Maintaining a Great Car Wash in 2019
The dawn of a new year is a perfect time to analyze your previous year’s success and failures. If you ran a car wash in 2018, you might have a list of what went well and what didn’t. If you want to continue to improve how you run a car wash in 2019, you need to evaluate what you did well and give yourself a clean slate for the less than great choices. Forming your 2019 car wash business plan is a wonderful way to start the year successfully.
Check Your Online Reviews
Staying in tune with your customer’s voice should be a regular part of any small business. Online reviews on Google, Yelp, Facebook, and other websites are a constant source of customer feedback. Responding to these in a timely fashion can be key to rewarding positive customer experiences and assuaging negativity.
But, at a the turn of the year, you may want to consider what the big picture looks like. Is there a common theme among your reviews? Do you have customers complaining about scratches and dents from your equipment? Do your customers have realistic expectations for your basic wash option and do they believe your deluxe package is worth shelling out the extra dosh?
Keep your evaluation simple. If you can gather one common positive compliment and one frequent negative complaint, you can evaluate what your strengths and weaknesses are. From here you can set two 2019 goals: one for doubling down on your strength and one for improving your weakness.
If you don’t have enough in-depth reviews or you’re just too awesome to get complaints, you can consider this list of common customer concerns from Professional Carwashing & Detailing.
Talk About Your Marketing Strategy
After you have a good idea about the areas of customer concern you would like to address, it’s time to talk about marketing. Your car wash marketing strategy broadly refers to how you interact with your customer before, during and after they visit your wash.
With this in mind, an authentic small business marketing strategy is more effective the more it aligns with what customers are actually saying. Advertising doesn’t need to stretch the truth if you are confident in what your car wash does best. If you have a home run hitter of a deluxe package or a wash club program all your loyal customers love, let the truth do the talking. Your marketing strategy will ring clear and true if you can emphasize what you know your potential customers will be dying to come back to if they only get a taste.
From this unique understanding of your car wash, you have a direction for your marketing strategy and you can plan your path to growing your business from there. Your business is unique and has unique strengths and weaknesses. For some car washes, highlighting happy customers who share photos of their clean cars on social media is a great way to go. For others, the loyalty program might need some tender loving care. Traditional and digital advertising can be great way to go so long as you keep close tabs on how every dollar spent translates into additional revenue.
Evaluate Your Regular Maintenance Plans
As we discussed in our “5 Business Tips for New Car Wash Owners”, maintaining the cleanliness and mechanics of your car washes is an important side of owning a phenomenal car wash. If you are used to chasing down frequent mechanical issues, 2019 can be a proactive year for you. You can decide right now to develop a proactive maintenance plan that brings regularity to your year.
When you know how often you need to clean your car wash pits, you can plan for when to do so and limit downtime due to closed car wash locations. You can rely on employees to confirm that your equipment is in fully working regularly without prompting. As Ben Franklin once said, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” This is especially true with maintenance plans where mundane checks are worth the effort when they prevent unnecessary drama of escalating problems.
If you don’t have a maintenance schedule already in place, you may want to check out Simoniz’s “Car Wash Building & Equipment Maintenance Training.”
Attend the Car Wash Show
The Car Wash Show is an annual collaboration of car wash associations, equipment manufacturers and car wash owners. This year it is convening in Nashville, Tennessee on May 13-15th. Go to The Car Wash Show website for more details.
Go Luck With Your Car Wash in 2019!
In whatever position, you find your car wash at the start of 2019, we sincerely hope that you can continue to grow and thrive. Here at Pit Crew, we care that your car wash runs well and stays operational throughout the year. We are committed to cleaning your car wash pits on a regular basis with as little downtime as possible. Here’s to your best year yet!
