Unlimited Wash Club Ideas?

Hello,

We have been doing an Unlimited Wash Club for awhile now and are doing fairly well with it. We have done a Groupon offer(which was a steal-2 months for $20) and sold several hundred of those. I am really looking for ideas to boost our number of customers who opted to be billed automatically each month. I currently send out e mails to those who are about to expire(non autobill customers), but am having limited luck. I am having good luck with our month-to-month customers renewing, just having poor luck with them converting to autobilling. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

-ChrisTheLegend

P.S. We are an express exterior conveyor.

I have seen many washes that are express exterior offer incentives to monthly auto bill customers.. one idea that is great is 50% off upgrades when you are an auto bill member. One company that does memberships starts in July offering $100 unlimited for the rest of the year and cost goes down monthly, then when the new year rolls around they automatically become monthly members. One thing is definitely consider all members of the unlimited "vip members" and any offers you give them are "exclusive" It is very similar to the tanning industry

Nearly 100% of our customers are autobill. The program is advertised as autobill only, just like gym memberships, cell phone plans, cable service, etc. That is a critical part of the plan. If not, then customers will join when it is convenient for them and not for you. The whole point is to generate a steady stream of income regardless of the weather or time of year. Plus, it sounds like you are having to work hard to get these existing customers to rejoin each month. The program should be easy to administer from your end as well.

That being said, we have a few customers who pay monthly (no autobill), but we charge an extra $5 for this luxury.

Actually those are just about the perfect responses. I love the 50% off upgrades for autobillers, and the small convenience fee for those who are not. Thanks to both of you. I will let you know which ideas become reality.

For any unlimited plan to work, I think it MUST bill autobill only.

I tried non-autobill and prepay plans, but they all drop out too fast.

I view it like this:
1st type: You have crowd who will NOT opt in for unlimited plan for any reason.
2nd type: You have crowd who are half hearted and wouldn't quite opt in for auto bill but may give it a shot if paid for only one month.
3rd type: You have crowd who are committed and thus wouldn't mind the autobill. Matter fact, these crowd would prefer the autobill because of the convenience.

I would forget trying to target the 1st and 2nd type of crowds as they are NOT the right market to attack. It's the 3rd type of crowds who you should target your advertising and etc. And again, for them autobill is a non-issue and they would actually prefer it.

So, my conclusion is that autobill can also work as a tool to weed out the 1st and 2nd type of crowds. Trust me, even if you somehow got them hooked to the unlimited plan, they'll drop out in a month or two after washing practically everyday.

We now say that one of the requirements to enroll to our unlimited plan is that you MUST have a valid credit on file with us. Not prepay or month-to-month deals. After all, we do allow the customer to cancel anytime without any penalty.

-tom

Does an unlimited program at a free-standing exterior express wash work? Does it lead to year-to-year increases in sales volumes and/or average sales? Or, is steady income stream the principal benefit?

We tested the program for a year on about 50 customers. We found that the avg usage was around 2 washes per month and paying for 5. Main goal for us was to combat the rainy days, we would like ideas on how to get the enrolled numbers up without discounting the price. Thoughts?

Good info from everyone. I have had a lot of experience with unlimited wash programs from a top 25 chain to individual washes. Basically Tom C is right about 25 to 30% of your customers will opt for an unlimited program if it is priced right.
The real purpose of the unlimited program should be to build volume/loyalty and stay looking busy (busy means good right?). Remember the best car was customers will opt for unlimited washes because he loves car washes and clean cars so you are giving it to customers you would have anyway so the making money when it rains idea really doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Here is a general rule of thumb that I have found to be pretty accurate after viewing 30 different unlimited programs. (express model)
$15 per month you can have from 700 to 900 people on the program
$17.50 you can cut that in half
$20-$25 cut it in half again
$25+ somwhere between 1 and 150 customers on the program.

Example number 1 ($15) they have 900 customers per wash washing 4.5 times a month the other express single prices vary from $6 to $15. They wash 10k - 15k cars per month at $6.50 ASP.

We just have several sign stating we have a wash club for $20. We also have t-shirts that say the same. People are just curious. We did a groupon which has done wonders for our numbers as well.

I think a lot of the success depends on several factors such as normal volume, region, and how the program is marketed. At our wash our $6, $9, and $12 wash unlimited programs are priced at $19.95, $28.95 and $34.95, all with autobill. We've been open 10 months and have 580 customers enrolled. One thing we do is not to rely simply on the autocashier to sell the program with video. Our employees chat with customers in line and give them a brochure explaining the program. One key we've learned is to ensure the customer understands it's a monthly program that is automatically billed to their credit card like a netflix subscription. This substantially reduces calls about charges on their card or charge backs. Another is to limit it to personal vehicles. Commercial vehicles, taxis, and limosines are offered a fleet account or discounted gift cards because on an unlimited program you will lose money.

From a cash flow point of view, we love having money deposited in our account daily regardless of the weather. Our club members are less likely to use a competitor's wash since they already have paid for using ours, so they are less likely to wander. It also helps with our throughput on busy days. Instead of spending 25 seconds at the pay station to process we can reduce that to 10 seconds.

The only customers that are offered not to be autobilled are those that sign up for a 6 month or year membership. Our reasoning is to try and minimize the administrative aspect of trying to get someone to pay monthly for a program and the operational issues (i.e. someone is at the pay station and their tag expired the day before, they sit at the pay station until the situation can be resolved, holding up traffic.)

We continue to add people to the program, although not as quick of a pace as during the winter time. Our goal is to get 2,000 enrolled.

OK, so my understanding is the principal benefit of an unlimited wash plan is that it can bring in cash daily and helps to relieve owner's revenue anxiety.

If this is the principal reason for unlimited, would not it be simpler to just offer; buy three washes and get one free?

I love to have my car washed, but there is no way I would allow some cigar smoking BTO to autobill my checking account. LOL

I wouldn't do it for simple anxiety relief. I do it because it brings more revenue.

Let's a customer A spends $20 a month average and gets 3 washes. With unlimited wash plan, that same customer A now spends $30 a month and gets maybe 8 washes. So, you have made $10 extra in exchange for 5 more washes. Do the math and you still made extra money off of that customer with unlimited plan.

Now, you may have customer B who spends $40 a month and gets 6 washes. If he enrolled in the unlimited wash plan, then you would lose out.

So, the ultimate question comes down to who are your audiences? Obviously, if most my customers are B, then I would NOT do the ulimited wash or if I did do it, then I would charge more than $40.

It turns out that in most cases, vast majority of customers are like the customer A. Inevitably, you may have few customer B's in you unlimited plan, but again, the benefit from A's far outweighs the loss from B's.

In real life example, at my fascility, I learned that not even 10 customers spent more than $40 a month at my wash. So, I priced our unlimited starting at $40. Well over 95% of our customers would NOT have spent $40 a month if it wasn't for the unlimited plan. Yes, I do wash more cars, but again, the extra revenue generated exceeds the variable cost of additional cars washed with unlimited plan. Of course there are some "abusers" who goes nutz and wash their car every day, but I write that off as cost of doing biz. LOL.

Bottom line, unlimited plan generates extra bottom line cash. It's not done simply to ease the owner's anxiety.

-tom

We do the monthly wash club as well and advertise it as auto bill. Most customers do not have a problem or even question it. If you are set up as PCI Compliant, that helps in getting the customer to trust you that they are safe with a card on file. We tried doing the wash club for about a year where the customer had to re-new themselves through us, what a pain with little success. If you advertise it as auto bill, you will have alot more success.