Customer Loyalty systems

[Creole]

Hello all,
We have been on this site for a while, mostly observing the conversations and looking for ideas / tips about the business. We recently completed our first year of operation in late September for a 4 bay ss wash & RV park that we purchased. We've had a successfull first year and have received many compliments on the general upkeep, cleanliness, chemical output and repair of the wash versus the previous owner. It's a relatively new wash (7 years old if I recall) but the PO had grown tired and let it remain dirty and seemlingly unkept.
The thing my wife and I have continually discussed is some way to impliment a Custmer Loyalty program, but not sure how to go about it and are looking for ideas. We currently use WashGear to process credit cards, fleet cards and gift cards. We have quite a few fleet accounts and feel the cash portion of the business is growing simply by keeping the place clean. We've asked a few consistent mess leavers to either clean up after themselves or not return and it's paid off in a reduction of our work load and cost to clean up after them. Our main problem with the cash customers is they are (to us anyway) the general public. Our location is not ideal with respect to our community. We are on the edge of town, that gets lots of business traffic but the general public doesn't "get out this way" much. There are two other prominent car washes in town and though they are older than ours, are set up really nice and are nice washes to use. We were thinking a loyalty program might entice the public to drive to our site to wash, instead of waiting in line at the other sites (which both have an autmatic with their self service bays). We occasionally have a line and customers waiting, but not like the others. Basically we want to tap into their customer line by offering loyalty, but are unsure what's compatible with washgear and would be a stand alone type without us having to be there to punch / redeam cards.

Sorry for the length,
Thanks for the input in advance,

Creole,
Hang'Em High Car Wash and RV Park

 

[robert roman]

This is a trade-off problem.

For consumers to visit your wash, their trade-off or opportunity cost is the time and money they would have to expend as compared to visiting one of the alternative washes.

The closer consumers are located to the alternatives the greater the economic distance to your wash.

Trade-off problems are solved by decreasing one or more key factors and simultaneously increasing one or more other key factors in a decision, design or project (i.e. loyalty program).

In other words, the attributes and benefits of a loyalty program would need to at least match the economic distance to your store.

For example, if a consumer lived 5-miles away, the economic distance would be cost to drive 10 miles plus time value.

($0.60 X 10 miles) + ($15 X .25 hours) = $9.75 less economic distance to alternative. 3-miles would be $5.85 less economic distance to alternative.

Some consumers think like this, some don’t.

Market share is function of customer loyalty and customer attraction rates. So, one way to capture share is to make the wash more attractive relative to the competition. For example, you mentioned keeping place clean and functional.

Another way to make wash more attractive is to make it more substantial like adding an in-bay automatic. In-bay would also make it easier to implement customer loyalty program through POS system and website integration.

Question, do you have enough market to support in-bay?

Hope this helps.

 

[Creole]

Thanks Robert,
Your input is helpful. We are in a town of about 12,000 people, and the whole layout of the city is less than 5 miles, the other two washes are about 3 miles from us and we are on the edge. We would have a couple of options for an automatic, but I really don't think we could justify the cost to install due to the fact that it wouldn't get the use to pay for itself. The other two automatics, (actually there are 3 in town with a stand-alone by Wal-Mart) have a big following. Our customer base is as stated above, company / fleet business. In this area that means, oilfield and heavy soil. We don't mind this, because they spend a fair amount of time washing so it's worth our effort to finish cleaning up after them (there are a few exceptions). Our drain setup is better suited for this business than our competition which is a plus. But we would still like to up our "clean customer" base, which to us would just be extra icing on the cake!
Terry

 

[robert roman]

If re-positioning business (wand to in-bay) is not commercially viable, then I might consider expansion.

For example, if demand is influenced by presence of oilfield, heavy soil and fleet population, a logical extension of the carwash business is mobile environmental cleaning.

This can be done without major capital investment. There is an established customer base to work with. The wash is permitted for intended use. Etc.

In other words, many of the investment and business operating risks would be significantly less as compared to a conventional start-up business.

Moreover, environmental has better margin than wands.