EE thinking about RFID's for my ICS Auto sentries

[carnut2]

We have an opportunity to get a new set of RFID's at a great price. What is the opinion, worth the money or not? We are a two year old EE. We'd love to have the guaranteed cash for those lean months.

Pros and Cons of the ICS RFID's. I've read the threads on some of the other brands.

 

[robert roman]

I know several operators who are considering unlimited washing and RFID and depending on circumstances there can be a lot to consider, compatibility, ability to query and support are just a few.

There are owners having great success with the technology and marketing concept as well as others who see unlimited as a niche market.

Getting paid upfront is attractive but don’t expect RFID or unlimited washing to be a panacea for too much competition, poor location or other deficiencies.

A great price is only good if the final cost is the same as the great price.

As far as I’m concerned, you could do worse by not considering DRB and ICS.

 

[DavidM]

I have an ICS RFID system. If you already have ICS installed and can get the readers for a good price it sounds like a good idea. The ICS system has some issues but they are improving.

David

 

[carnut2]

ready to pull trigger on rfid

We think we are ready for RFID. It's been a while, but any new thoughts or pros or cons. Thanks for any help.

 

[SoCalExpress]

Heres our story: We are a 3 1/2 year old EE that has been doing unlimited clubs for about 3 years now. Before our RFID system we were using custom Unlimited Club Cards (mag swipe). We would catch 1-2 people per day abusing the club program with the cards. At the time when we made the transition back in the end of July we had about 500 members. It has been almost 1 1/2 months now and here are my pros and cons.

Pros:
-Stops club members from bringing in multiple cars with one club plan!!! $$$
-Works well on MOST cars.
-It adds a "coolness factor" which in my eyes is a competitive advantage.

Cons:
-Aftermarket window tint really affects readability.
-around 1 out of 10 don’t want anything on their windshield, which has even caused some members to cancel when we try to switch them over.
-Doesn't speed up the time at pay stations at all.
-our fleet accounts prefer the cards not the RFID's
-RFID tags are expensive (and we have found that they have no real perceived added value in the eyes of the customer, compared to cards)
-the initial investment will take a long time to recoup because it isn't helping add any more revenue compared to our mag swipe cards. (the only savings would be stopping an abusing club member from bringing multiple cars)
-when clubs join the membership at the pay station, you have no way of knowing if the tag works until the next time. (and then if the tag doesn't work the second time, you don’t know if it was because it was tampered with/moved or if the tag even would have worked in the first place.
-We have gone through an extra 100 RFID's because of:
1. employee's not carefully pulling the tag off of the roll
2. putting tag in an area that turns out to not be able to be read
3. customers coming in with moved tags and saying that no one told them they couldn’t move it. (even though our employees tell every customer)
4. a few brand new tags simply just don’t work

 

[SoCalExpress]

All in all, only time will tell if our investment in the RFID system was a good one. RFID's are a really cool and innovative technology that most customers have never seen in a car wash environment before, but our customers were used to the club with a mag swipe (allowing them the occasional or even regular abuse) and many simply don’t want to change.

I still think that if you are not doing a club you need to start right away. It is very nice to get club revenue month after month and has helped us establish a very happy loyal customer base as well as kept us looking busy on slow days.

I am trying to push ICS to add a feature that would allow me to create a loyalty program for paying customers that would bring a profile up based on their frequency(either RFID or mag swipe), but it doesn't seem to be a priority for them. The ROI of an RFID system can be made back much faster if we would have an automated system for incentivizing loyalty for our paying customers.

Obviously every situation is going to be completely different, but if you would like to discuss more about them feel free to give me a call. (909-720-6362)