I shared this to a similar question on one of the car wash Facebook groups.
Some things to think about. Would you rather have a customer that is worth $130/year or a customer that is worth $300/year? Many articles have reported that the average consumer will wash 13 times per year. If you look at Revenue/Customer, this customer is worth $130 per year at an average wash price of $10 (just an example with easy math). Assuming they use your wash for all 13 washes. Keep in mind there is no guarantees they will use your wash for each of their 13 washes if they are not tied to some type of
loyalty plan.
The same customer could be worth $300/year ($25 per month
membership plan x 12 months, again easy math). The magic of
memberships is the reoccurring revenue. Once the customer signs up, the collection is automated until they take action to cancel the plan. With the full price wash approach, the customer has to take action with every single wash to choose your wash. In this example, you would need just over 2 - 100% loyal customers to match the revenue of 1 member.
You will need to plug in your own numbers to see this effect on your business.
Memberships is a numbers game. If you have low
membership counts you are likely serving the heavy user population. The most inefficient part of embarking on the
membership journey is the ramp time. The first consumers the will see the value of your plan will be the folks that are already washing their cars frequently. You are basically sacrificing the revenue from these customers to increase the revenue of your customer base as whole.
The trick to a strong
membership plan is to attract the 3rd level of
membership customer.
The low users! This is the group, that will see the value in your offering, but only use it once or twice a month. It is this group the will dictate your pricing plan and it is this group that will offset the sacrificed revenue from your heavy user group.
You can curb the risk by switching from an Unlimited plan to a Limited plan. This strategy will likely slow your ramp, as the limited plans can be harder to sell. But it does offer some cover from heavy users.
Per your numbers, you are at the industry average of <4 wash/member per month. You currently have 60 members. Running 60 members at the industry avg is an indicator that you are likely starting to get some of the targeted market (low users) into your plans. Otherwise your avg use would be higher. Add to this, the competition you mentioned that has already trained the population on the benefits of
memberships.
Considering these factors, a better question might be how do you get your member counts into the hundreds? How do your plans compare to your competition? How are you emphasizing to your customers, your value over the competition? How do you get more low users to join you
membership?
This article goes a bit deeper into this logic (warning! a bit geeky on the math)
https://touch4wash.com/members.php
This article talks about a strong
loyalty program vs a
membership approach
https://touch4wash.com/loyal.php
Hope this helps..
