Eight Ways to Use Professionalism to Grow Your Carwash Brand
The carwash industry is booming, and it seems like everyone wants in on the game! Private equity money is scaling the carwash industry as no one has ever seen. With this surge in business, carwashes are popping up everywhere, but not just any type of carwash, mostly the exterior express. Generally, exterior express models come with the same amenities. These include pay stations, club memberships, a tunnel full of equipment, a vacuum area with free powerful vacuums, and mat-cleaning machines. There are even more amenities to make your carwash stand out if you choose. Either way, the consumers have spoken, and the exterior express model and the benefits that come with it are in high demand. Owners seem to prefer this model for its lower labor cost and profitability compared to a full-service model. However, with so many being built, it leaves many owners and operators wondering what they need to do to stand out from the crowd. For this reason, I want to discuss the importance of professionalism in the carwash industry, specifically at carwash sites.
Whenever people consider which businesses they choose to frequent, they usually think about how reputable they are. While a business’s reputation can be distinguished in several ways, you look at how the company handles itself most of the time. Here we should consider how your reputation affects your business, for better or worse, and how you can use professionalism to set a good reputation and grow your brand. Indeed, reputation has a lot to do with whether or not your company will be successful.
Why Focus on Professionalism
When considering how reputation can be influenced by professionalism, I argue that taking steps to instill traits of professionalism at your carwash company will allow you to proactively build your reputation instead of reactively protecting it. Building your reputation in the community is a form of risk management for your business. I believe that risk management is an area that all business owners need to focus on by setting up systems of professionalism.
One source on reputation from the Harvard Business Review discusses reputation at length. It states: “Most companies, however, do an inadequate job of managing their reputations in general and the risks to their reputations in particular. They tend to focus their energies on handling the threats to their reputations that have already surfaced. This is not risk management; it is crisis management—a reactive approach whose purpose is to limit the damage.”
Of course, we need to limit damage to our reputation. However, building your reputation should be at the forefront of your priorities. A good reputation in your community means brand loyalty and less risk of the company failing to achieve projected outcomes. Here we will focus on eight ways I believe you can project a positive reputation as a carwash company and how they help ensure your brand can grow. But what does it mean when we talk about professionalism at the carwash
What Does Professionalism Mean for Carwashes
When I insist on professionalism within a carwash company, I think about what it means to me and I imagine to many others. I believe the best definition of professionalism is “the standing, practice, or methods of a professional, as distinguished from an amateur.” When I frequent a business, I want to know that they are the best in class and are not amateurs at their skillset. Customers of the carwash feel the same and want to know that the company they choose to do business with is professional. People consider this especially when they entrust a company with their vehicle, which for many, is one of the most expensive possessions they own. If you have any experience in the automotive industry, you are aware that most people take the care of their vehicles very seriously. In my opinion, this is one of the main reasons you should instill a sense of professionalism at your carwash. So, without further ado, here are the eight ways I believe you can use professionalism to grow your brand in the carwash industry.
The Eight Ways
1. Have standards
As an owner, you need to have standards for your business. Customers can differentiate between businesses that have standards and those that do not. However, your focus here should be on the employees and the car wash’s appearance of professionalism from day one. Before opening the business, you must set up standards for uniforms, appearance, cleanliness, and maintenance at the carwash. You want to exude competence and ensure confidence. Set the standards and expectations, and whatever you do, don’t let them slip. Your customers will notice and frequent your establishments because of your standards.
2. Use scalable systems that help you train and communicate the standards
We talked about how you need standards for uniforms, appearance, cleanliness, maintenance, and much more, to be honest. However, it is difficult for the entire company to learn these standards if you don’t have systems to communicate them, especially if you have multiple carwash locations. Therefore, you should install systems such as learning management systems, training protocols, document sharing systems, electronic checklists systems, and maintenance programs to ensure you train, communicate, and hold the teams accountable to the standards and procedures of your company. Indeed, the employees must be tested on these standards and held accountable through auditing practices.
3. Manage online resources and reviews
When a customer decides to get a carwash, they usually look for one close to their home or place of work. They usually Google “carwash near me.” Suppose your company is close to them, and you have your Google My Business profile set up correctly. In that case, they should find your profile which should include all the information they need to decide whether to use your company, including the reviews. For this reason, you need to manage your online resources and reviews regularly. It would be best to assign these tasks to someone within your organization.
- Ensure that your online profiles are always up-to-date with the latest information, such as hours of operation and your website.
- Your website should be updated multiple times per year when changes are made. Unfortunately, I see outdated websites more often than I would like to admit in the carwash community.
- Manage your online reviews by responding and taking care of issues. If you have a basis of good reviews and customers see you responding on a regular basis, they will be more likely to frequent your locations.
4. Make customer service a priority
You may have heard this a million times, but I want to talk about customer service. Let’s discuss how it relates explicitly to the customer experience and a straightforward thing you can do to ensure it is a high priority. I believe that most of what you do in and for your company should be about making the customer’s experience a good one. That means that before you commit to a project, change a business strategy, spending or not spending money, your thought should be, “How will this negatively or positively affect the customer experience of my business?” It would help if you weighed most decisions, especially the big ones, based on how your customers will be affected by the decision.
I can tell you from experience there are large carwash organizations that don’t ask themselves these questions. They may consider it occasionally, but it is not at the forefront of their thinking. For this reason, among others, their locations suffer. However, great carwash leaders and operators think about the customer experience all the time. Whether it's budgeting enough labor so that managers can focus on customers or replacing machinery that barely works anymore, focusing on the customer experience needs to be a high priority.
5. Have authority
To build trust with your customers, use authority by showing the customer that your company has expertise in the field. This means that you set a high standard for your team and train your team to be great car washers. You do this by providing the team with support, proper training, leadership, accountability, and all the tools they need to do the job successfully. You want to make it look like the team that runs your carwash knows what they are doing and is well-versed in all the tools and systems.
6. Have and enforce an appearance policy
Come up with appearance standards and put them into a policy. Then, set up a uniform program to effectively manage your uniforms for each employee. Spend the money to put people in good uniforms, and they will feel good about their appearance. Once you have your policy and uniform program, enforce the standards. If someone doesn’t report to work in the appropriate attire, discipline them when necessary. Address it every time so that you are not enabling that type of behavior.
Having a good uniform will also contribute to number five, have authority. When customers see how professional your team looks due to the development and enforcement of your appearance standards and how they act due to your training systems, they will come back.
7. Have excellent car quality
It should go without saying, but I feel the need to say it. Your carwash needs to put out a quality product if you want customers to believe that you are true professionals and that your company is to be trusted with their business. Are there carwashes that allow their chemicals and equipment to degrade? Yes. Should you be one of them? Not if you want to be competitive or extend your market share in your community.
Your carwash needs to have systems to verify and fix issues with car quality daily. Every day managers should check chemicals, water, and equipment to ensure they are putting out a clean, dry, and shiny car. If you have a maintenance system, it will be easier for you than if you don’t. Either way, inspect car quality daily.
8. Keep the wash clean
Customers expect cleanliness from their carwash of choice. If a customer comes in and sees trash in the lot, dirty walls, and experiences clogged vacuums, it is pretty unlikely that they return or tell their friends about you, at least positively. Install cleaning schedules and checklists and ensure that your management team enforces the standards. If you choose not to make cleanliness a priority, it is unlikely that your carwash will be successful.
Last Words on Professionalism
If you use these eight ways of installing professionalism at your carwash, you can be guaranteed that your carwash will shine above the rest. Of course, many carwash companies already know these things and execute them well, though most rarely execute them all well. Either way, if you want to compete with the carwash companies doing it right, then you really have no choice but to focus on excellence.
In addition, the article from the Harvard Business Review also states, “Firms with strong positive reputations attract better people.” Needless to say, with current hiring issues, attracting better people is a trait most businesses want on their side. People want to work for the best places in their industry because it gives them a sense of pride in what they do. If you have high standards and put systems in place to excel, you will attract a good team.
I know running a great business takes a ton of work and consistency. Car washing isn’t the easiest business to be great at, but your carwash can shine above the rest if you follow these tips. Above all, emphasize professionalism because your competition probably will!
To find out what carwash consulting services CarwashOS provides or learn more about how we can help your carwash set up systems of professionalism, schedule a free 30-minute consultation.
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