XPT Balancing Labor

Balancing Act:

SiteWatch® Xpress Pay Terminal® Helps You Balance Labor With Traffic Volume To Reduce Costs And Increase Profits

Figuring out how to get just the right number of employees on hand to meet volume demand has always been one of the toughest challenges facing carwash operators. Don’t hire enough employees to keep up with peak periods, and you’re likely to have long lines, dissatisfied customers and “drive-aways,” who pull out of your line after they get tired of waiting, sometimes never to return again.

On the other hand, if your crew is too large, you’ll end up paying for more labor than you need; especially when things slow down and you have employees looking for something to do. That’s hardly a prescription for a profitable carwash!

This challenge is made even more difficult by the unpredictability of the weather. Is it going to stop snowing this afternoon, sending customers to your carwash to get the road salt removed from their vehicles? Guess wrong, and it could "cost" you in terms of lost sales (if the snow stops and you don’t have enough labor to handle the demand) -- or lost profits (if you hire extra crew, but the storm doesn’t let up and customers stay away).

Thanks to the SiteWatch Xpress Pay Terminal (XPT®), you no longer have to play this guessing game. The speed and productivity features of the XPT help you keep up with volume during peak periods without adding extra staff. Yet, when traffic slows down or doesn’t materialize because of the weather or other factors, our self-pay station doesn’t contribute a penny to your labor costs.

Once you’ve invested in an XPT, there are no significant extra costs involved in running it. So during a slow period when only five or ten cars an hour are going through the self-pay station, you aren’t paying for nonproductive labor the way you would with an idle employee. However when traffic picks up during a peak period the XPT has the capacity to process 80 cars an hour; so you can handle the extra traffic using your existing crew without taking on added employees.

As many leading carwash operators have discovered, the XPT doesn’t eliminate the need for labor, but it does help you schedule employees more efficiently by making it easier to balance carwash staffing with demand. Here are a few of the reason why:

• High Volume Capability - The XPT is capable of processing up to 80 vehicles an hour; plus up to 8 pay stations can be installed on a single site. You might not need this capability during normal periods, but it’s there when you have to ramp up output – and it doesn’t requiring adding more employees.
• Queuing - The XPT’s queuing feature allows you to maintain a smooth and orderly flow of vehicles into your tunnel when multiple self-pay lanes are running, so customers always receive the wash they purchased.
• Automatically Adapts Sales Message To Fit Volume - The SiteWatch Profiles feature in the XPT can automatically shorten selling messages and omit offline services from the menu if traffic volume passes a predetermined level, so you can process more customers faster during peak periods. Later when traffic subsides, your XPT message and menu will return to their original form.
• Fast Transaction Speed - There are a variety of features in to the XPT that allow customers to complete their transactions faster. These include FastPass® that clears transactions in less than three seconds without even requiring customers to lower their windows, a convenient strike zone that puts all payment functions within easy reach of customers, monthly pass capabilities and a logical, user-friendly menu screen .

Ask your DRB Systems, Inc. representative at 800-336-6338 to tell you more about how the SiteWatch XPT Can Help You Take The Guesswork Out Of Controlling Labor Costs.