Charge $$ for hand dry

I was thinking charging $3 ala cart for hand drying. I operate a new flex serve car wash with a Belanger air blade at the exit end. It does a OK job drying but it does leave a bit of water on the cars. Now that winter is here will the customer pay to have there car hand dry ed or will they complain that there cars were not dry to begin with?. I have two DRB's so I can up-sell the hand dry. Also my guys just stand around when we are slow.

We implemented this at our wash (a full serve / combo) around a year ago and generally have 300 - 400 selections per month, @ $4. Easy to implement, good revenue, customers love it.

Thanks milesjohnson You have a nice facility. Any one else?

Turning lemon... into lemonade!

A number of flex-Serve operators have been offering hand-finishing as an Express After-Care service for years at our recommendation as a way of avoiding the dilemma of staffing at the exit-end of their air dryer... and turning their system's shortcoming into a premium service.

Unfortunately, once you put staff at the exit-end of the air dryer, you're pretty much locked into providing that service all the time... and possibly to every customer, or risk alienating the driver's who expect it as an inclusion.

Contact me directly and I'll offer a few tips on how to finesse the lemon to lemonade process.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

-Steve

Miles,

You saying that you added hand dray for $4?

Or, that you added exterior only wash for $4?

-tom

Our exterior only washes are $7 and $11. We will towel dry for $4 more. It's easy, no additional staff. There's an area we direct the customer to where they stop. One of our employees is designated to peel off of the full serve finish area, and can usually accomplish this in just a few minutes with little interruption to the full serve.

No one expects it - unless they order it. We've been very clear on the menu - it's an extra service and brings in additional revenue, adds satisfaction and is quick.

GOOD FOR YOU MAN! some washes are getting 3 buxs for the whole wash and your getting $4 for a towel dry! But if you offered it online and customers saw individual cars getting hand dryed right in front of them it would be a sticky subject. when were flex an exterior customer could come around for a wipe for FREE, it sounded good to them but if they were sitting in line for 15minutes for 4 people in front getting a vac and window they would usually spin out of line and use the courtsey dryng towels. but on slow days it gave my guys somthing to do and they liked for most of them got a few extra tips out of it.

That's right. It is easy for full serve to add the hand dry to exterior only washes. Doesn't disrupt the lobor much and so it's almost just a free add-on in many instances. We charge $4 for hand-dry as well and it seems to work just fine.

I haven't done Expresses, but I can see how it could become a sticky situation if you tried to do the hand-dry online.

If I had Express and always had one or two employees on stand-by, then I would definitely offer the hand-dry or any other full-serve items for extra charge OFFLINE.

I wonder how well Expresses work with adding Express Detail like the full service do? Obviously, it's a killer money maker for full service if done right, but would it also work for Express? Or, is it far too stretch to expect somone coming in to spend $5 to spend $50? In other words, are general clientel to Expresses bit on cheaper side or are they just as willing to spend extra for additional service?

-tom

Express exterior washes represent about 40% of our total - the remainder is full serve / express detail and full detail, so this is something we add on for extra revenue for us, extra value for the customer who doesn't need the interior cleaned. The good news on that is that express customers who choose not to get the hand dry exit to the right out of the tunnel. Those who choose it exit left toward out finish area - so all they see is more cars getting dried, or vacuumed if in the full serve area. Seems to work okay for us.

Thanks for replying. I have now implemented hand drying for $3 on my DRB pay terminals. If a customer picks the up sell we will dry there car at the front of our tunnel that way my guys can multi task. most of the time my guys are just standing around so why not make some extra cash plus its getting cold and nobody wants to get out of there car.

Exactly - and for what it's worth, we had some inexepensive signs made in our logo shape that we placed on our menu boards that simply said "towel dry $4". We also adhered some to the corner of our DRB Express Pay Terminal to tout the service.

Good luck - let us know how it worked out.

One theoretical cautionary note: If your labor is deployed at the exit-end of the carwash, it essentially becomes a carwash service, not After-Care.

That action runs the risk of confounding your overhead cost accounting, suggesting that the carwash operation requires more labor to operate than it actually does. That reliance on labor at the carwash may prove confusing to the customer when the service is "expected" all the while that the carwash is operating. Your choice is either operational consistency... or potential customer disappointment. Short-term convenience for the operator may create a labor requirement drawback.

That's why we see it working better as an After-Care premium service task. So, when the customer is exposed to other After-Care services that require little extra time, you can build on that extra hands-on availability of optional detail service choices.

Prudently keep the hands-on services separate and apart from the carwash operation to avoid the risk of confusing the customer... and increase your potential of additional sales revenue.

-Steve

www.FLEX-SERVE.com

As a full serve operator, we are not trying to compete with exterior only washes. However, our single exterior only wash allows for Hand Dry as an upsell. Almost half of these customers buy it...
As for keeping the extra services out of sight of the customers, that's contrary to any "merchandising" strategy I have EVER seen...seeing a "show" of extra services is an invitation to have that service in the future...No different than the windows along the sidewalk in the old time downtown for window shopping.

Spoken like a true full-service operator... and unfortunately with all its accompanying myopia.

I suggested to avoid placing staff at the exit-end of the dryer to SEPARATE what is expected as part of the standard exterior wash... and a premium add-on. I referenced the Flex-Serve format and its separation of hands-on services from automatic washing services to draw a distinction... as well as eliminate needless carwash staffing.

Just as it is difficult to prep one car and ignore the following one in the loading process, the same is true in the drying process. Customers only know what they know, and seeing something done on one vehicle and not another risks alienating an unenlightened customer.

If you operate a traditional full-service wash, you may be comfortable with staff standing at the air dryer, but to the unknowing customer... it creates expectations that may not be met. That calls to mind another merchandising strategy in play... called the absolute avoidance of over-promising and under-delivering.

Just one more reason to upgrade to Flex-Serve... and dramatically improve the logistics and efficacy of labor utilization. Less cost. Greater choice. More net profit!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

-STEVE

I've done it for years with no problems.

This is interesting. There's more labor cost in this exchange than in a month's worth of labor drying exterior only washes at our facility.

Not sure who's trying to sell something here versus having a simple exchange of information, but to the original question - back to newtunnel - good luck with your idea to explore revenue opportunities. It works well for us. And we didn't concern ourselves with an "upgrade" to any format.

The original post dealt with a Flex-Serve. No upgrade needed. But cost containment and net profitability are the issue at hand.

Offer the premium upgrade (hand-finishing) in the After-Care area, not at the air dryer... for all the reasons offered.

Once again, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

-STEVE