Fuller's Carwash, Chicago, IL

Flex-serve chain

A Full-Service Wash Reinvents Itself – And Triples Its Traffic Count! -- By Converting To A Flex-Serve With The SiteWatch® Xpress Pay Terminal® (XPT®)

Challenge: To reverse a decade-long trend that saw a growing number of customers abandon a full-service wash in favor of lower-cost alternatives.

Solution: Use the SiteWatch XPT to convert a full-service carwash to a flex-serve operation and attract more customers with a lower-priced wash.

Success in carwashing, or any business, depends on giving customers what they want. Few people know this as well as Don Fuller, owner of three Fuller’s Carwashes in suburban Chicago. Since the 1950s, the Fuller name has been one of the most respected in Windy City carwashing circles.

Don Fuller’s family built a successful business by providing Chicagoans with a quality full-service wash at a reasonable price. Then, during the last 10 years, Don noticed a profound change taking place.

Maybe it was the fact that fewer people smoked, so less residue built up on the interior of car windows. Maybe it was the fact that with all the cell phones, baby seats, portable DVD players and other assorted “stuff” inside their cars, people were reluctant to let someone move things around to clean the interior of their vehicles. It could also have been the fact that interior cleaning was just getting too expensive for most people to afford.

Or perhaps it was, as Don Fuller suggests, a combination of all of these things. Regardless of the reason, or reasons behind it, one thing Don was sure of – his full-service business was on a steady downhill slide.

The XPT Helps Fuller’s Adapt To A Changing Market

Like all good entrepreneurs facing an adverse trend, Don took action to adapt his business to the changes that were taking place in the market. If a growing number of his customers no longer wanted a full-service wash, he would change his format and offer them other lower-priced alternatives. At the same time, he realized that if he did this, he would have to make up for the lower prices by increasing traffic volume and controlling labor costs.

Converting his full-service wash to a flex-serve with the SiteWatch Xpress Pay Terminal allowed Don to achieve his three goals of offering a lower-priced wash, increasing traffic volume and cutting labor costs. Since he converted his Des Plaines, Illinois full-service wash to a flex-serve, his traffic count has tripled, labor costs have been cut in half and “profits are greater than ever”, even though his average ticked has dropped by 55%.

Don did this with the help of the three SiteWatch Xpress Pay Terminals he installed at his Des Plaines site. Having the self-pay terminals has allowed Don to broaden his menu to include a variety of lower-priced alternatives. Instead of offering full-service washes exclusively, his menu now covers everything from a basic $3 exterior to a $30 full-service deluxe wash.

Higher Traffic and Lower Labor Costs

Speaking of his new menu, Don acknowledges that it lowers his average ticket, but he is quick to point to the compensating benefits of increased traffic and lower labor costs. “Sure our dollars per car went down, but our volume went way up – and we reduced our labor costs significantly,” he said. “This business is all about volume. If you can lower costs and increase volume in a significant way, you’re going to make more money.”

About nine out of ten customers purchase an exterior wash at Fuller’s. This has generated the higher traffic volume that the wash now enjoys; plus it’s made it easier and more profitable for Fuller’s to take care of its full-service customers. For example, the large volume of exterior traffic helps cover the fixed cost of having the tunnel available to full-service customers; at the same time, it also gives Fuller’s employees more time to focus on servicing those customers, which creates more loyalty.

Regardless of which wash they buy, all Fuller’s customers pay at one of the three XPTs, then drive their vehicles into the tunnel. At the tunnel exit, exterior customers can either drive away or use the free vacuums. Meanwhile, the full-service customers pull off to the interior cleaning area. Full-service customers are identified in this area by their XPT barcode receipts, providing Fuller’s with a tight level of control.

By having full-service and flex-serve customers pay at the XPT, Don was able to eliminate greeter positions. (As an added benefit, he believes that the XPTs are more effective at selling upgrades, since they provide customers with a more consistent, pressure-free experience.) Having customers load themselves on the conveyor also saves labor, says Don, since a single tunnel entrance employee can now scan XPT barcodes to ensure that every customer receives the correct wash

Although Don's average ticket may never reach its pre-flex-serve heights, he isn’t concerned, having more than made up for this decline by attracting more customers. He points out that volume at his site has tripled since it became a flex-serve wash. “We’re seeing customers and cars that we never would have seen before, since we converted to a flex-serve,” said Don.

So how would Don rate the experience of converting from a full-service to a flex-serve with the SiteWatch Xpress Pay Terminal? We’ll let his actions speak for themselves. Based on his success in Des Plaines, he is now converting his two other full-service sites to flex-serve operations.

Bottom line: Don Fuller was able to reverse the declining fortunes of his full-service carwash by converting it to a flex-serve. Sacrificing average ticket size, he more than made up for this decline by tripling volume and cutting labor costs in half to create a more profitable business.