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Crazy customer - now what?

J

JCate

New member
Earlier this week - at 8am Tuesday to be exact, a customer came through one of my 2 bays and because he entered the bay too fast and/or wasn’t paying attention I don’t know, he was all over the place, backward - forward in the bay.. and as a result, my Tandem 360 never got a clear idea of where he was and timed out. I can see it all on my cameras, it washed 1/2 of his truck and reset. I have video of the bay operating flawlessly before his arrival on a full size pickup and then a small car before his arrival. He drove out of the bay, and proceeded to leave a nasty review (ok, those are a part of life I’ve almost accepted at this point) but here’s the kicker, he made two signs saying “out of order” and hung them on both entrance units! He even sent a customer away who pulled up while he was there ! Here is the problem - our car wash is 3 towns away from where we live and as far was “perfect storms“ go, I’ve been sick all week and not paying attention until yesterday morning when I noticed NO SALES. This guy shut us down with those stupid signs for 3 days! The only thing wrong with the wash was HIM! He drove in wrong, he wasn’t paying attention, and HE was the issue! I called the police, and they were shocked to tell me that they actually couldn’t charge him with anything. I have to take him to court. Even the stunt of him approaching the customer who was about to buy a wash and drive in. Has anyone ever had anything like this happen? I’ll be calling a lawyer on Monday - this is our busy season, and this is thousands of dollars in lost revenue. I can’t believe it. Thank god it’s all on camera.
 
I understand your frustration, BUT...

I have never in 20 years left my wash unattended for 3 days!!! Most Ss/IBA operators have someone stop by at least once a day to clean up and empty trash etc.

I Think that you should chalk this one up to "lesson learned" and start checking in a little more regularly at your car wash. I think it's a waste of your time and energy to take someone to court to try to argue lost revenue. I doubt you'd win and even if you did I think your efforts are better spent on other more productive things.
 
Waxman said:
I understand your frustration, BUT...

I have never in 20 years left my wash unattended for 3 days!!! Most Ss/IBA operators have someone stop by at least once a day to clean up and empty trash etc.

I Think that you should chalk this one up to "lesson learned" and start checking in a little more regularly at your car wash. I think it's a waste of your time and energy to take someone to court to try to argue lost revenue. I doubt you'd win and even if you did I think your efforts are better spent on other more productive things.
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oh, sorry.. I have a maintenance guy who does stop by and empty trash by the vacuums and check inside the bays - buy he goes nowhere near the teller units - he had already been there that morning. And believe me, I get what you’re saying, but I have to keep my other job to keep things going at the car wash sometimes when things get slow. It’s a very small operation.
 
JLanman said:
Sounds like you will need to add “check for crazy customer activity/signs” to your check list.
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Agreed - we talked about that ! Oddly, most of the crazy stuff has happened near the trash ! The stuff people leave over there has been the biggest issue And that has been the priority and focus!
 
I know you have cameras and another job, it's a bummer you weren't able to see the 2 signs he posted and he didn't call! :( I don't think you would win in court. He was trying to be helpful. I had a similar experience at my SS wash. They fixed a piece of masking tape to the coin acceptor door saying "Out of Order" in 2 different bays. After moving to the 3rd bay, she called me to "complain". She didn't know you were supposed to turn the rotary knob! It was set in the OFF position! 😣

We're always learning better ways to run our washes. I'd recommend your maintenance guy walk the entire property.
 
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Rule #1 i would freak out if my automatic was dry for 3 days. I would swipe my personal credit card check reader and internet just to issue a wash just to make it look wet and make sure its working if i seen this on cameras remotely. This is no different than someone jamming coins into a credit card reader which i have seen or bugs die in the reader on Pay station and put you out of service silently. I wouldn't waste my breath in court or a lawyer not cool. I would spend that money towards more cameras and a better attendant just being honest hope you feeling better to get back at it.
 
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We had a very similar situation last week. I just got home at about 9:30 PM to sit down and eat dinner (yeah...). We hear the pay station doorbell camera ring so Mrs Ourtown answers it. The guy couldn't hear her so he thought he was leaving a message. He is telling us that the machine is broken and he will put an Out Of Order sign on the pay station. We could see on the surveillance cameras that his van had presoak on it and the bay entry door was closed. I immediately rushed back over there and he was just finishing up rinsing his van off in a self serve bay. He smelled of pot and was high as a kite. He used cash so I gave him his money back. I asked a few questions about what happened and the answers didn't add up. Normally I would explain to someone what they need to do differently next time but I did not want him back. I thanked him and told him I would fix it soon. He drove off, I pulled his sign off the pay station and washed my van. Of course, it worked perfectly. Ever since we here in Ohio passed recreational Marijuana I have noticed more things like this.
 
JCate said:
I’ll be calling a lawyer on Monday - this is our busy season, and this is thousands of dollars in lost revenue. I can’t believe it. Thank god it’s all on camera.
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So you are going to sue a customer who thought he was helping you out by putting up a note that the bay was broken? You are going to waste a lot of money doing that.

As stated above, this is a golden opportunity to improve how you run your car wash operation.

If the guy didn't call perhaps it was because he couldn't find your number. My philosophy is have contact information listed on every single sign (45-50 places). This includes large signs with contact info in the automatic bays and near any changers. I don't want a customer to not be able to reach us if there is a problem as it is the easiest way to get a negative review.

Train your maintenance guy to check everything. If you are paying him to be there already, maximize his usefulness.
 
I suppose if he hadn’t been sitting there as another customer drove away from the other bay with a completely clean car, I would not have been as upset. And he put “out of order” signs on BOTH teller units, not just the one he went through. Why? I think he was being malicious.
 
The only person you should be pissed off at is yourself! Living 3 cities over from your car wash your bound to have problems. What is expected of your so-called maintenance guy, does all he do is dump the garbage? My maintenance guy has keys to get into the equipment room, looking for anything out of normal, pulls the currency out of the changer, sweeps up any debris in the lot, dumps the garbage and uses tokens to wash out the bays checking every function. When there is a problem he calls or texts me. Your piss’n in the wind if you think your going to get anything from someone who put a sign on your equipment, it’s probably going to cost you more to hire a lawyer than what you’ll ever receive. Just chock it up to living the car wash dream.
 
One thing for sure there's going to be a lot more stupidity on display with customers now that marijuana is becoming legalized at the state level in many areas. People don't realize that the cannabis today is a lot stronger than back in the 70s and 80s when they used to smoke it. Back then you could probably smoke a whole joint and still be fairly functional but now you have a couple of tokes of something really strong and you can't even see straight.
 
You're lucky thats all he did....I've been around here for a long time and see posts where people start tearing $hit up when something doesn't work they way they "Think" it should! I had a guy at my wash that owned a cw from a neighboring town. He said he had to give it up because people were tearing it up! He said guys in 4x4's would come in and if a bay didn't work for what ever reason, they'd tie the wand to the hitch and rip the boom out of the ceiling...He didn't have cameras! Be thankful something like that didn't happen. Chalk it up to experience and fix the issue if you can't make it there every day. I check my wash multiple times a day, but I live 3 blocks away! I couldn't imagine living that far away. Like Randy, he has a cleanup guy that can do other things as well and notify him if he see's an issue. Looks like you are a new owner and you will experience a lot of "Hard Knocks"! Each one is a learning experince. How well you make changes to keep it from happening again will minimize frequency...I wouldn't waste my time or $$$ fighting it out in court! Fix the problem and move on!
 
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