copperglobe
Active member
Is the industry still saying that customers in these plans are washing on average 3.8 times per month?
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Unlimited monthly wash plans or memberships
- Thread starter copperglobe
- Start date
robert roman
Bob Roman
Yes, pundits say to expect between 3 and 4 times a month.
To my best knowledge, this range hasn’t changed much over time. What has changed is the take rate of programs.
Years ago, 500 to 1,000 members were commonplace. Today, there are sites with 2,500 members.
Earl Weiss
Well-known member
Can't help but wonder if there is a point where people may not want the plan anymore if places become overcrowded. Perhaps non plan members would avoid it also. Or if the solution is to increase plan price until some balance is reached. 2500 members average 4 X a month is 10,000 washes or 333 / day just for plan members.
Soapy,
I copied your bonus token plan, then I borrowed your drying towel idea, and now you have monthly membership plans? We have been considering the idea and would love to hear your experience so far. My greatest concern is the limited capacity of our inbay machines. I had an automatic 25 yrs ago that did 20k cars per year but our average automatic now is only doing around 9k cars per yr. so we do have some unused capacity.
Doug P
I copied your bonus token plan, then I borrowed your drying towel idea, and now you have monthly membership plans? We have been considering the idea and would love to hear your experience so far. My greatest concern is the limited capacity of our inbay machines. I had an automatic 25 yrs ago that did 20k cars per year but our average automatic now is only doing around 9k cars per yr. so we do have some unused capacity.
Doug P
How many club members do you have? The less total members, the more those members will wash.
Industry averages is usually right around 3x a month. The more members you have, that total wash number per month will naturally go down. So if your goal is to have around 300 members, expect higher usage.
The price of the club is also a contributing factor on how many visits per month for each customer. The higher the price of your club, only your current best single paying customers will buy your membership as they are the only customers who see that great value in a higher price(like 3x the pay as you go prices). The lower the price of the club makes it a no brainer of a value deal for the people who was less frequently.
It's pretty easy to figure out how to increase capacity.
at 500 month members x 3 washes a month = 1500 additional washes per month or 18k per year.
1500 additional washes per month divided by 30 days = 50 more washes a day.
50 more washes a day divided by 10 hour days = 5 more cars an hour.
Can you handle 5 more cars an hour up before you reach 500 members?
500 members @ $20/month = $10,000 month in additional revenue, $120k a year.
The math works for 100 members or 1000 members, you just have to figure out exactly what is your capacity in your in bay automatic.
PM for any additional info if needed. good luck!
soapy
Senior Member
Doug P. I have only been pushing the unlimited plan for a few months so my member rate is not very high yet but I do see it picking up. I added 2 yesterday. I am seeing mostly high end cars and truck who do not want to use a friction express wash. Since I have 2 IBA people do not have to wait nearly as long as they do at the express washes here. I commonly see people waiting in line at eh closest express wash for 30 to 45 minutes since they run a very slow tunnel speed. The plan cost me very little to implement since I was able to modify my original wash card system for about $300 per location. I would not have done it if I had to spend $20,000 just to offer a unlimited program. I also just added some more dryers to my IBAs and now get the cars dry similar to the express washes here. Jerry is right as the member count increases I am sure I will see lower washes per person per month.
copperglobe
Active member
The problem with many IBA washes is the time spent inside the wash bay by each vehicle and how that affects the number they can wash per day. We have averaged over the years about 18,000 cars per year per bay. Our washes take between 3:10 minutes for the least expensive to 4:30 for the most expensive wash. On average each car spends 3:50 minutes from the time they begin to enter the bay until they begin to leave the bay. With those kinds of times spent washing cars we're only actually washing cars for about 3 hours ten minutes per 24 hour day. That's a lot of idle time even during a ten hour day.
For the past six months we've done an experiment at the washes. We gave away free charge cards to random customers with the instruction that their washes would be free, they could wash as often as they wanted, pretend this was a membership plan with unlimited washes, etc. Our washes are all IBA. After six months that ended June 30, few days ago, all customers with these charge cards used them 3.1 times per month with none going hog wild and none not using them at all. In phone calls to the experiments none knew how many times they washed per month and all thought it was more than 4. All would be interested in a membership/unlimited plan where the price was 3.5 times the cost of the cash price of a wash choice. Example: if the cash price of number 1 wash is $5 then all our experiments would be interested in paying $17.50 per month for an unlimited plan for that wash selection.
I agree with Jerry and others in that you've got to determine if you've got room to spare time-wise and you adjust the price of the membership up/down over time to fill those idle times of the bays. Higher membership price decreases overall numbers per month. Also, you've got to be prepared ahead of time for when that chain of EE moves into town with their unlimited plans, be competitive, make sure your cars are coming clean, etc.
For the past six months we've done an experiment at the washes. We gave away free charge cards to random customers with the instruction that their washes would be free, they could wash as often as they wanted, pretend this was a membership plan with unlimited washes, etc. Our washes are all IBA. After six months that ended June 30, few days ago, all customers with these charge cards used them 3.1 times per month with none going hog wild and none not using them at all. In phone calls to the experiments none knew how many times they washed per month and all thought it was more than 4. All would be interested in a membership/unlimited plan where the price was 3.5 times the cost of the cash price of a wash choice. Example: if the cash price of number 1 wash is $5 then all our experiments would be interested in paying $17.50 per month for an unlimited plan for that wash selection.
I agree with Jerry and others in that you've got to determine if you've got room to spare time-wise and you adjust the price of the membership up/down over time to fill those idle times of the bays. Higher membership price decreases overall numbers per month. Also, you've got to be prepared ahead of time for when that chain of EE moves into town with their unlimited plans, be competitive, make sure your cars are coming clean, etc.
robert roman
Bob Roman
Subscription program such as monthly unlimited wash is problematic for in-bay because machine doesn’t have built-in excess hourly capacity like a conveyor does (i.e. 100).
Generally speaking, once arrival rate of customers at in-bay reaches and exceeds 75 percent of capacity, the average length of waiting line and average waiting time will grow exceedingly long.
Long lines leads to balking, waiting line defections, and poor customer service. These conditions are not conducive to enrollment.
“Can you handle 5 more cars an hour up before you reach 500 members?”
Based on queuing model, dual in-bay washing 36,000 a year could not. When busiest, average time to wash would be well over an hour and waiting line would be longer than 10 cars (more than 12 in system).
Generally speaking, once arrival rate of customers at in-bay reaches and exceeds 75 percent of capacity, the average length of waiting line and average waiting time will grow exceedingly long.
Long lines leads to balking, waiting line defections, and poor customer service. These conditions are not conducive to enrollment.
“Can you handle 5 more cars an hour up before you reach 500 members?”
Based on queuing model, dual in-bay washing 36,000 a year could not. When busiest, average time to wash would be well over an hour and waiting line would be longer than 10 cars (more than 12 in system).
robert roman
Bob Roman
“Also, you've got to be prepared ahead of time for when that chain of EE moves into town with their unlimited plans.”
Perhaps more important is what happens when digital carwash network expands into one’s trade area.
Perhaps more important is what happens when digital carwash network expands into one’s trade area.
Car_Wash_Guy
Well-known member
It's an app based wash plan ( unlimited, etc) that the customer is able to access all the member washes within the network.
http://www.carwashmag.com/home/arti...-tokens/38895157341c31612b86220adab2a1e7.html
