Token education

Hi all, as you can see from my posts below, I am new to the car wash biz and appreciate all the help with my questions. I was hoping you could enlighten me on wether or not I should switch to another style of wash token when I take possession of my 1st carwash? If so, how does the acceptor distinguish between the two? Also, where would I purchase the tokens? The acceptor also takes "Token Notes" what are these? Thanks in advance-Kevin

here is the acceptor. -Kevin

Token notes are manufactured by Hamilton, the mfg. of the machine pictured above. I've never owned a hamilton ACW, only unitecs, so I don't know much about them.

There are probably lots of outstanding tokenotes floating around. They will be out there for months to come. Just be careful and think about the consequences before you cut these customers off.

Good advice Greg, I would probably phase the old tokens out. The reason for the change would be that the seller has a couple of other locations and wouldn't want to wash cars with tokens purchased at those locations. How does the units distinguish between the tokens?

Did you ever figure out who made your toucjless automatics? There is an operator in our area that has several of those.

Oops- touchless

Ya, they are old Hydrospray units. They both seem to work fine. Thanks for asking.-Kevin

Kevin, you can email or call a Hamilton Guy I know for free advice on the best course to take. He is also a carwash operator, so he might have some ideas how to handle this. His name is Randy Nix. His email is eaglecarwash@comcast.net.
His cell phone number is 253-732-4822

How far away are these other locations? I don't think you'll have much of a problem with that occuring if a reasonable distance. But it will occur. I occasionally get coupons from washes a half hour drive away, but not enough to worry about.

I haven't done it yet, but I'm going to phase out coupons for a free car wash at one site next year. I figured I'd post a notice and continue to honor them for 90 days. Then, I'm going to convert that free base carwash coupon (free $5 carwash) to a very generous discount coupon ($5 off my $10 wash) Hopefully this will be a pretty smooth transistion and minimize pissed-off customers.

Try Van Brook for tokens. I use the 1 1/8" and like them very much. They are large and easy to handle.

I also use tokennotes, which I got from Hamilton. I called the service dept. for help programming the autocashier to accept tokennotes. They were a huge help and we did it fast, whereas when I tried on my own I kept getting an error message at a point in the process.

I sell and discount only my top wash via tokennotes.

If you change tokens and phase out old ones, just trade the new ones for anyone who tries to use the old ones.