Success Stories
Triple Play Car Wash & Quick Lube, Attleboro, MA
Multi-Profit Center with Retail Fuel, Quick Lube, Dunkin' Donuts® and Deli
New Offers On XPT® Increase "Step-Up Sales" 2,400 Percent At This New England Multi-Profit Center
Challenge: How To Create Higher Tickets At Your Self-Pay Station.
Solution: Replace Standard Step-up Offers With A More Exciting “Free Wash” Special.
As a former personal and financial manager for select Major League Baseball players and a minority owner of a baseball training facility, Triple Play owner Terrance Elder knows the value of taking an extra base. After all, winning teams always seem to have a knack for stretching a single into a double or double into a triple; just as the successful carwash operator knows how to step-up customers to extra services that do a better job cleaning their cars, while generating added profits for his or her business.
Following this philosophy, Terrance has always paid careful attention to step-up sales at his SiteWatch® Xpress Pay Terminals® (XPT®s). In his view, a self-pay station should be evaluated like any “human salesperson,” not only by how quickly and professionally it takes care of customers, but also by how successful it is in stepping them up to higher ticket sales.
Early on, Terrance rated his self-pay stations as “only average” in getting customers to step-up. As anyone familiar with Terrance knows, “average” is not nearly good enough for this super-successful entrepreneur. This is readily apparent to anyone who visits Triple Play Car Wash & Quick Lube. Aside from its high volume tunnel and quick lube, the site is the largest pumper of Mobil® gas in New England and a high volume Dunkin’ Donuts, not to mention a bustling deli and c-store.
Outside The Box Thinking Yields Off-The-Scale Results
"We had the typical step-up offers at our XPTs, like a discount on the next most expensive package," said Terrance, "and our results were just typical too -- nothing to write home about. This wasn’t going to cut it, so I decided to step outside the box and do something different to motivate customers when they were at the XPT."
For Terrance, that "something" was a very novel step-up incentive. Instead of trying to tempt customers with a discount on an extra service or more expensive package, his XPTs offer them a free wash if they prepay for three identical washes. So, if you select Terrance’s basic $9 wash at the XPT, you can get it for free if you prepay $27 for three additional basic washes. Or if you prefer the $13 Double Xpress Wash; it’s yours at no cost, provided you pay $39 for three additional Double Expresses.
The prepaid washes are entered into Terrance's SiteWatch system and are accessed at the XPT by scanning the receipt’s barcode. So, customers can use all four washes themselves or share them with friends and family.
The results of Terrance's new step-up strategy have been nothing short of astounding. Revenues generated by step-up sales at the XPT have skyrocketed 2,400% the first year after he launched the program. Step-up sales made through the XPT now account for 12% of Triple Play Car Wash’s gross sales.
According to Terrance, the new step-up incentives accomplish three important objectives:
- First and foremost, they ensure that customers are receiving offers on wash options they really want. After all, customers already opted to buy a particular package before they’re offered the free incentive. This ensures that the offers made at the XPT are more meaningful to customers, which not only results in a higher response rate, it also enhances the image of Triple Play. As Terrance points out, the customer who buys your basic “good package,” may never be interested in your “better” package, so he’s less likely to respond to your offer of an upgrade and more likely to feel like your messaging is wasting his time.
- Secondly, they generate more revenues when customers do upgrade. Prepaying for three washes will invariably be a higher dollar purchase than upgrading from one wash option to another.
- Finally, the fact that customers prepay for three washes commits them to returning to Triple Play and locks in loyalty. Plus, if they give one of the free washes away, they may be introducing a new customer to the Triple Play experience.
In addition to his free wash deal, Terrance offers customers who buy his "Homerun" interior/exterior wash the option of receiving a $15 discount on his $59 Xpress Detail Package. "I want to offer the customer an incentive that he or she is truly interested in," explained Terrance. "Someone who is buying our best wash package is a natural candidate for our detailing service. This is why our offers are successful; they start with the question 'what does the customer want?' Then we work out from there."
