BY NICK FORTUNA

When Jamille and Jacoba Taylor were kids, they traveled across Canada with their parents to operate pop-up stands that sold shaved ice, snow cones and ice cream at carnivals and fairs. Fast forward to adulthood, and the sisters are attempting to replicate that carnival-like atmosphere at their new business venture, JJ’s Express Car Wash in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

The sisters assisted their parents, Bernie and Doug Taylor, throughout the yearlong construction process, transforming an empty lot into a car wash and oil change business that opened last March. Unlike many car washes in Canada that use a pulley system, JJ’s Express has a conveyor measuring 156 feet in length, and it’s designed to be an interesting ride.

The brightly illuminated arches feature bold colors like rainbow sherbet, LED lights flash different colors to create a light show, the bubblegum-scented, rainbow-colored soap adds even more pizazz, and the ceramic wax smells like cherry punch.

“We actually grew up in the carnival business, and we say, ‘Once a carny, always a carny,’ so this was the closest thing we could get to a carnival without traveling around,” Jamille said. “We just kind of brought the lights, the fun experience and all that stuff to our car wash. We wanted to bring something different to Saskatoon. There’s nothing like this in Saskatchewan.”

Jamille said adults come for the high-quality wash, but they bring their kids for the immersive experience.

“We try to make it an overall fun experience and an efficient car wash,” she said. “You have the older individuals who are just looking for a good car wash, but it also brings families to us as well. It gives us more business because kids want to come to our car wash. There are lots of lights. We have six or seven different stations with arches that light up, and kids love it.”

TAKING IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL

Adding lights, colors and scents to the customer experience was once seen as an innovative way for car washes to differentiate themselves from the competition, and it still can be in some locations. But competition is getting fierce in some areas and car washes are now looking at what else they can offer. Mark Curtis, Chief Executive of Milford, Conn.-based Splash Car Washes, with 25 locations in the region, said those features have proven so popular with customers that many now expect to see them.

“I think a lot of that is pretty much table stakes — everybody does it,” said Curtis, a past president of the ICA. Having different-colored lights at each station makes customers more aware of the services they are receiving, which enhances the experience as they go through, he said. “I think most operators are doing that as standard operating procedure. If you’re not there, then you’re missing out on extra revenue per car and on giving the customer a great experience.”

With bells and whistles almost a given, car wash operators are looking at other business strategies and options to help them stand out. Curtis said his company recently converted a full-service location into an express wash and decided to keep the glass wall that had allowed customers in the waiting room to watch their cars go through the wash. Now, as customers sit in their cars, they can look through that glass wall into the equipment room and see lights on the control panel activate, high-pressure gauges and reverse-osmosis tanks.

“I actually saw that at a wash in Germany that had made a gallery wall showing their piping and equipment, and they had done such an unbelievable job with it,” Curtis said. “As they go through, they get a view of the inner workings of the car wash. It’s a very futuristic view. It looks like you’re on the command deck of the Starship Enterprise. I think it’s interesting to customers. It’s kind of neat for them to see all the stuff that’s back there.”

A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA

At Shine Time Super Wash, with seven locations in Alabama, customers see a neon curtain of foam drop onto their hoods and plenty of flashing lights as they go through the tunnel. At the pay stations, attendants hand out air fresheners to each car, lollipops to kids and treats to the family dog.

Those little touches make a difference when it comes to customer loyalty, according to owner Mike Reiney, who fondly remembers getting lollipops at a full-service car wash as a kid. He said customers routinely take out their mobile phones to film the flashing lights and colorful lava foam and then post the video on social media, generating free buzz for his car wash chain.

“A lot of it is just based on improving the customer experience,” said Reiney, a former pharmaceutical executive who entered the car wash business in 2016. “I was thinking, ‘Anybody can wash your car, but how can we make it a great experience for the whole family?’ We started giving out lollipops, and families started coming in on the weekends. Even the adults love lollipops. Then we started doing the dog biscuits, and we saw more dogs coming through.

“The car wash needs to be a happy place, not just a place to wash your car. It gives people an escape, something fun to do, and our employees like it because it makes it more of a fun place to work. We know we’re onto something because we see a lot of smiles.”

NEW SURPRISES EACH WEEK

When it comes to creating a unique customer experience, few car wash operators are as ambitious as Bobby Willis, whose Virginia-based Cool Wave Car Wash chain opened its ninth location last January. In a recent profile in The Virginian-Pilot, Willis said he uses lights, laser projections, sounds and smells to create a different theme each week at the new location in Newport News.

Past themes have included Alien Invasion, Dracula’s Lair, Candy Land and Enchanted Forest. Every week, the company’s five-member in-house creative team comes up with a new theme, along with movie-style posters to advertise them. Willis provides voice-over effects, and his son Robbie, a student at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, composes the music.

For the Alien Invasion theme, the team researched online and discovered that one account of an alien abduction mentioned the smell of cinnamon, so that was a central component of that week’s theme.

“We’re treating it like it’s a cinematic production,” Willis said.
Tyler Hoffman, Owner of Illuminated Integration, said helping Willis to develop theatrical lighting for the new location marked the first project at a car wash for his Harrisburg, Pa.-based company, which typically works with theaters, amusement parks, casinos, cruise ships and other large entertainment venues.

To make the project work, they had to find lighting equipment that could withstand constant exposure to water and create a special humidity-sealed, cooled compartment for the laser projector.

Willis said the new location cost him three to four times what it takes to build a typical car wash, and his other locations lack the space to be retrofitted with similar equipment. But he hopes to expand his car wash chain, and the new locations likely will feature a heavy dose of entertainment.

“We will grow it as fast as we can as long as we can keep everything under control and remain profitable,” Willis said.