ICS - Autosentry Questions

[mr-gte]

Questions I have
Is it true< consent problems with the ICS units. Sending circuit board after circuit board back .Sending Whole complete ICS boxes back at consumer expense?What happens when warranty runs out? .
Huge annual support Fee's to hire extra technicians to support ICS 's product.
Are we paying for ICS's R&D?
How come no one is speaking about the issues .I personally don't want to put down 36,000.00 each, to go through another nightmare.What box do you recommend buying?

 

[Earl Weiss]

How about this. Don't buy any!. Use your loader as the cashier. You can do almost the same production as you can with 2 gates. If you know you are going to have a crazy day where you might want to have someone at the gates to eliminate any snags, use them like a McDoanald's drive thru system where they collect the $ and the loader simply loads. You can do beter than you can do with 2 gates this way. Seems the old story just gets updated. Cashier is a no show "Because their mother died" or the auto cashier is a no show because the motherboard died.

 

[JimmyJaffa]

Simple math for an exterior express.
Say you pay the "greeter" $10/hr which will equate out to $13 per hour full burden (taxes, insurance, etc). Open 364 days per year (thats what we are) that equals $56,784 per year, and that is with no overtime! For 3 years that is $170,352 for labor, but your AutoSentry cost you $80,000 for 2 with all the bells and whistles. Every year there after, what ever the service contract is, it is far less than an employee.
Don't get me wrong, computer can make mistakes, but there are far fewer math errors with an AutoSentry than a person, and it is very honest, will not lie steal or cheat!
Every customer is greeted the same way, never has a bad day, well, those "mother board" days, but they are far and few between. The AutoSentry does not have any aunts, uncles, cousins that pass away, and it has to go the funeral for 2 or 3 days.

 

[Earl Weiss]

My Math is simpler. No Greater. Loader serves as cashier. No $80K expense, no maintenance, no service contracts. Cost of eliminating auto sentires - 0 - Advantageous . No personnel touch, but uniformity.

 

[mr-gte]

Jimmy
You forgot to price an expensive tech level employee to phone ICS for hours then change out multiple boards . Rip out complete unit's , crate them up and send back, install another box, that's expensive.If you have multi sites you will need a crew talking to ICS's .Save your crate's

 

[Chiefs]

Can soneone tell me how the autosentry is going to look for problem areas that need to be addressed prior to washing? How are they going to hand my customer our courtesy moist disposbale towel, imprinted litter bag, and seasonal newsletter or survey? How are they going actually prep for snow, ice, mud, bugs, etc. Answer - they are not because they cannot.

We easily run a 120 car per hour line speed on a busy day taking the money at the entrance - credit cards too ( we have a dedicated DSL line for the CC machine and they clear in 3 seconds. If you have a conveyor you are most likely going to have people there anyway to guide on and prep, So, let them be the cashier too. Sure you get a lot of what I call automated marketing and total cash control. But you've also got a umbilical cord going to the ICS or DRB or whomever and the annual cost of that (not to mention the headaches involved) while not costing you as much as an employee, the aggravation factor may be even worse.

 

[QuickSpa17]

mr-gte,

im new to the industry, but i've done a great deal of research concerning all facets of the express exterior model. we're currently in our final phases of construction, and we've ordered the complete ICS system: Tunnel Master, TM Jr., 2 Auto Sentry eXP. Jaffa makes a good point about labor costs and how it can affect your bottom line. One question: Do you currently use any ICS equipment, and if you do, did you go out to their headquarters to receive their training? I just finished my 3rd day of training at their headquarters, and I will say that it was more than worth the trip. Yes, there will be problems at some point down the road. These are essentially computers, and with every type of electronic equipment, there will be unforeseeable problems that will arise. That is why the training is essential. I learned a great deal about the functions and responsibilities of each individual piece of equipment, and that gives me a better understanding of what the problem is when it arises. The techs at ICS say that the majority of operators that purchase their equipment don't come to their training (which is free!). That lack of knowledge leads to problems when issues arise, mostly because they don't know what the problem is, therefore they can't fix it immediately/efficiently, thus perpetuating the problems. ICS is definitely not the cheapest, but they have a products that can get the job done....it's up to you to know the equipment top to bottom and maintain them properly (i.e. preventive maintainance such as checking circuit boards for wear/tear/condensation/dust/debris)

 

[QuickSpa17]

Chiefs,

Yes the autosentry's cannot account for prepping. However that is not the autosentry's responsibility anyhow. that is the responsibility of the loader. handing out towels, marketing collateral, promos, is something that can be done on the backend of the wash cycle (assuming you have an express with free vacuums). also, the tunnel master software can help you facilitate customer relations by storing and organizing contact info so that you can easily market to your customer base. however it's up to you to actually start the process and keep your customers informed. that's not the purpose of the autosentry's.

 

[mr-gte]

QuickSpa17
I own three units. This is the last year for them and I can't sell them. I will have to put them on the junk pile or sell used parts from them
Let US know your opinion
1) When your in fifth year of operation
2) After a famous ICS update
3) Annual support invoice due
At training did ICS mention they are not able to accept a new 5 dollar bill in new ICS boxes.
Has ICS fixed this issue ?
Is ICS still blaming MEI ?
That's allot of money to spend and not accept a new 5 and the occasional new 10 dollar bill.
Please keep us informed
PS
Get your money back before it too late

 

[mr-gte]

I would read all of this

http://forum.autocareforum.net/showthread.php?t=735

 

[JimmyJaffa]

We have 6 ICS AutoSentry's and all of them accept the new $5 bill after ICS updated them.
As far as the Annual support fee, it is about average for the different industries that we use in our other businesses. The return policy is the same as Sonny's if not better (ICS sends UPS return tags).

 

[QuickSpa17]

gte,

it's understandable that some operator's may have difficulty accepting the new $5 bills. but these bills were only introduced to the public a few months ago, so on the R & D side of things, i could see how it may take a little while to get the new equipment acclimated to the new bills. i have however seen the auto sentry's accepting new 5 and 10 dollar bills...maybe it's just a hit or miss thing. as for the cost of support, i do agree it can be on the high end, but i've seen and talked to numerous operators who have told me that the support cost for ICS is typical of other manufacturers. again, i'm new to the industry so maybe i haven't visited enough operators, but i've been told that obviously if you have to call in more frequently to ICS support, the higher your bill will be at the end of the year. again, this goes back to my previous post. hope everything works out with the auto sentry's....i agree that not everyone will have the same results/satisfaction

 

[mr-gte]

I placed no support calls to ICS last year.
I wonder how much my annual contract would be is this year. I did not know ICS charges extra for actually calling for support.If engineering/product was top shelf ,demand for support would be less making annual support very inexpensive .
5 years of ICS support will net me a brand new Unitec with free support.

 

[Chiefs]

We are strictly and exterior only wash. Either we hand out newsletters, courtesy towels, litterbags, etc. at the entrance or not at all. We have no employees at the exit end of the tunnel. As for "free" vacuums? People don't bypass other washes and spend $8-$10 washing their car just because your vacuums are free. They come to you because they get a great wash and that cannot be said of every facility just because they hang out a shingle that says car wash. I go to many car washes and I've yet to see one produce as a clean a vehicle as we do - mainly because we get the nooks and crannies most other washes do not.
Look, if they were reliable and didn't come with costly service agreements and take someone tech savvy to repair, they would be great. I looked at the ICS system. You know what they told me? Because I would be putting their system just inside the tunnel entrance, they wanted me to build a cabinet to put it inside to protect from the moisture! Or I could build a booth and hire another employee to act as a cashier. Its a car wash for God's sake! What do they think we use to wash with, magic! Of course there's going to be moisture. DRB isn't any better with a $2,500 a year service agreement, heck, my annual shortages by my attendants don't equal that.

As for developing a customer datbase, we've built a list of nearly 4,000 customers that we use for direct mail purposes. We've gotten these names in a variety of ways through our frequent washer card program, new mover coupons that are redeemed, Club Card program, customer surveys, etc. Low tech to be sure, but the result is the same. Sure you can better develop customer histories and automate the marketing programs we now use, sell pre-paid cards, etc. Butis that worth $80,000 and the headaches they entail?

to be continued...

 

[Chiefs]

BTW, my attendant is there anyways for prep purposes, so it costs nothing to have them be the cashier too. It would only possibly benefit us if we stopped prepping entirely and then we could avoid paying sales taxes as the transaction would be equal to that of a vending machine. But the moment you do anything to the car besides guiding it on and getting it in neutral and feet off the brake, you have to charge sales tax. Unfortunately, I've never found any equipment that can produce a 100% clean vehicle every time without some prepping for extraordinary conditions (snow, ice, mud, heavy bugs, etc,) or getting the areas clean the equipment cannot reach. I don't have employees at the end making up for what the wash misses. I've got to ensure that it comes clean at the beginning. Our commitment to quality and the many perks we give our customers are the main reasons why we washed 86,000 last year with just a 25,000 car traffic count.

The features of these systems are great. The problem is that you are simply trading one set of headaches (employees) for another whole, far more complicated set of technology related headaches. If you spent $80K on a car you'd expect a bumper to bumper warranty. I don't want to spend $80K on an automated cashier system that's going to give me a whole new set of problems and still have to have the same number of employees. What have I gained?