Why would a customer choose your car wash versus all the other washes out there? A customer’s decision includes all the information and experiences that customer has had with your business. They evaluate all the factors and make a choice. So, how do you get them to choose your car wash?

Put Simply: Be Different from Competition in a Way Your Customers Value.

Car wash customers today choose between lots and lots of car wash choices. Great business owners learn what their customers value and deliver it in a way that stands out from competition.

There are four simple questions that the best car washes ask themselves year after year to stay relevant to their customers.

Who Are Your Ideal Customers?

I speak with hundreds of business owners every year — over and over I hear a reluctance to focus which customers they’re targeting for fear of losing out on revenue.

Here is the secret. If you’re extraordinarily clear about who your ideal customers are, then those customers will be extraordinarily clear that you’re ideal for them. If you try to focus on everyone, no one knows you’re perfect for them.

Over and over, the businesses owners I work with grow faster when they refine their focus. Refining your focus helps create clarity in everything else you do in your business from your type of car wash, to your pricing, your environment, your hiring, training and service level.

Focus also gives you more powerful customer insights.

What Are Your Customer Insights?

What do your customers want more of or less of in a car wash experience? What are their hopes and fears? What are their frustrations about car washes? Great companies strive to give their customers more of what they want, and less of what they don’t.

What’s important to the kind of customers in your area? Is it speed (critical), perfection, personal service, 24 hour access, premium options, self-serve, hand-drying, touchless, loyalty program? Which of these are most and least important?

The importance of each of these varies from person to person, location to location, but there is value in putting your stake in the ground. What experience will you deliver each and every time?

What Is Your Unique Outcome?

Your customers don’t care about your car wash, they care about themselves. They want to know what outcome you’ll deliver for them. The unique outcome or benefit you provide is the hook that gets customers to visit you vs. your competition.

Here’s the trick: Your outcome comes directly from your customer insights. Your outcome is what you choose to stand for based on the most important insights from the customers you serve.

After you’ve told your customers what’s in it for them, then, and only then do you get to talk about yourself and your “because.”

What’s Your “Because”?

Your best and most cost effective marketing is satisfied customers. There is no better way to build a strong brand than to deliver a great experience and get your customers to talk about it.

Yes, but how do you proactively get people sharing your business with others? The biggest reason that people don’t share about our business is one simple thing — we haven’t made it easy enough for them to know what to say. If you try to stand for everything, you end up standing for nothing, and people have no idea what to tell others about you.

When people give a referral, they want to say something specific, credible and compelling.

Think about the last time you gave a referral… “You have to go to Bob’s Diner because…” and then you fill in the most compelling reason you think they should go to Bob’s.

f one of your customers were to tell a friend that they should go to your car wash how would they finish this sentence – “You’ve got to use ‘blank’ car wash because…”

What do you wish someone would say about your car wash after they say the word because?

It’s easy to say something general that pretty much anyone would say — we’ve got better service, we care more, we’ve been around forever. If anyone can say it, it’s not powerful. Great businesses grow word of mouth by delivering experiences with specific, credible, and compelling differences from competitors.

Now You’re Ready for Marketing.

Once you’ve figured out how to provide unique, sharable value to your customers, you’re ready to do marketing. What you say in your marketing messages will be simple if you’ve done this work up front. There is a lot to do in any business, but the time you spend thinking and planning is what sets you up for long-term success.

Don’t miss Gerry O’Brion’s sessions on branding and marketing, April 26 & 27 at The Car Wash Show 2018.