How do you run volume quickly without clocking extra labor hours?

Elite Car Wash, in Clermont, Fla. is like the majority of full service operations across the country. We are a traditional full service location that shares customers with an exterior only/free vacuum facility across the street.

While our customers love our quality and services, we don’t capture the entire market. Some want a quick in and out wash with a free self vacuum option, which traditional washes are typically not set up to provide.

If a full service wants to increase volume; rule of thumb is you need more labor to handle it. How do you run volume quickly without clocking extra labor hours, thereby increasing the bottom line? Evolve and become more efficient.

Be in Touch With Customers

We surveyed our customers and found that:

1. Some customers used our location when their car was really dirty, and if they just wanted to get the dust off but only had a few minutes, would use the exterior only across the street.

This surprised me, because our lower packages are priced well under the express only location and our wash process produces a superior result.

Willing to Change

After more customer surveys and personally speaking with them, it became apparent that some customers wanted speed above all else. So we changed one of our four vacuum bays into an express exterior lane/no vacuum, to accommodate that small group of customers. Staff has standing orders that the express
lane is never to be left waiting, it’s loaded right away. However, the traditional layout of our car wash doesn’t allow for customers to vacuum themselves, or load their own car. Since staff loading each vehicle requires man power, I inquired to our insurance guy about the option of the customer driving through themselves. He about fell out of his chair. He mentioned something about additional liability and higher premiums, and not liking it. So we had evolved a little; making the express modification but otherwise kept on with business as usual.

Continue to Reinvent

In 10 months time, that small group of exterior only customers has now become more than 40 percent of our overall volume and it continues to be our fastest growing service. So much growth that we are now forced to reinvent ourselves again and completely re-examine at what full service means in this day and age. Now what surprised me is this express option has not taken away from our full service business!
 

Capture the Market Share

In today’s world, with instant everything, having a true express option for a full service location really isn’t an option anymore. In my humble opinion, you must evolve to capture the market share or continue to allow market dilution. Those new customers are coming from somewhere and at over 160 new customers a month, for the last 6 months straight; you do the math.

Traditional Layout

It became very apparent that we at Elite weren’t evolving fast enough to handle our growing express volume. Our traditional layout wasn’t allowing for our express customers to get in and get out, especially if their vehicle was behind a full service customer. So we are making an even larger jump and completely transforming our traffic pattern to make express washing a priority.

1. We put our insurance guy in a head lock and the customer will now be loading their own vehicle and riding through the tunnel for one of the greatest shows on earth.
    
2. Moving the vacuum process after the wash instead of before relieves the bottleneck caused by the increasing number of our customers who just want a quick wash. We also are creating an express exit lane once they clear the tunnel, bypassing the vacuum area all together.

Every site is different and some operators are limited due to layout configurations, but we’ve been able to think outside the box. The change is enough that our city has required us to apply for a variance and we are going through that process. Our city code does not recognize a car wash so any changes we submit to make our site safer, or traffic flow smoother, can’t simply be approved by city staff. Everything seems to be a variance application and months of lost business potential. That story is saved for another article.

Once completed, this new layout will allow us to be everything to everyone. Especially in value conscious times, all of you full service operators are sitting on the potential to regain the market. You already have the labor minimums that you must carry to keep your customers happy. How would you like to double your volume and not increase labor?