Be the Best at Something - Taking an Ownership Position in Your Market

By: Anthony Analetto
Originally Published in AutoLaundry Magazine

Driving to work recently, I heard a promotion on the radio to double the size of your business in twelve months. Before pitching a phone number to call for more information, author Chet Holmes asked “what if I could put all your potential buyers in a giant stadium and present to them all at once, making your company famous in a single day if you do it right?” Immediately picturing myself in the center of the local high school stadium near one of my washes, filled with every prospective client in the town, I decided to give it a shot. After fumbling around for the perfect words for my 15-second monologue to promote the car wash, I quickly realized that this wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Sure I could say “we deliver a clean car fast and affordable.” But that’s not going to excite anyone to run out and visit the wash. Sadly, customers don’t appreciate how difficult it can be to deliver a clean, dry, shiny car at an affordable price. As soon as you put up a sign saying CAR WASH, that’s the bare minimum that they expect from your business. Immediately my mind turned to discounting my commodity. Now I imagined saying “we deliver a clean car fast and affordable – see me for a coupon for a free wash to try it out.” Certainly better, but is that the best I could do? If I had the opportunity to tell every person in my town why they’d be foolish to not run out and visit my wash, and to do so regularly, what reason would get them to wash and become loyal customers? Basically, what could I say that my competitors couldn’t that would compel them to action? I sat down and started to write out a list of competitive advantages I felt were important to my customers, along with steps to own that position in my market – and here they are.

Own Community Involvement
For some, this happens naturally. An outgoing entrepreneur decides to build a car wash in the community where they live. Everybody knows and trusts them. They’re involved in the schools, religious organizations, fundraising projects, disaster relief, and community groups. But in today’s world of fragmented communities, that rarely happens. There are thousands of special interest groups, and thousands of opportunities to become involved in your community. Start with fundraising.

First, consider the old standbys. Hosting charity wash days with a percent of the profits going to the organization can both increase traffic and present a great opportunity for media coverage. Another favorite is for kids to sell wash books and keep a part of the profit. More recent fundraising programs leverage technology to improve performance. For washes with newer gated kiosks, it will be increasingly common for these units to have the ability for a customer to enter a code to donate a portion of their payment to a favorite charity. For example, you may negotiate with the local band that every time a customer buys the top package and enters the assigned code, you’ll give the band two dollars. If you don’t have one of these hi-tech kiosks and can stomach a chaotic lack of control, this can also be accomplished with printed and even electronically distributed coupons that you allow to be duplicated. Imagine all the students and parents involved in your fundraising event sending out electronic coupons to friends and relatives across the social networking sites to buy your top package. Picture thousands of potential customers planning a trip to your wash to help the people they love. Grass roots marketing can deliver exciting results, but normally, only the first business in a community to do something new will reap the reward.

Fundraising isn’t the only path to becoming known as a business involved in the community. I’ve known car wash operators who, during a natural disaster, continued to pay their employees while they assisted with cleanup of the town, while wearing their uniforms. Why wait for a natural disaster? Actively volunteering in your community can deliver huge rewards. By simply dedicating one employee for one 8-hour shift once per month to help on a volunteer project in your community, you’re putting your staff, in uniform, alongside potentially influential people that can refer people to your wash. Imagine when someone working alongside them asks “do you work at the car wash?” When your employee replies “yes, the owner really supports volunteer work and once a month lets us work our shift helping the community,” you’re on your way to becoming the car wash that cares – a very memorable position. Don’t forget to leverage your good deeds to their maximum potential. Make sure to post your actions on your website and social networks, as well as send a short press release to the local papers.

Own Convenience
Remember Domino Pizza’s guarantee of 30-minute delivery or its free? Positioning your car wash as the most convenient, fast, and consistent product can be remarkably powerful and profitable. Be forewarned. This is by far the most demanding market position to pursue. Success relies upon automation, efficient processes, and procedures that must be documented, trained, and adhered to.

Like most things at a car wash, owning this position starts with labor, or more accurately, the absence of labor. This isn’t an article on labor reduction, so I won’t go into detail. But in order to offer convenient hours of operation, rain-or-shine, and a consistent service time, labor cannot be involved in the wash process. Owning this title isn’t only related to labor reduction. Look at your product offerings, and wherever possible, separate and simplify. If you have an express-exterior option, create a separate menu with limited choices. The same thing goes for any express detailing, professional detailing, or full-service wash options you provide. By separating each service category into a distinct menu with fewer options, customers will have a clearer understanding of what to expect, and staff will be more experienced in delivering that expectation. This practice also lets you close sections of your wash during inclement weather while remaining open on a published schedule, the foundation of convenience for any service business. Sometimes less really is more.

Now it’s time to put your money where your mouth is. Doing the legwork to offer a consistent quality service in a promised time is only one side of the equation. The other is a bit scarier – an advertised guarantee. If you’re prepared to offer a “15-minutes or its free” or similar policy, and deliver a consistent quality product, you’ll be fast on your way to owning the title as the most convenient car wash in the market.

Own Quality
The Ultimate Driving Machine. When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best. Can you think of any other products where price is an important, but secondary consideration? I won’t go into the nuts and bolts of delivering a clean, dry, shiny product – if you’re considering taking ownership of the highest quality car wash position in your market I’ll assume you’re already on top of your game. What I will say is that the relentless pursuit of perfection in delivering a quality wash is only one part of this position. You’ll want to focus equal, if not greater effort, on creating a customer experience. Start with uniforms, signage, landscaping, and everything that a customer can touch or see, but don’t stop there. Analyze staff interactions and develop standardized greetings and procedures. I’ve seen full-serves where attendants spread the drying towels on the ground so that a customer could wipe their feet before entering the car. I’ve seen express-exteriors with beautiful signage detailing their 7-step wash process to protect your car. Pursuing the position of highest quality wash can take many directions, but it starts with delivering an absolutely consistent quality product.

Wrap-up
Can you give a 15-second presentation on what sets your business apart from every competitor in the marketplace? A position so compelling that it will move people to action? If you can, you’re halfway there. Next, your employees need to live, breathe, and believe in your position. From that base, you may never find yourself in front of a stadium of customers, but supported with advertising, your customers will find you.

5 Misconceptions to Getting Consistently Clean Wheels

 By: Anthony Analetto
Originally Published in AutoLaundry Magazine

“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right”- Henry Ford
 

Turning out a consistently clean, sparkling wheel is often the differentiating factor between competing car washes in a market. It’s also a difficult task for a professional car washer to deliver and often the most misunderstood. Like many of the articles I write, this one was prompted by a recent conversation I had with a friend in the industry. For years, using strong acid-based wheel cleaners, this operator would periodically replace his tire brush, always in stainless-steel to hold up to the acid. Seeing an order for an aluminum tire-brush machine, I asked him if he had placed his order correctly to which he replied “I did - I’m finally off the crack.” The passion he had in explaining the process he went through to eliminate all labor, switch to easier to handle non-acid wheel cleaners, and improve the quality and consistency of his wheels made me realize there are many operators that could benefit by learning about his experience. His customers are happier, his employees are happier, and he’s happier – and it all starts by dismissing the 5 misconceptions associated with getting a consistently clean wheel.

Misconception 1: You need to wash wheels by hand
Labor in any part of the wash process, especially wheels, results in inconsistent quality, slower throughput, and unpredictable customer wait times. Consider what occurs at many washes today. The car enters the wash and wheels are sprayed with a pressure gun, cooling the wheel which reduces the reactivity of the detergent to break the bond of brake dust to the wheel. Next, an aggressive acid-based wheel cleaner, corrosive to wash equipment, is applied to the wet wheel. Whatever cleaner doesn’t drip off the already wet wheel is instantly diluted before being immediately hit with a pressure gun again. The wheel cleaner, unless highly concentrated, does not have sufficient dwell time or physical agitation to do its job effectively. And the problem gets worse. As the day progresses, employees get more tired. As volume peaks, there is less time to spray each wheel. When you need to speed up the conveyor, you need to add more labor, and wash consistency and quality drop further. But that’s just the beginning of the problem. Hoses, cars, people, spinning brushes, and strong detergents are all shuffling around in a congested area. Management andtraining requirements to ensure safe detergent handling and operating procedures are adhered to skyrocket. And when things aren’t working, you need to throw more at it. More labor. More and stronger wheel cleaners. More problems – and more reasons to keep reading this article to learn how to break the cycle!

Misconception 2: You can get a clean wheel without a tire locator switch
A tire locator what? This function, included standard with most modern controllers, tells the computer exactly where a tire is located in the wash process. Using a combination of an entrance photo eye and a tire locator switch, information is fed back to the computer to activate wheel cleaning components accurately and for an extended duration. Getting clean wheels requires complete online application of an alkaline-based detergent, sufficient detergent dwell time with physical agitation, and high-pressure wheel cleaning for a five-foot travelling distance. The foundation of getting clean wheels every time online doesn’t start with some magical detergent or equipment component – it starts with having a computer setup to locate and track wheels throughout the wash process. I’ve been to many locations where people are still using treadles for chemical application running alongside an underutilized computer capable of tracking wheels. Without the ability to automatically adjust detergent application in relation to conveyor speed, or set high pressure washers to pivot and track wheels for prolonged contact, getting clean wheels online without labor is impossible. Once in place, a whole new world of possibility for accurate and consistent wheel cleaning opens up.

Misconception 3: You can’t wash wheels without aggressive acid-based wheel cleaners
No doubt acid-based wheel cleaners are effective. However, burdensome training and management requirements to ensure safe handling, coupled with the fact that they can reduce the lifespan of car wash equipment have caused many operators to switch to alkaline-based alternatives. When used correctly, you consistently get a cleaner wheel, eliminate labor, and prolong equipment life, all by switching to a detergent that’s easier to handle and more user-friendly. It all starts with detergent application to maximize mechanical and chemical wash synergy.

Two feet after your photo eyes, you want to have a CTA applying a non-acid foamed wheel and tire cleaner. A single CTA is sufficient for conveyor speeds up to 80 cars per hour, but if you intend on exceeding that speed, you will need to have a second CTA applying the same non-acid foamed detergent 40 inches after the first, allowing the wheel to turn upside down for full detergent application. Avoid the mistake of “flooding” the car with water which does little other than dilute the effectiveness of your chemistry! Next you will apply an alkaline presoak followed by a low-PH foamed presoak before the vehicle enters your friction wash equipment area.  Soap and mechanical wash equipment continue to agitate undiluted detergent for 8 to 10 feet or more, delivering the necessary dwell time before the high pressure wash equipment strips road grime from the wheels.

Misconception 4: You don’t need a tire and wheel brush
Today’s tire brushes aren’t just for tires. With most designs having a brush diameter of 12 or more inches, they are designed to reach into wheels to agitate detergent and loosen road soil from wheels. Failure to agitate detergent on wheels with a sufficient dwell time spanning at least 96 inches, the average length of a tire brush, will not deliver a clean wheel. Operators concerned with more aggressive designs of polypropylene or nylon brushes can consider foam brushes available from several manufacturers – just make sure you have a tire and wheel brush in your wash!

Misconception 5: You don’t need a high-pressure wheel blaster
It is impossible to clean wheels without high pressure. Not a few inconsistent seconds from an attendant with a prep-gun, but concentrated high-pressure cleaning that maintains contact with each wheel for five feet of travel through the tunnel. Provided you’ve applied sufficient undiluted foamed wheel cleaner, agitated for 96 inches of travel using a tire brush with a diameter of at least 12 inches, then five-feet of cleaning from either a pivoting or tracking high-pressure wheel cleaner is enough distance to allow the wheel to turn completely upside down to reach all angles.

Summary
Having switched to alkaline-based wheel cleaners and automated wheel cleaning so long ago, I sometimes forget the daily struggle many operators continue to have managing labor and safe detergent handling procedures. There’s no free lunch. Getting a clean wheel without labor is a challenge that will require experimentation with non-acid detergents and CTAs that work best with your water and climate conditions. You may have to invest in or upgrade your tire brush to a newer design capable of reaching into wheels. And you’ll need tracking or pivoting wheel blasters capable of maintaining contact with each wheel for five feet of travel at your fastest conveyor speed along with a tunnel controller with a tire locator switch to run them. The payoff however is huge. Labor savings and longer equipment lifespan can be easily calculated. But having happier customers and employees with fewer headaches involved with safely managing acid-based wheel cleaners can be truly priceless. 

Remodeling Attitude - Treat each day like it’s your grand opening

By: Anthony Analetto
Originally Published in AutoLaundry Magazine

"Youth is a quality, not a matter of circumstances." Frank Lloyd Wright 

In a single day, I often find myself having absolutely opposing conversations. One minute I can be speaking with an operator that recently opened up a new location. They’re talking with enthusiasm about acquiring new customers, constantly tinkering with new promotions, tweaking wash quality, training, and site appearance. To them, their business is like a newborn child, employees are partners, and each new customer an achievement that needs to be coddled with loving care. Later in the day, my phone rings, and I’m talking to another car wash owner about increasing competition, reduced customer spending, economic unrest, and the latest ideas to cut costs and raise prices to combat these challenges. To them, their business is like an adolescent child not conforming to their expectations, employees are adversaries, and customers only care about getting more for less.

Remember TWA, MCI, Compaq, General Foods, E.F. Hutton, and other once-great organizations that have long since disappeared? Countless articles have been written on the demise of each.  Hindsight always being 20/20, it’s easy to find a timeline that documents the blunders that led to each company’s decline. I’d venture a guess however that each organization began its downward spiral the day the culture and attitude lost its youthful enthusiasm to love and coddle its customers.

Many factors dictate if a company will stand the test of time. Responding to changes in the market place and developing more efficient and profitable practices is crucial to success. But cultivating a positive attitude in your business with the same enthusiasm you had on the day you opened your first wash can overcome a lot of challenges. Let’s take a look.

Destroy Indifference
Attitudes are contagious. Enthusiasm is infectious. This is the phenomenon that drives the successful launch of any business. Think back to the grand opening of your first wash. Chances are you labored over every detail. Uniforms, signage, and wash packages were carefully crafted. Package names, price points, and service offerings to bundle incremental value were debated. You probably made so many last minute refinements that your sign company threatened to charge you a penalty if you made any more changes to the graphics! You were greeting customers. You were talking with staff about what was going well and looking for ways to make things better. The air was filled with enthusiasm to earn the business of every customer that entered the wash. That energy infected you and your staff and most were working with urgency to win the loyalty of each and every customer. Employees were energized to self-manage their work to make sure every customer was satisfied. If a customer wasn’t happy with the wash, your staff would have gone out of their way to fix the problem. Does that energy still exist today? If not, what happened?

Over time, about 20% of your traffic will be comprised of loyal customers accounting for 50-80% of sales. The other 80% fall into one of the following categories; impulse customers that purchase the wash package or special that seems good at the time based on a whim; discount customers that only wash based on the size of your markdown, and need-based customers that have a specific intention to get a car wash with minimal loyalty to any particular wash. To grow your business everyone knows to focus efforts on the loyal customers and to offer specials to entice the impulse buyer to a higher ticket. Unfortunately the discount and need-based customers, being in greater numbers, tend to misdirect our efforts and sap enthusiasm of both owners and staff to love and coddle all customers in general.

If enthusiasm is allowed to die, indifference, which is even more contagious, takes its place. One day you might decide that the practice of collecting community tips and dispersing the reward for winning customer service in pay checks just isn’t worth the effort. Then, instead of looking for ways to constantly improve site appearance, wash quality, training, and customer experience, you’re focused on cutting costs, possibly cutting what kept loyal customers glued to your wash. Indifference can creep into your business in hundreds of small ways and spreads to your staff and loyal customers at lightning speed.

Hopefully what I just wrote makes absolutely no sense to you. Hopefully your employees are smiling, engaged with customers as if it was your grand opening, and business is booming. But these are difficult times. If you suspect even the slightest possibility that indifference is trying to destroy your business, stop and determine if your wash can benefit from an attitude remodeling. It’s easier to do than you think and usually costs nothing.

Meet & Greet Your Customers
A little conversation can go a long way. If you’re not already doing it, invest as many hours each week as you can in walking around and talking with customers. Thank them. Ask them for recommendations to improve your service. Listen to them. Have no doubt that your employees will watch your every move and model their behavior based on your enthusiastic interaction with customers. Take advantage of this free and easy way to fight indifference from creeping into your business.

Empower Your Employees
Treat every unhappy customer like a loaded gun and give your employees the tools and training they need to take out the bullets. Absolutely monitor for abuse, but give every employee the authority to both refund the price of a wash and to issue a re-wash. Another helpful tactic to empower enthusiasm at your wash is to distribute a few vouchers for free car washes in paychecks each week. Whether they give them to friends & family or barter for other services, they now have clout as an employee of your wash, a sure-fire way to fight indifference.

Identify Loyal Customers
Finding a way to visibly mark your loyal customers is absolutely vital. Not only will you be able to give them the special attention they deserve, but your staff will be constantly reminded that their efforts on delivering enthusiastic customer service does matter. Point-of-sale technology is readily available to make it easy to capture data and automatically connect with your loyal customers. Alternatively, club cards, vehicle stickers, branded air fresheners, can all help make sure you know which customers on your property demand your highest level of attention.

Innovative Offers for Impulse Customers
There are two equally important reasons to constantly innovate new creative special offers to try and move impulse customers to higher tickets. The first reason is obvious – revenue generation. The second reason though is a bit more subtle, it gives you a reason to engage in conversations with staff about the success of each offering. A simple, “how is the special X promotion working?” engages employees and helps combat indifference.

Focus on Facility Maintenance
Landscaping, paint, bathrooms, driveways, lobbies – your ability to keep all areas of your wash spotlessly maintained and cared for works like a powerful force field against employee indifference. The opposite is equally true. If you allow the appearance of your site to deteriorate, you’ll be left forever trying to answer the question “did my best customers leave because my wash didn’t look cared for, or did they leave because my employees felt indifferent and didn’t care for my best customers.”  

Concentrate on Wash Performance
Cars change. Climate conditions change. Water quality changes. The question is, are you constantly evaluating and tweaking your detergent and wash equipment to deliver the best possible product? Talk about wash quality constantly with all employees. Involve everyone in preventive maintenance and share your ideas for continuous improvement of the wash process. Basically, the more visible you can make your passionate obsession for delivering a clean, dry, shiny car – the harder your employees will work to satisfy your customers.

Summary
Sometimes, the best things in life actually are free. Remodeling the attitude of your car wash doesn’t call for any large sum of money, education, or special talent. Just a little friendly conversation, careful role-modeling of good customer service, and constant vigilance in maintaining your site, and suddenly employee indifference will melt away.

Good luck, and good washing!

Damage Claims - Reducing damage to your business through diplomacy

By: Anthony Analetto
Originally Published in AutoLaundry Magazine

The second rule of navigating damage claims is to embrace the principle that most people are reasonable (you’ll have to read all the way to the bottom for the first rule). If your mind just filled with the memory of a screaming customer demanding payment on the spot for damage they believed came from your wash, I realize it may be hard to believe, but let me repeat, most people truly are reasonable. In this article I’ll cover using cameras and research to reduce liability, along with tips to avoid damage claims in the first place. The real trick is having the diplomacy to lead customers to rational behavior when their adrenaline is pumping. At your car wash, there’s an even bigger challenge – which is how to create and train the processes and procedures that turn a good manager into a good diplomat, one that handles each damage claim in a clear, consistent way, every time.

I remember a situation once with a regular customer and his BMW. On this model, BMW had an air deflector on the driver-side wiper, but not on the passenger. One day he comes through in a hurry, looks at his car after the wash, demands to see a manager, and begins yelling that the car wash ripped the air deflector off the passenger side wiper. My first reaction was to tell him that the car never had a deflector on the passenger side, but instead followed my own training, listened, and said nothing until he finished. I then explained that if we damaged his car we would of course pay for any repair and asked him to fill out the damage claim form, at which point he nearly exploded, saying that he didn’t have time to fill out papers. Again, my first reaction was to ask him how he expected us to reimburse him for a claim he wouldn’t even fill out, but I again followed procedure and moved him to a third-party, in this case, the BMW dealer. After I wrote down the pertinent information, including the VIN number, I simply told him to go to the BMW dealer, get a price for the passenger wiper, and to bring it to us so that we could fill out the damage claim form and resolve the situation. One week later, after the BMW dealer informs him there’s no such part – he comes back, apologizes, and thanks me for not calling him a liar. It turns out he was on his way to a friend’s funeral service and wasn’t in the best frame of mind.

The moral of the story is that most people are reasonable when you have the diplomacy to lead them to rational behavior. Unfortunately, diplomacy requires self-discipline. Regardless if you run a military or a car wash, don’t expect your front line people to have self-discipline without rigid procedures, rules, and training in place. So how do you make this happen? Let’s take a look.

Step 1: Diffuse the Situation and Document the Claim
Most washes have a form with the phrase “Damage Claim Report” in big bold letters at the top. Think about it. Right from the beginning, the title of the form has said that the customer has been damaged, has a claim against your business, and is reporting that fact for compensation. Change it, and change it fast. Call it a “Customer Experience Report” or if you must, a “Customer Unpleasant Experience Report.” Next, state your resolution procedure at the top of the page, right under the title, before asking for contact information. Your policy might have a heading such as “If you ever have an unpleasant experience at our wash”; with five bullets that say something to the effect of: (1) We promise to listen to your experience completely, and will never interrupt you until you have told us everything that occurred. (2) We promise to write an accurate report of the experience and provide you with a copy. (3) We promise to photograph your vehicle before leaving the property and provide you with copies of the pictures for your records. (4) We promise to provide you a list of certified third-party shops that can perform an honest and free-of-charge estimate to repair any damage. (5) We promise to review your experience and if the damage is shown to have been caused by improper action of either our equipment or staff, resolve the claim quickly and professionally. It’s important to state your policy in writing on the form first, and then have spaces to write in contact information including vehicle VIN#, manager and customer written descriptions of what occurred, and company legalese. The reason is simple. Even though you’ve trained your managers to act diplomatically, in the heat of the moment, it’s easy for them to forget.  By repeating your policy in the one place they’re sure to see it, you remind your manager of your expectation for diplomatic self-discipline, the steps they must complete, and assure the customer that they will be attended to in a respectful and orderly manner.

Step 2: Be Prepared
This step is rather straightforward, so here it is. Every car wash should have surveillance cameras that record the condition of a car before it enters the wash. Every car wash should have a written policy of what they are, and are not responsible for, clearly posted for customers to read. Every car wash should have negotiated discounts, or reciprocal service agreements, with local body shops.  Every car wash should have a camera and printer onsite with managers trained to photograph all vehicle damage before the car leaves the property. Every car wash should maintain an updated laminated card with a picture of any vehicle with a history of problems and any special handling procedures. Every car wash must have a “Customer Experience Report” to document claims. Every car wash should collect the VIN# of any vehicle that has an incident at the wash to research pre-existing damage. And, whenever possible, every car wash should visually inspect all vehicles before they enter the wash. To accommodate this practice without slowing production, many washes, especially express-exteriors, will simply train drive-on attendants to touch any scratches or blemishes they see and then point up to the camera. This recognition of damage by an attendant before the car enters the wash makes a powerful statement to a customer watching the video who may not have noticed the damage before.

Step 3: Research Your Liability
Although cameras that record vehicles entering the wash are a solid first line of defense, often you’ll have to dig deeper. With the VIN# of the vehicle, you’ll first want to look up any recalls that may be related to the damage that occurred. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, www.nhtsa.gov, is a good place to start. If that doesn’t help, turn to a paid reporting service such as CARFAX or AutoCheck. These services not only let a car buyer research a vehicle’s history, they can also alert a car wash operator to check if the damage to a vehicle occurred from an earlier accident that was improperly repaired. Imagine you discover that a car, whose bumper fell off in the wash, was previously in a front-end collision. You’re able to alert the body shop to check if an improper repair caused the damage, remind the customer of the accident, or if they’re the second owner, inform them that the car was previously damaged.

Step 4: Resolve to Your Advantage
Your business is about delivering value to the customer. If your research concludes that you are responsible for the damage claimed, fix it fast with a sincere apology. On the other hand, if it turns out that you are clearly not liable, diplomatically inform the customer, in person if possible, show them whatever videos, reports, or other information that demonstrate why you’re unable to pay for their claim, and again sincerely apologize. In either case, you’ll want to provide them with vouchers for free services on the spot, wait a week, and mail them a letter with another coupon for free or discounted services. Some operators will give nothing – which they justify by saying they’ve lost the customer anyway. Personally I prefer to shower any customer with a damage claim, whether paid or not, with vouchers for free services. If they’re so angry that they refuse to use my wash again, they’ll either throw the vouchers away, or give them to friends. This dissuades them from speaking negatively about my business in the community I serve. And if they use the vouchers, I’ve managed to maintain a customer, and potentially turn them into a raving fan.

The First Rule to Preventing Damage Claims
Although you can’t guarantee that every car enters your wash undamaged, you can absolutely ensure that your wash doesn’t damage a good car. Proper equipment and wash materials, correctly maintained, with appropriate use of lubricating soap, will nearly eliminate any potential for vehicle damage. Combine that with continuous staff training and coaching, and you’re on your way to reducing the impact of damage claims on your business.

Sweating out the Summer - Maximizing Productivity When Business Slows Down

By: Anthony Analetto
Originally Published in AutoLaundry Magazine

The second rule of navigating damage claims is to embrace the principle that most people are reasonable (you’ll have to read all the way to the bottom for the first rule). If your mind just filled with the memory of a screaming customer demanding payment on the spot for damage they believed came from your wash, I realize it may be hard to believe, but let me repeat, most people truly are reasonable. In this article I’ll cover using cameras and research to reduce liability, along with tips to avoid damage claims in the first place. The real trick is having the diplomacy to lead customers to rational behavior when their adrenaline is pumping. At your car wash, there’s an even bigger challenge – which is how to create and train the processes and procedures that turn a good manager into a good diplomat, one that handles each damage claim in a clear, consistent way, every time.

I remember a situation once with a regular customer and his BMW. On this model, BMW had an air deflector on the driver-side wiper, but not on the passenger. One day he comes through in a hurry, looks at his car after the wash, demands to see a manager, and begins yelling that the car wash ripped the air deflector off the passenger side wiper. My first reaction was to tell him that the car never had a deflector on the passenger side, but instead followed my own training, listened, and said nothing until he finished. I then explained that if we damaged his car we would of course pay for any repair and asked him to fill out the damage claim form, at which point he nearly exploded, saying that he didn’t have time to fill out papers. Again, my first reaction was to ask him how he expected us to reimburse him for a claim he wouldn’t even fill out, but I again followed procedure and moved him to a third-party, in this case, the BMW dealer. After I wrote down the pertinent information, including the VIN number, I simply told him to go to the BMW dealer, get a price for the passenger wiper, and to bring it to us so that we could fill out the damage claim form and resolve the situation. One week later, after the BMW dealer informs him there’s no such part – he comes back, apologizes, and thanks me for not calling him a liar. It turns out he was on his way to a friend’s funeral service and wasn’t in the best frame of mind.

The moral of the story is that most people are reasonable when you have the diplomacy to lead them to rational behavior. Unfortunately, diplomacy requires self-discipline. Regardless if you run a military or a car wash, don’t expect your front line people to have self-discipline without rigid procedures, rules, and training in place. So how do you make this happen? Let’s take a look.

Step 1: Diffuse the Situation and Document the Claim
Most washes have a form with the phrase “Damage Claim Report” in big bold letters at the top. Think about it. Right from the beginning, the title of the form has said that the customer has been damaged, has a claim against your business, and is reporting that fact for compensation. Change it, and change it fast. Call it a “Customer Experience Report” or if you must, a “Customer Unpleasant Experience Report.” Next, state your resolution procedure at the top of the page, right under the title, before asking for contact information. Your policy might have a heading such as “If you ever have an unpleasant experience at our wash”; with five bullets that say something to the effect of: (1) We promise to listen to your experience completely, and will never interrupt you until you have told us everything that occurred. (2) We promise to write an accurate report of the experience and provide you with a copy. (3) We promise to photograph your vehicle before leaving the property and provide you with copies of the pictures for your records. (4) We promise to provide you a list of certified third-party shops that can perform an honest and free-of-charge estimate to repair any damage. (5) We promise to review your experience and if the damage is shown to have been caused by improper action of either our equipment or staff, resolve the claim quickly and professionally. It’s important to state your policy in writing on the form first, and then have spaces to write in contact information including vehicle VIN#, manager and customer written descriptions of what occurred, and company legalese. The reason is simple. Even though you’ve trained your managers to act diplomatically, in the heat of the moment, it’s easy for them to forget.  By repeating your policy in the one place they’re sure to see it, you remind your manager of your expectation for diplomatic self-discipline, the steps they must complete, and assure the customer that they will be attended to in a respectful and orderly manner.

Step 2: Be Prepared
This step is rather straightforward, so here it is. Every car wash should have surveillance cameras that record the condition of a car before it enters the wash. Every car wash should have a written policy of what they are, and are not responsible for, clearly posted for customers to read. Every car wash should have negotiated discounts, or reciprocal service agreements, with local body shops.  Every car wash should have a camera and printer onsite with managers trained to photograph all vehicle damage before the car leaves the property. Every car wash should maintain an updated laminated card with a picture of any vehicle with a history of problems and any special handling procedures. Every car wash must have a “Customer Experience Report” to document claims. Every car wash should collect the VIN# of any vehicle that has an incident at the wash to research pre-existing damage. And, whenever possible, every car wash should visually inspect all vehicles before they enter the wash. To accommodate this practice without slowing production, many washes, especially express-exteriors, will simply train drive-on attendants to touch any scratches or blemishes they see and then point up to the camera. This recognition of damage by an attendant before the car enters the wash makes a powerful statement to a customer watching the video who may not have noticed the damage before.

Step 3: Research Your Liability
Although cameras that record vehicles entering the wash are a solid first line of defense, often you’ll have to dig deeper. With the VIN# of the vehicle, you’ll first want to look up any recalls that may be related to the damage that occurred. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, www.nhtsa.gov, is a good place to start. If that doesn’t help, turn to a paid reporting service such as CARFAX or AutoCheck. These services not only let a car buyer research a vehicle’s history, they can also alert a car wash operator to check if the damage to a vehicle occurred from an earlier accident that was improperly repaired. Imagine you discover that a car, whose bumper fell off in the wash, was previously in a front-end collision. You’re able to alert the body shop to check if an improper repair caused the damage, remind the customer of the accident, or if they’re the second owner, inform them that the car was previously damaged.

Step 4: Resolve to Your Advantage
Your business is about delivering value to the customer. If your research concludes that you are responsible for the damage claimed, fix it fast with a sincere apology. On the other hand, if it turns out that you are clearly not liable, diplomatically inform the customer, in person if possible, show them whatever videos, reports, or other information that demonstrate why you’re unable to pay for their claim, and again sincerely apologize. In either case, you’ll want to provide them with vouchers for free services on the spot, wait a week, and mail them a letter with another coupon for free or discounted services. Some operators will give nothing – which they justify by saying they’ve lost the customer anyway. Personally I prefer to shower any customer with a damage claim, whether paid or not, with vouchers for free services. If they’re so angry that they refuse to use my wash again, they’ll either throw the vouchers away, or give them to friends. This dissuades them from speaking negatively about my business in the community I serve. And if they use the vouchers, I’ve managed to maintain a customer, and potentially turn them into a raving fan.

The First Rule to Preventing Damage Claims
Although you can’t guarantee that every car enters your wash undamaged, you can absolutely ensure that your wash doesn’t damage a good car. Proper equipment and wash materials, correctly maintained, with appropriate use of lubricating soap, will nearly eliminate any potential for vehicle damage. Combine that with continuous staff training and coaching, and you’re on your way to reducing the impact of damage claims on your business.

Coaching - What did we do right? What happened that we didn’t expect? What can we do better next week?

By: Anthony Analetto
Originally Published in AutoLaundry Magazine

“The person that said winning isn't everything, never won anything.” Mia Hamm

 Watching a well-run car wash on a busy day is a magical experience. Volume starts to spike, everything starts to click, and rhythm takes control. Employees automatically adjust equipment and procedures to handle the volume. It’s like watching a synchronized swimming event at the Olympics – and it’s absolutely beautiful. Every new investor I’ve ever met that becomes enamored with our industry has first visited one of these magical car washes on a busy day. But the truth is not every car wash achieves that rhythm. I’ve seen new investors, even large corporations, attempt to copy the car wash that inspired them. They’ll mirror the site layout, equipment, wash packages, and procedures. Some hit a homerun. Others miss their projections. Having copied a business model they saw working with their own eyes – they tend to assume that they built it on the wrong spot, or didn’t market the wash properly. Sometimes that is true. But when you stop and think of the phenomenally successful car washes you’ve seen with poor visibility and non-existent marketing, you realize there’s got to be other components to winning. In sports we acknowledge that every successful team has one thing in common – a winning coach. Well, the same holds true for your business. So how do you become a winning coach at your car wash? Fortunately, the path to elevating the performance of your staff is easier than it appears.

Create a Game Day Mentality:
People like to win. People like to be part of a winning team. People like to prepare for the big game, go all out for a few hours, and high-five each other afterwards. Before the game, people are receptive to a coaches input to help them win. After the game, they will again listen to the coach to help them win the next time. In business however, we sometimes forget this locker room lesson. Instead, we often rely solely on monthly sales targets and incentive programs. We assume people are purely rational, and that they will maintain higher productivity, or manage others to higher productivity, in order to collect their financial reward at the end of the period. Don’t get me wrong. Incentive programs are an important management tool. They guide your managers to think strategically and work to sustain higher levels of productivity. Unfortunately, most employees struggle to maintain a sense of urgency for an extended period of time. It’s too easy to think “we still have time to hit our numbers.” Or worse, they may not be confident that the numbers you’ve established are attainable even if they are.  Either way, period based incentives, although valuable – lack the same energy and enthusiasm of preparing for a game. So how can you create a “game day mentality” at your wash? Easy, start with your busiest day. Next, read the rest of this article to see how you can leverage your game day to coach your employees to higher levels – to set record wash days – and raise production, enthusiasm, and customer satisfaction every day in between.

Pregame Warm-up - Communicate Expectations:
Assume you’ve chosen Saturday to be your game day. Decide on an attainable and meaningful goal for the day. It could be the number of cars washed, total revenue, or some other combination. For simplicity I’ll pretend you’ve decided to use the total number of cars washed. Look up what your previous best day was, for example, let’s say it was 500 cars. Now hold a meeting with all of your employees together, the team, before the start of the day. You, the coach, will explain some change you made during the previous week to grow volume. This could be an advertisement, new wash special, uniform change, wash improvement, customer greeting, nearly anything. Let your team know what the current record is that they have to beat, in this case 500 cars washed. Tell them that you believe they can beat that record today.  Paint a pretty picture of what success will look like.  Set the prize they’ll get if they beat the previous record. Be creative, it does not have to be money. Keep the prize sustainable, meaning it’s better to offer a moderate prize consistently rather than a huge prize one week and a tiny prize the next, so pick something you can afford if they succeed every week. If you do use cash, give an equal amount for every member of the team. Now that you’re the coach on game day, let’s look at some easy ways to elevate their performance.

Develop a Game Plan:
Put your aces in their places. On game day you have to put your starters where they can do the most good. Part of coaching is to elevate staff performance. The other part is getting your top performers to bring up the game of those around them. Don’t just let your best people know what they’re doing well, put them alongside less experienced employees and ask them if they can help you get that person up to speed. With one question you’ll motivate them to do a better job and train your other staff.

Build Confidence:
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Although you have set a day’s end goal for your team, in the trenches, working one-on-one with individual staff, you want to keep it small. I remember training temporary staff at full-serves to finish a car. I’d review the whole process, they would do it with me correctly, I’d walk away, and they wouldn’t get one thing right. When I went back to correct them, I’d only fix one mistake, sandwiched between two compliments. “That was good, I liked your energy, and next time you want to box the windows like I showed you and wipe side-to-side, the windows come out better that way. And also, you did a really good job keeping the towels folded.” Now they might get 3 or 4 things right. A few minutes later, I’d correct one more thing, again sandwiched between two positives. “I noticed you’re wiping the windows perfect which is great, and next time, when you’re leaning down to do the door jambs, don’t forget to hold the other towel in your hand while touching the car. And also, you did a great job starting at the front of the car and keeping the can in your pocket.” This time when I walk away, he’s thinking he’s lucky I didn’t notice the other things he did wrong, and within 15 minutes, he’s doing the job correctly. The formula is simple and powerful. You did this right, and you need to fix this, and also you did that correctly. The first thing to remember is to sandwich one negative between two positives to motivate your staff to achieve. Second, use the word “and” instead of “but” between your comments. A small change in wording that builds confidence instead of putting your employee on the defensive.

Postgame Show - Get Them Involved:
Everyone wants to feel important, but not always for you, their coach. I remember I had a great driver once, attentive, careful, courteous, and interacted positively with customers. The only problem was that he was always trying to wear his pants around his ankles. Every time I would reprimand him, he’d pull them up. Then, over the day, they’d start to slide back down. Finally I went up to him and said “don’t look behind you, but 3 of our regular customers are starring at you. I know they like you and you’re one of the best drivers I’ve ever had. They’re looking at you because your pants are practically around your ankles. If you pulled up your pants so that your appearance matched the quality of your work, they’d respect you more and probably tip more to.” I coached him to view the customer, not me, as his boss. And as soon as I walked away, he looked back, saw the customers, pulled up his pants, and never let them drop again.

Getting your employees involved means giving them ownership of wowing your customers. At the end of your game day you must bring your team together to ask the following questions. What did we do right? What happened that we didn’t expect? What can we do better next week? Your goal as their coach is to get your staff involved in creating some new advertisement, wash special, uniform change, wash improvement, customer greeting, or anything that will help them to do better the following week.

Many things can go wrong at a car wash. Imagine the weather turns and it starts to rain. Your team may miss their goal, but this is often the best opportunity to coach. For one operator I know, his staff came up with the idea of offering discounted detailing on rainy days. They then independently setup social networking sites and text messaging to promote the services with phenomenal success. Everyone can be a winning coach. With a little effort and planning, successful coaching can be the secret ingredient to enjoying more of those magical high volume days that make this business so much fun.

3 Steps to Grow Your Business



By: Anthony Analetto
Originally Published in AutoLaundry Magazine


I’ve always liked the expression “if everyone seems to be thinking alike, then no one is thinking.” Whether you believe that global recovery is for real, or that we have a few more years to go – positioning your car wash business to grow over the coming year requires thought and planning. For nearly a decade, car washing has been dominated by the express-exterior wash format. Minimal labor, high volume, ease of management – what’s not to like? Being the co-owner of two such properties, both successful, built when financing was readily available, I’m the first to sing the praises of this wash format. But an express-exterior requires a distinct property that is fundamental to its success. Banks today don’t seem to favor the knock down and rebuild, ground-up construction, or expensive land requirements for these washes. From what I’ve seen, banks want to loan less, prefer multiple profit centers, and are more receptive to reinventing existing washes without major construction. And by thinking differently, today’s car wash investors are evolving the industry once again. They are following a three-step model that includes exploring potential locations in their market, evaluating each opportunity, and executing in a way that leverages today’s equipment capabilities and financing requirements to growtheir business – let’s take a look.

Better Safe than Sorry - Simple Steps to Improve Site Safety

By: Anthony Analetto
Originally Published in AutoLaundry Magazine

Did you know that one of the largest car wash chains in the country has a push-on, push-off policy exclusively for any Jeep Cherokee, any year, which enters their wash? Did you know that within the last 6-months, unintended acceleration involving Jeep Cherokees at the car wash killed two people?

This is nothing new. I’ve written about it before. Last week my 17 year old son decided to take a line position at a nearby flex-serve car wash. Admittedly a little overprotective I decided to call the owner, a friend of mine, to see what his current driver training and car handling procedures were. I asked if he had heard about the recent fatalities involving Jeep Cherokees. Genuinely surprised, he replied no, and that it had been so long since he heard about the issue, he couldn’t say with absolute confidence that all of his staff were still following the correct driver safety procedures. But that he would find out. Satisfied that he would ensure the simple safety practices that save lives, and potentially my son’s, were in place, I realized it might be a good idea to remind everyone of the few extra steps to protect the safety of our employees and customers. Attention to training, management, signage, and site planning can help avoid tragedy; here are a few ideas I’ve written about before to start with.

Driver Training & Certification Program

Set very specific requirements as to who at your site is permitted to move a customer’s car. Train them. Test them. Certify them and differentiate them from the rest of your staff.  I’ve seen some operators use red vests, baseball caps, and distinct shirts. Whatever you use, your manager must be able to know with a quick glance, without thinking, that whoever is driving a car has been certified to do so.

Driver certification can include many things. At a bare minimum, you must verify that they possess a valid driver’s license, have passed a drug screening, and can drive both automatic and manual transmission vehicles. A safe wash will use those base qualities to verify that candidates are eligible to receive special driver certification. All certified drivers must be trained and able to demonstrate a complete understanding of vehicle stacking and moving procedures. In addition, they should be aware of all cars with special considerations and know proper handling procedures.

Some vehicles require additional care when moving. Every wash must devise a list of them and the necessary action to alert all people on the property to the potential danger. Visor clips, steering wheel covers, hazard lights, or horn honks each time a vehicle is moved are some common signals used. Vehicles that warrant extra care include those with modifications common for driver education or handicapped operation, as well as cars with a documented history of sudden acceleration. Regional and national car wash associations are excellent sources for information on makes and models that demand caution when on your property.

The last component of a driver certification program is to make sure it’s treated seriously. It is advised to provide additional compensation or benefit such as free uniforms to certified drivers. Equally, managers must fully appreciate that failure to adhere to these procedures can and will result in serious injury.

Start in Park Procedure for Special Care Vehicles
Did you know that most, if not all, unintended acceleration incidents occur when shifting a running car from neutral to drive when exiting the conveyor? Cars with a documented history of unintended acceleration should never be permitted to go through the conveyor with the engine running. At the exit of the conveyor, all special care vehicles should be placed in park with the brake pedal fully depressed and visually verified before starting the engine. Drivers must be trained to watch the tachometer and wait for engine speed to decline after ignition before slowly releasing the brakes and proceeding with caution, hand on the ignition and ready to turn off the engine in the event of unintended acceleration. The parking brake can also be engaged as an additional safety precaution.

 

Bollards Equal Safety

Bollards are steel pipes embedded into the ground and filled with concrete. Used for years to provide protective barriers around gas pumps, vended vacuums, and building entrances, they can also be used to provide a safe place for attendants to stand at your wash. Flex-serve and Express-Exterior washes are increasingly installing them on the driver side of the conveyor entrance. Attendants stand safely behind the post as they guide customers onto the conveyor. Full-serve washes are using Bollards to provide safer work areas in vacuum lanes, finishing areas, or anywhere cars and people are both moving around. For anyone who reads my column regularly, you’ve probably realized I strongly recommend against any manual vehicle prep. For those who insist on using labor instead of the many available equipment options for this function, Bollards can again be used to provide a safe separation between prep attendants and cars entering the conveyor.

Eliminate Unnecessary Movement

Every time a customer or employee moves a car at your site, there is the potential for an accident. To improve safety, move the car as few times as possible. Whenever possible, use the customer to move it. Express-Exteriors are designed so that the customer drives through the wash and either exits directly, or to free vacuums before leaving. Flex-Serves are similar in that they are normally laid out so that customers who select interior services are guided into a predetermined bay in the aftercare center. They then drive their own car away from the spot where they left it once services are complete. Safety problems can arise at Flex-Serves where land or other considerations require an attendant to move the car and at Full-Serves where an employee drives vehicles on or off the conveyor.

When attendants must move cars, do everything possible to reduce the distance and number of times it occurs. Moves should never happen more than twice. For this to occur, the car must be vacuumed where the customer leaves it, and moved once to the conveyor entrance. It is then driven a second time from the conveyor exit to the finishing area where services are performed and the customer drives away from the wash. Too often, cars are unnecessarily moved short distances at both the entrance and exit of a car wash. This jostling of cars is unsafe, inefficient, and avoidable with training and signage to “fill the grid”.

Fill the Grid

To efficiently and safely move cars through your wash they must move in and out of grids in an exact pattern. Everything must be predictable. Every person at the wash must know where the next car will be going. If you can’t ask any employee at your wash “why didn’t you fill the grid” without them immediately understanding what you said and apologizing, you have a safety problem. So what is a grid? At most Full-Serves, there are two grids, one where a customer turns over the car for vacuuming, and a second where an attendant parks the car for finishing. Grids are easy to understand and implement. The difficulty is ensuring they are adhered to every time, by every employee.

The Vacuum Grid

The vacuum grid illustration shows a typical two lane stack with 4 drops and 4 spots. Customers are guided into each spot, in sequence, to fill the grid, with the vacuum drop between cars. The most common mistake made happens on slow days. Both attendants and customers will want to fill spot 1 and jump to spot 3. You must train this habit out of your employees. You must also make sure customers know to remain in their car and wait for an attendant to guide them into the correct location before getting out. It may be necessary to use signs and cones to instruct customers to stop and wait. Some locations may also have to get a longer hose, about 20 feet, to be able to reach all areas of both cars in the lane from each drop. The result is that in a short time you will have better predictability, fewer vehicle movements, and improved safety. Skipping the one car length move to the vacuum by a hurried attendant reduces the risk of injury in an area with a lot up unexpected motion.

The Finishing Grid

One of the greatest opportunities to improve safety is to stack cars predictably in the Full Service finishing area. Depending on what your property allows, you should layout a grid to the maximum width and necessary depth to accommodate the highest anticipated volume. Every car should come off the conveyor into an assigned spot, not to be moved again until the owner drives the finished product away. An organized grid system maintains all cars headed in the same direction. As long as there is a car in the grid, the drive off attendant must complete the grid. Some operators stencil the ground with numbers and positioning marks to avoid confusion. An additional safety measure is to install an anti-collision system. These products detect if a car has cleared the conveyor exit and shut down the conveyor and all equipment if a car does not exit for any reason.

The other objective is to reduce and control the movement of people at the conveyor exit. Employees should move to the vehicle, never the other way around. Customers should have a clear path to walk to their car that minimizes crossing traffic exiting the conveyor. All supplies that attendants need to finish the car should be within half a car length from where they are working. This keeps employees from moving around which is not only safer, but more efficient as well.  For a grid to work effectively it must always be followed regardless of volume or employee count. Good habits breed predictability which is the foundation for improving safety.

Summary

No matter how busy, or slow, your site is, everyone should know where the next vehicle is supposed to go. Creating a predictable and controlled environment, that minimizes employee movement and provides protective barriers for them to do their job, will improve the safety of your wash. Safety shouldn’t be left to chance. Careful attention to training, management, signage, procedures, and equipment will help protect the most import assets at your wash … people.

One Wash Cycle per Every Three Pounds - 5-Steps to Finding Innovative Solutions to Grow Your Business

By: Anthony Analetto

While sitting down to write this article, only two weeks since Thanksgiving, a colleague called. Before talking about business, we had to first cover a very important annual topic – what innovations we came up with in the preparation of our Thanksgiving Day turkeys – and how it relates to car washing.

Now before this phone conversation, I thought I was pretty creative.  Needing to prepare two turkeys to feed our guests, I roasted the first on a bed of carrots, celery, onions, and garlic – a tip I picked up watching Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on the Food Network. After cooking, the vegetables are then pureed into the gravy, which drew some funny looks from my family, but they ate every drop.  When I said I was going to smoke the second turkey however, I was met with absolute resistance. Ignoring comments like “Dad, why can’t you just make a normal turkey?”  I proceeded to brine it with Bourbon and Apple Juice, making it the happiest turkey I’ve ever eaten.  At the end of the meal – the smoked turkey was gone and leftover roasted turkey was moved to the refrigerator.

Catch a Rising Star - Seven things you can do to uncover and cultivate employee passion

Last week I had an eye opening experience. A group of friends and I chartered a boat and went sail fishing off the Florida Keys. Six guys on a boat, four of which, including me, were sail fishing “rookies”. By noon, all four rookies had each caught and released a 6 to 7 foot sailfish ranging from 35 to 75 pounds. You would have thought that we were the most excited people on the water, but we weren’t. While I stood on the bridge watching the crew, all my attention was on the first mate. Here’s a guy who had been sail fishing since he was six years old and probably caught and released over a thousand fish in his life. But as he stood there, passionately giving a play-by-play of how the fish spit out the first bait we threw at it but took the second, I hollered down jokingly, “You act like it’s the first fish you’ve ever caught.” The kid just held up his hands which were still shaking with adrenaline, shrugged, and said “I always get this fired-up sail fishing.” A better first mate and future captain, you couldn’t hope to find anywhere. What struck me, and why I’m writing about the experience, was that at the same time this first mate is giving us the time of our life and earning our loyalty for any future trips, the captain’s attitude towards the first mate was doing the opposite.