Does Customer Service Matter?

I'm talking just about Full-Service Car Wash. How much of influence do you think "Customer Service" has on the business?

Is Full-Service Car Wash a business where you have many repeat business? Or, do you have more of one-timers driving by and stopping?

I'm really curious to see what other owners and operators think of the impact of great "customer service". I think it's a popular belief that "customer service" is important. But, do you really see that turn into dollar sign for you?

For most businesses, customer service is key. If your customers are met by a grumpy or sloppy-looking greeter, their first impression of your business will be bad. If they're set into a good mood by a friendly, outgoing one, they'll feel better about spending their money and will be more likely to return. You want the "one-timers" back too, and they should receive the same care and attention.

I'm sure no one will disagree.

Customer service, price, speed, quality, location(convenience). If I had to pick one, it would be location, then price, then speed, then quality, then customer service.

Poor competition or no competition can make you feel(falsely) like you are doing a good job on all the others. They are all important if you want to survive. But a location with little or no competetion is a sure bet...if you can find one.

Excellant service at an average location will not beat, average service at an excellant location. But excellant service at a poor location can beat poor service at an excellant location. It's a matter of degrees of differentiation between the locations and level of service.

The price point changes the priority. The cheaper an item or service is, the less important customer service becomes... with location, price and speed becoming ever more important as the price goes down.

Customer perception-ology...

Full service...customer service is extremely important...but is no quarantee you become successful with a poor location or turn one around that's had a poor rep for service.

Express...location, price, speed (then quality and customer service)

As owner operators, we will always hear from our customers which locations have the best attendants but when we are lined up it's because of price and location. Somedays I feel like the world is full of tuxedos and my car washes are a pair of brown shoes.

Thanks Jim for sharing !
regards
Renato Rios

We have impeccable service, location is not the best, and our price is average. At times I hear about customers that have just found us and we have been there for over 20 years ?? I used to advertise heavily, you can see my 4ft high lighted letters from 500 yards away, used to give away a ton of coupons. The best advertiser I have found for a full serve is customer referral. I call this the domino effect. If you can get your customers to talk about the wash and the service, then this is good stuff. Express washers, in my opinion, will go into any express wash when they need it done quickly - so location is very important. They are also looking for a great price. It's a longer process to build a busines around full serve. A full serve is like the woman who wants that special hair cut and color by that certain salon. Give her a bad cut and she move on to another saloon and the press will be terrible. The express washer on the other hand will go almost anywhere as long as its close, price is right and the cut can be average. The express washer in my opinion wants it done now, at a good price, and with reasonable quality - The express customer know's an express wash is not a detail.

Joe
www.crowncarwashinc.com

There is no substitution for quality for any car wash, full service or exterior only. We live by two overriding philosophies. The first is, "If we don't take care of our customers someone else will." The second one is, The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.

Which exterior car wash would you rather go to and which one do you think has a better chance to thrive.
A)The wash that charges only $3 or $5 has one or no employees and leaves you with a vehicle that is still wet, the back end is still dirty, areas around the license plate, under the wiper blades, recessed lights are still dirty, the wheels are still dirty and the tires look dirty.
OR
B) The wash that charges $8 -$10, whose employees prep only the hardest to clean areas to ensure that they do in fact come clean,and consistently delivers to customers a clean dry shiny car with clean wheels and tires that are shined?

The trick is not to wash as cheaply as possible and simply accept or justify inferior qualty as, "What do they expect for $3 or $5, a miracle." We don't prep and if the car's not clean (IF the customer complains) we'll just put them through again." The key to repeat business is quality regardless of the prices you charge.

Other than winter time, our biggest competitor is not any of the washes close to us. Rather it is the person who washes their car at home. If you cannot deliver to them as good or better quality than they can do themselves at home, then why are you openning the doors?

I am always surprised that so many operators, who as consumers would never think of going back to a business that consistently failed to deliver what it promised, are so so willing to accept lower standards of customer satisfaction in their own business and then have the audacity to expect their customers to acccept it too. I don't quite think this was one of Ray Crock (founder of McDonalds) felt about his customers.

Quality is in the eye of the beholder...I can remember one day in a strange city I stopped to view a new Tiger Mart (with a touchless IBA). There was a customer about to go in the bay, scrubbing his wheels, windshield, and front bumper. I asked him where the nearest tunnel wash was located. He told me where, but added that I should use this new "high tech wash" instead. That tunnel wash will just break your antenna or mirror. I'm quitely thinking, "Yea, but you wouldn't have to pre-wash your vehicle like you do here." His view of quality(high tech) was not impaired by the prepping he had to do for that touchless wash but value was gain by the safety of the touchless. He is not alone. There are thousands of touchless IBA's in use providing average to poor washes but because of speed, location, safety and price..kick the a-- of quality.

I think a better term than quality is "value" because that allows for several factors to be considered in customer satisfaction.

For the 18 years I operated a 6 and 1 (touchless), I never completely fiqured out how people could leave, so happy...in flithy cars. Tires, wheels, windows...dirty, half vacuumed, still bugs on it, wet and spotted...but if I had made change for them...or said hello with a smile...they would wave and smile while leaving. I had the busiest ss, highest price ($2 to start) in the whole market. I would think...how could such a poor product (according to my full serve standards) make someone happy? Value is the only answer. Clean site, attendant, everything worked, latest equipment, brightly lit. But most people don't leave in a really "clean" vehicle from doing it themselves at a self serve. At least not compared to a good conveyor wash.

So to answer your exterior question Bill?
I would say if a) and b) have equal locations, it will be the wash that provides the most value to the dollar ratio.

Ray Kroc?...My family had 5 hamburger restaurants when McDonald's first open. 2 are still open, almost 60 years later...a testament to quality and determination. McDonald's have never been about quality or customer service. When they first opened, my whole family scoffed and said McDonalds would never make it, because our patties were hand made (like our shakes)...and McDonald's lacked quality. We were only half right...McDonald's lack quality, yes...but, we lacked vision. Little did we realize how many more burgers they would sell because of price and speed...not quality.

McDonald's is the perfect picture of what this low cost express exterior format is offering...speed, price, consistent service...a great VALUE. It may not be the best hamburger but they are always the same. They are quick and convenient.

HighQuality/HigherPrice...AverageQuality/AveragePrice...LowQuality/LowPrice can all find customers to survive but the longest lines will be at the locations where there is the most value for the money.

As a full serve and self serve operator, I had the highest prices in the whole county. (and I felt like, the best customer service to go with it) As an express exterior operator, I am much more focused on doing what I can, to keep quality up, and my prices down.

Neither philosophy can make every poor location a good money maker...I'm sorry...no guarantees.

Always good discussion on talkcarwash...thanks for posting. I wish more people would....some are too busy, some are afraid, some don't care. Most of the time there are no wrong answers, just too short of a question.

Jim, that's really funny about the self-serve customers "leaving happy in filthy cars." I hadn't really considered before whether they were satisfied with their own service or just ran out of money, but now I'm thinking it's the former.

I operate the same way as you, run the brightest, newest, cleanest and highest-priced car wash in the area, and I've no doubt that our gross is much more than the two nearest washes combined.

A lot of people vacuum, wash and detail and spend an hour or more, but the bucket washers are mostly there for the value. It irks me when someone pulls in to beat their floormats, dump their garbage and clean their windows and spend no money, but it's value to them. I try not to give these "customers" a hard time unless they're making an excessive mess or tying up a bay on a busy day, and I've noticed that they're more likely to spend more in later visits.

I've never understood the people in the first pic - I would gladly have given them some time to rinse off the tri-foam if they had run out of money, and they knew I was there. The third pic was an extra-value customer who was just finishing with the foam brush and found the free rinse cycle.

I think they love the triple foam in the bay more than achieving a perfectly clean vehicle. There's something either sexual or hypnotic or both about the whole experience at a self serve. Maybe your pics prove that.

My whole point, when people spend less money, they expect less and are happier when they receive more for that lower price.

But if you've got labor involved, you've got to get mo money. For most of my years as a car washer, I've operated under the precept of "charge the most...give the most service." And it worked for many years, until both the number and quality of competition changed. Now my philosophy is cheap, quick, and consistent. With the express model that's much easier to deliver. Self serve, detail, full serve are models that make cheap and quick very difficult to deliver.