Grand Opening/Stress Test

Just opened our new wash about a month ago, and we weren't satisfied with the startup volumes. Unfortunately we missed pollen season by about a month. To kickstart the business, we decided to offer our top wash for free on Easter weekend (i.e.Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) with an optional donation to Cystic Fibrosis. The goal was cars lined up out to the street. We advertised on Facebook, Twitter, Google, the newspaper, and a local arts and opinion magazine. The results were just what we wanted.

Our top wash receives a small hanging air freshener with our name, etc., so these are now in over 2,000 cars. The good will created by this event was amazing coupled with the fact that people donated over $5,000 to Cystic Fibrosis research. This turned out to be a great way to introduce our services to the surrounding area, and in addition it pointed out some of the deficiencies of the wash i.e. VFD settings, etc. The toughest part was that we were washing many cars that had seldom been washed, and these customers were oblivious to the fact that their vehicle has a gear called Neutral. The throughput, consequently, was not what it could have been if the customers were better acclimated with the car wash. All in all, a great event which we will definitely repeat in the future if and when we have another grand opening.

Welcome to the car wash industry. You aren't an operator until you have your first customer drive in the exit of the wash, exit signs aside.

Regards
Bud Abraham

Thanks for the welcome to the car wash industry. Every day over the past 12+ years seems like a new adventure. We dealt with customers driving in the exit of the tunnel by installing gates so they can't even enter the wrong way. I would say in response that you haven't had the full experience until a customer hits your transformer, knocking it off its base, which then causes the oil in the transformer to leak out, and consequently, the oil is ignited by the sparking wires, and then the car, the canopies, the fencing, and even the concrete catches on fire, and then the employees from the car wash and the oil change have to quickly pull the children out of the back seat of the car as it goes up in flames.