

I appreciate your response. A couple of months ago, except for one place, they were all $2.00 start for 4 minutes. That one place chages $0.25 for maybe one minute, but their vacuums are really, really old.

One other point, is that we are open basically from 7:30 to 6:00 everyday, where as if we put in the pay vacuums, they would be 24/7. Our vacuums are on the street side of our property with a car count of 20k, so they would have great exposure, and we will light our new canopies.

 

[JMMUSTANG]

Why not charge $1.00 but double the vac time to 8 minutes instead of 4.
Promote it and I bet you'll not only get a lot of customers that use your wash to use the vacs but people that just want to use the vacs when your open and closed. Win Win.

 

[Chiefs]

Given your situation I would not worry about it. So the customer might be upset they aren't free anymore.Ok, they're upset. Now, with little comeptition to speak of where are they going to go?

One thing you ought to do though is to communicate with your customers for a month or two before you switch over to pay vacs. Twice a year I develop,print and have the attendants at the wash give each customer a 2 page newsletter. that tells them about what the upcoming season (spring/summer & fall/winter) means for their vehicle. We give them car care tips, inform them of specials, the importance of detailing, etc. Each customer also receives a moist, disposable towel to wipe their dash and door, as well as a customer imprinted litter bag (total cost 15 cents). Take the vacs away but give them some new perks to replace it.

Also think about implementing some new savings promotions ( 5 wash books, 30 day Club Cards, frequent washer cards). We are just starting an Earn-A-Wash program where customers register with us to open an account. We give them referral forms that thye put their name, address, phone and e-mail on. They hand these out to freinds, family, neighbor or co-workers. Those people receive $2.00 off their wash when they come for a wash with their referral form. We will then save those forms, add them to our rapidly expanding data base of over 3,500 customers and enter them onto the account of the customer who referred them to us. When we receive 5 of thier referrals, we will award them with a free wash.


To be continued.....

 

[Chiefs]

Its always cheaper to incentivize your existing customer base than it is to atttract new customers. As for attracting new customers, we are doing our own in-house welcome wagon if you will. We obtain in an Excel file the names, adresses, etc. of all new poeple moving into about 9 different zip codes in our market area. We then create an individual mailer and send them a free car wash certificate. Thus far our response rate is only 6.5%
but with the outside of our envelope now telling them That there is "Free Car Wash" enclosed, I can't see how the redemption rate does not go significantly higher like 25-25% or more. Between the cost of the mailer (70 cents) and our direct costs (utilities and chemicals) for that free wash $1.70 (with the towel and litter bag included), if I can turn that new customer into a regular customer, its well worth $2.40.

While some may say that giving it away is desperate, when you're only getting 1-2% say Val Pak coupons coming back, who has spent more on advertising with no assurance that they're reaching new customers or just giving a discount ot existing ones? Not only do we get new customers, we also add these to our date base. Knowing your customers, and maintaining contact with those customers is essential.

Free vacs is a gimmick. And while our vac and vending revenue represents just 2.2% of our gross, When you are a stand alone car wash vehicle cleaning is all you do. So why give it away. People don't wash with you because of free vacs and won't stop if you take it away. They may not like it, but they'll get over it.

Bill

 

[Earl Weiss]

Why not charge $1.00 but double the vac time to 8 minutes instead of 4.
Promote it and I bet you'll not only get a lot of customers that use your wash to use the vacs but people that just want to use the vacs when your open and closed. Win Win.

<<<

I would venture to say most people do not know how many minutes they get for their money at a vac, only that it is "Enought " to do the job.

Ours areset at 4-5 minutes depending on the Vac and most people have plenty of time to finish. I really doubt extra time or lower price are much of an incentive. Ypou are basicaly serving a captive audience . As long as the price is not way out of wack with the competition and they vac works well they will be happy.

 

[Earl Weiss]

>>One other point, is that we are open basically from 7:30 to 6:00 everyday, where as if we put in the pay vacuums, they would be 24/7. Our vacuums are on the street side of our property with a car count of 20k, so they would have great exposure, and we will light our new canopies.<<

We are open 7:00 am to 9:00 pm. Our vacs are easily visiblefrom the street and available 24 /7. Compared to wash customer traffic, vac use by street traffi is nominal. I would sau less than 10% of vac volume is from non wash customers.

 

[MEP001]

You could certainly keep the vacs free for your customers by giving them tokens upon purchase of a wash, and at the same time reap some income from others who will stop by just to use them.

 

[PaulLovesJamie]

I'd upgrade 2 vacs with fancy turbo/carpet/scent vacs. Charge a low price, maybe $1, with relatively low time. Give "free vac tokens" to wash customers. Offer more time on the old vacs, but you either need a token or a dollar to start them up. Gather stats on usage over the next 6 months, then make a final decision.

 

[chadrpalmer]

seems to me as if ill be in the vast minority of posters here, but there is no way id give up our free vacs. our situation is not the same as yours, we have plenty of competition....two full-service and several express exteriors within five miles...people DO come here over others for the free vacs, many do not like the shoddy job the full-serve vacs do, and are glad to have the opportunity to do it themselves. "if you want it done right you have to do it yourself" is the quote i hear from many. furthermore, on a rainy day, we still wash a few cars "just because they need to use the vacuums." everyones situation is unique, but id never give up the free vacs. that being said, we all know they are not "free" in the purest sense, as when they give me seven, ten, twelve, or fifteen dollars, some of that goes to maintain the vacuums. happy easter all, christ has died for our sins, and rose again, thank you god for sending your son to deliver us.

 

[JMMUSTANG]

<<<

I would venture to say most people do not know how many minutes they get for their money at a vac, only that it is "Enought " to do the job.

Ours areset at 4-5 minutes depending on the Vac and most people have plenty of time to finish. I really doubt extra time or lower price are much of an incentive. Ypou are basicaly serving a captive audience . As long as the price is not way out of wack with the competition and they vac works well they will be happy.

Earl I agree with you that most people don't have a clue to how much time they get.
But I have to tell you that I own two washes about 2 miles apart and at one I offer bonus time on the vacs. I have many customers that by pass one wash to get to the vacs with bonus time. $5 for 30 minutes-vac,carp.sham.. Most of them are women with vans or suvs.

 

[pitzerwm]

IMO, I think that posting the time on the vac is very important, you assure the customer that they are getting value for their $.

 

[Mr. Clean]

Get multiple coin acceptors on the new vacs and order some unique tokens that can be given out as promos and a way of thanking your best customers for their loyalty. They also work well as refunds.

We've avoided the Free thing, except as outlined. So far, so good.

Mr. Clean

 

[Danny]

"Given your situation I would not worry about it. So the customer might be upset they aren't free anymore.Ok, they're upset. Now, with little comeptition to speak of where are they going to go?"

This reminds of something an old timer told me when i started in this industry and has always stuck with me..."you never lose a customer, you only lose your turn". Meaning a customer gets mad at you and goes to your competition, later they get mad at him for something and go somewhere else and sooner or later they come back to your wash.

 

[Dubois Laundry/Carwash]

"if you want it done right you have to do it yourself" is the quote i hear from many

"you get what you pay for" is the quote that comes to mind when I hear "free" anything