As a car wash owner, you’ve no doubt heard about multiple different ways to attract and retain a loyal, consistent customer base. There are the obvious ones — good prices, a consistent product, quality output, efficient service, etc. — and those best practices must always be done at a high level to compete in today’s market. But there are other ways to attract and retain customers, too, including something you may never have considered: a monthly car wash pass.
- Also Read: Automatic Car Wash
Basically, the pass offers your customers the opportunity to get their car washed at your business an unlimited amount of times in a month for a set amount of money. No matter how many times that customer comes by in a month — one, two, ten, whatever! — you still automatically debit out that amount of money from their account. And as with most decisions in the business world, there both advantages and disadvantages to producing a monthly pass for your customers.
The Advantages — Monthly Income!
One of the trickiest things about running any business, including a car wash company, is figuring out how to budget future monthly earnings against expenses. What if far fewer customers come in one month, or during one season, than what you’ve realistically forecasted? Can your carefully planned budget handle an unexpected dip, or dry spell, for whatever reason?
With monthly passes for loyal customers, you can rest easier knowing that no matter how many times a customer may come in one month, you’re going to receive a certain amount of money from them on a set, expected date. Extrapolated over hundreds or thousands of customers, you can start to reliable forecast and budget month to month and year to year. The automatic monthly payment gives you peace of mind, knowing you’ll have at least a set amount of money coming in reliably each month, before you even account for one-off washes by one-time customers, on top of it all.
The Disadvantages — Ready For Repeats?
Before you set a monthly pass and create a payment level, be sure about the delicate balance between these three self-serve car wash customers: (1) the one who rarely uses it, thereby giving you a greater margin for profit, (2) the one who uses it once or twice a month, as a normal customer might be expected, and (3) the customer who takes “unlimited” to the extreme, and goes all out. Customers like that can be a serious drain on your car wash equipment and company resources if you don’t budget carefully for them within the monthly pricing options.
Monthly Car Wash
It’s critical for you as a business owner to figure out what the best middle-ground price will be to account for some of those “heavy” users while still attracting enough mid-level and lower customers who are happy to pay a monthly fee without over-using the service and straining your car wash company supplies, resources, and costs. If you can find that sweet spot, you can realistically expect long-term success and at least partially knowable monthly profits from the perfect monthly pass for your customers!
