Why not just don’t do
memberships? You’re not a tunnel so you can’t process 1500 - 2000 cars a day. There no sense in spending 20-40k to give your customers a discount on washes they would have purchased at full price. Assuming you do decent volume.
IMHO I don’t see any upside to
memberships in an IBA other then customer
loyalty which there is a lot of other ways to achieve and “recurring” income but at what expense.
The
memberships program relies on the people that don’t use it which is going to be a select few in a IBA. The IBA users are picky. They find one they like and they stick to it.
Memberships started out in the gyms. A gym is a lot easier to sign up for and never use. Also gyms operating cost don’t change when a customer walks in the door and customers also don’t have to wait in a line for 3-5 minutes to walk in. You can maybe argue that the electricity will go up from treadmill use from more volume but the electricity is no where near what a car wash uses.
I’ve seen countless people talk about how many washes they have done since introducing
memberships. The fact is most also introduced new machines at the same time. It’s not the
memberships that transformed their site. It’s the new machine that brought the attraction. If they did half the washes but stayed at per wash pricing with their new machine they would make the same if not more and have less wear and tear on their machines. Volume in a tunnel is good. Volume in a IBA is a completely different animal. You can only run so many cars. You need to maximize profits for every wash to the fullest not discount them.
IMHO The
memberships is a gimmick pushed by only manufactures and sales people. None of them have to deal with the consequences.
What other industry gives anything away for fee or a giant discount? NONE. I so sick of the word FREE associated with car washes. FREE VACS! FREE TOWELS! FREE DASH WIPES! FREE GLASS CLEANER! FREE MAT WASHES! FREE AIR HOSE!
A employee got a Tommys direct mail flyer the other day. It has the word FREE 9 times on it on one side.
I can already see what’s next. FREE SELF SERVE BAYS! Get your
membership now!
SS/IBA owners need to stop adapting to tunnel methods. It only works for the tunnels pumping 100k-200k washes a year. The mom and pops get killed. The more we do, the more we f**k ourselves.
Sorry for the rant but If I were you no mater how you look at it you're better off getting paid per wash not per month.