Biggest Pet Peeves --- and solutions

[Debra Gorgos]

What are your biggest pet peeves as a self serve car wash owner? And, if anyone has a solution or suggestion for another person's pet peeve, please post it here. I think this will make for a great story for Self Serve Car Wash News.

 

[soapy]

People who come in and use services with no expectation to pay. Drop off garbage, use bays to detail, I offer free drying towels and get folks who pull in just to use them.

 

[MEP001]

People who pull in and just sit in a bay. It bugs me mostly because so many people do it, I worry that I might offend a legitimate customer who's just finishing up a phone call or a snack before they wash if I say something. The only thing that might bother me more are the liars, which most habitual bay-parkers do if I ask them if they're going to wash or why they're parked in a bay.

 

[mjwalsh]

Debra Gorgeous (yes ... correct spelling?),

When a customer demands to be able to use a credit card in the self service bay or on every machine in our laundromat. Solution: Spend a few moments to convince them of the long list of long term advantages for them when they use "waterproof dollar coins" that are so so so very easy to get from us after they arrive at our place as their destination! Hopefully, they pass on the life coaching to others ... once they understand in a better way.

 

[Randy]

I have so many Pet Peeves I don’t know where to start, most of them have already been listed. Garbage, freeloaders, those who clean out there car, dump their trash and leave, rude customers, the list goes on. We get to the car wash at 05:30 and we are out of there by 08:00 so we don’t have to interact with any of the customers that’s my solution.

 

[OurTown]

Our "one dollar customers". Pull in next to a vac, sit there for 15 minutes looking at their phone (I assume), open all doors, spend another 15 minutes emptying their car completely filling a trash can, put a dollar in the vac and vac for four minutes, barely hang the hose (if we are lucky) so the nozzle is on the ground, sit there another 5-10 minutes, then drive off leaving 10-20 tiny pieces of trash on the lot. If we are there I look at the wife and say "Hey!, at least we got a dollar out of them!" *sarcasm*

 

[chaz]

Our "one dollar customers". Pull in next to a vac, sit there for 15 minutes looking at their phone (I assume), open all doors, spend another 15 minutes emptying their car completely filling a trash can, put a dollar in the vac and vac for four minutes, barely hang the hose (if we are lucky) so the nozzle is on the ground, sit there another 5-10 minutes, then drive off leaving 10-20 tiny pieces of trash on the lot. If we are there I look at the wife and say "Hey!, at least we got a dollar out of them!" *sarcasm*

Raise your vac price to $2 for 6 minutes. That’s what I did...more money per activation and the guy that just wants to spend $1 goes elsewhere. I would have had to loose 1/2 my vac usage for the pricing to have any negative income effect. My vac usage actually went up.

 

[OurTown]

Raise your vac price to $2 for 6 minutes. That’s what I did...more money per activation and the guy that just wants to spend $1 goes elsewhere. I would have had to loose 1/2 my vac usage for the pricing to have any negative income effect. My vac usage actually went up.

I was waiting for you to respond to that one. It is our plan to do so soon with our vac remodel project.

 

[Earl Weiss]

The Foam Brush Free loaders. Wobblejhead / smart Brush handle is a partial solution. People who linger in bays will typically move if they are ASKED nicely and someone is waiting or all bays are full. I found out long ago people don't like to be told what to do. I often phrase it like. "Hy, we are really busy today, all bays are full, can you please finish up so someone else can use the bay. Thank you."

 

[Debra Gorgos]

I wish...oh, the irony...

 

[Bud]

Has anyone ever considered getting rid of the trash cans???? I am thinking about it but am too close to selling so I don't want to make waves for a new owner.

 

[Earl Weiss]

I decided long ago I am in the trash business as well as the car wash business.

 

[OurTown]

Our cans are here to stay unless we have a problem later but there are several threads here on the subject. Some claim success but the jury might still be out because I'm not sure they have gone for years yet to see the long term effect.

 

[JGinther]

Nobody has posted a solution yet!? I have the only one for all of these problems! Simply lower your expectations!

 

[mjwalsh]

Nobody has posted a solution yet!? I have the only one for all of these problems! Simply lower your expectations!

I ran across a post here I made that was too easy to be taken out of context. So I took the liberty to delete the couple of short sentences. Nobody responded to this specific one so I hopefully Debra the thread owner & the moderator will not mind this specific time. Thanks

 

[MudMoney]

I will get customers come into my office open up their hand to show the dollar coins that they got and ask "do these work here." I just nod & smile yes. I do get others that want quarters exchanged for dollar coins.

 

[Randy]

We get really tired of people coming and using the car wash as their personal restroom. We had one guy who’d come every morning between 05:05 and 05:20 and pee on the vac island. When he got caught he thought it was perfectly OK, saw no problem in peeing on the vac island. He didn’t think it was too funny when the police get involved. He thought we were “A” holes for getting the police involved. The public has little or no respect for the car wash business and they can do whatever they feel is right at the car wash.

 

[washnshine]

We get really tired of people coming and using the car wash as their personal restroom. We had one guy who’d come every morning between 05:05 and 05:20 and pee on the vac island. When he got caught he thought it was perfectly OK, saw no problem in peeing on the vac island. He didn’t think it was too funny when the police get involved. He thought we were “A” holes for getting the police involved. The public has little or no respect for the car wash business and they can do whatever they feel is right at the car wash.

That is terrible. I think a lot of the lack of respect stems from the s.s. business being a generally unattended building that’s purpose is to clean/dump/wash things that have gotten nasty enough for people to want to do something about it. No matter how minimal($1to vac and take up 20 minutes of space - or the dumpers who empty trash for free or the mudders who wreck your bay so no one wants to use it until you clean it).

Think about a thruway rest stop. The unattended ones in NY State are nasty. Restrooms are dirty, garbages full, or spilling over. They have an attendant come in once or maybe twice a day to tidy up, but people feel they can act like pigs since they are just there to pee and dump garbage and 95% of the time no one is monitoring the place.

Even surveillance and signs so not help, if people don’t see attendants or live supervision, they feel like they have the right to do anything.

 

[Debra Gorgos]

Yes, so solutions.... if you have some for your own pet peeves, that would be helpful. Or if anyone can chime in. If they are equipment related, I will talk to the equipment folks to get some answers. Maybe it should be grievances and solutions?

 

[MEP001]

I saw a picture of something I can hardly believe someone would do - a passenger on an airline finished their meal and just dumped the trash on the floor in the aisle. It's just a complete lack of respect.