By Nick Fortuna

There is no longer one system used for payment; now it is like a shopping cart full of candy, with each piece being slightly different and appealing to slightly different taste buds. So, how can you figure out the best “candy bars” to stock for your clientele? And how can you prepare to stock the favorites not just for now but for tomorrow? Payment systems are rapidly changing and include a variety of mobile options now as well, which means car washes need to keep a close eye on the trends to stay competitive.

NO TAG NECESSARY

Eliminating a single step in a process can be meaningful if a business intends to repeat that process many thousands of times, and license plate recognition (LPR) technology is designed to do just that. By eliminating the need to place radio frequency identification (RFID) stickers in customers’ cars, LPR systems aim to streamline the process for enrolling customers in unlimited-wash clubs and other promotional programs.

LPR systems work similarly to RFID systems in that they both recognize returning customers as they pull up to the car wash, using a camera or an RFID reader, and then retrieve that stored customer profile. Both systems allow customers to pay for a wash without rolling down their window and ensure that each customer gets the correct suite of services. Fleet accounts automatically are billed and serviced according to the contract, and discounts for things like AAA membership are automatically applied.

“Right now, the hot topic in the gated-system community is LPR, and it’s what operators decided they want because they don’t need to buy tags and they don’t need to put the tags in the cars,” said Brian Bath, Vice President of Sales for Bethlehem, Pa.-based Innovative Control Systems. “The operator is going to get the customer’s license plate and put that in their system … that is what’s actually tracking the car instead of the tag number now.”

There are some downsides to LPR systems, however. Since their main advantage over RFID systems is the elimination of tags, that might not be worth the investment in new technology for every car wash. In addition, there is the possibility that customers will trick the system by switching their license plate to another car, enabling that car to get free washes.

Most significantly, LPR technology currently is not as accurate as RFID systems. In a May blog post, Focused Car Wash Solutions estimated that only 90% to 92% of license plates were read accurately by currently available LPR systems, which could create big problems for a busy car wash.

“We’re actually lagging behind in deploying our system because we’re trying to get it to be over 99% accurate,” Bath said.

Bath said LPR systems are easily integrated with smartphone apps, making it easy for customers to sign up for wash clubs and other programs and to store their identification information, service preferences and billing information. Customers can even sign up for a promotion they see online before ever visiting the car wash.

“Mobile apps have finally come to the car wash world, even though the adoption rate is kind of weak on the customer side of things,” Bath said. “I think people are over-apped, so the car wash app just doesn’t come first on their list.”

Bath said ICS is working to enhance its mobile app, making it more user-friendly and offering customer rewards through it to boost adoption rates. Customers, for example, might get a 10% discount for using the app, a free wash upon signup or every tenth wash free, he said. One benefit of the app is that customers can buy books of washes and share them with friends and family. A barcode on the user’s smartphone is texted or emailed to a friend, who then holds his smartphone up to a barcode reader at the pay station. The result is that smartphones can now make plastic gift cards obsolete.

AESTHETICS REALLY COUNT

Monroe, Ind.-based eGenuity has been trying to enhance the customer experience by making its payment kiosks more visually striking, with some models featuring bright LED lights in a vertical line on each side of the kiosk.

Newer models have large, high-resolution screens, and some have two screens, allowing the car wash to devote one screen to videos, animation and other marketing messaging while the customer makes his purchase on the other screen. The larger screens allow for more impressive graphics packages that grab customers’ attention.

Decals, logos and color schemes specific to each car wash’s brand can make the kiosk’s outer shell more visually appealing. By featuring a modern, technologically advanced look, kiosks convey the message to customers that the car wash has the newest and best cleaning equipment as well.

“We work with a couple of different vendors, and they are using a little bit larger screens, with better visuals, so people can see it better,” said Daniel Carleton, Director of Sales Operations for Dallas-based Talus Pay. “If you’re forced to use a small font and you’re trying to cram too much into one option, customers often won’t select that option. But if you’re using a little bit larger screen and you’re able to use larger fonts with crisp pictures, people will select all the different available options.”

Carleton said car wash operators often are concerned that new payment kiosks might not provide the flexibility to switch up wash packages, service options and prices in response to changing business conditions. But reputable kiosk vendors understand that customization is a must-have for car wash operators.

“That’s a question that we get quite often: ‘Once I have it set up, am I stuck with it that way? How hard is it to change?’ ” Carleton said. “They need a vendor that can help them so that when they want to make changes to a package, or they find a hot-selling item, or they get new products in, they can very easily put it in there, make it part of a bundle and make it visible for the customer. We get a lot of questions about that.”

SECURING CREDIT CARD TRANSACTIONS

Bath said all of ICS’s pay stations now feature EMV microchip technology to provide greater security for credit card transactions. Newer debit and credit cards have a small microchip embedded in them designed to cut down on consumer fraud and limit credit card issuers’ liability for fraudulent payment chargebacks.

Before this widely adopted upgrade to point-of-sale kiosks, scammers could install “skimmers” over magnetic stripe card readers and capture consumers’ credit-card data to clone their cards. Now, EMV technology, which stands for “EuroPay, MasterCard and Visa,” has become standard at retailers of all types. The data encryption provided by the chips now allows kiosks to offer the tap-to-pay feature, where customers simply tap the terminal with their card and the transaction is complete. Similarly, smartphone options such as Apple Pay and Google Pay allow customers to pay by tapping their phones against compatible terminals, speeding up transactions.

“Tap-to-pay got a bad reputation in the U.S. because it wasn’t encrypted, so people could skim credit card numbers with RFID reading devices,” Bath said. “Most people remember all the commercials for metal wallets from a few years ago. Well, that’s all gone away because now the chip is encrypted, and so is the tap, so the tap feature now is coming back.”

CASH JUST WON’T GO AWAY

Bath said the most expensive mechanical components in pay stations are the ones meant to handle cash, especially ATM-grade bill dispensers that are fast and accurate. Newer dispensers, for example, can give customers two $5 bills and two $1 bills when they pay for an $8 wash with a $20 bill. Cheaper versions would give the customer 12 singles. He said some kiosks still take coins, and some even take tokens.

“A lot of owners like to keep tokens in their pocket,” Bath said. “They’ll stop in a restaurant, see a friend and say, ‘Here is a token for a free wash.’ Most people are taking coin out of the units because they don’t want to have to reconcile that on a regular basis and bills are much easier to reconcile. The bill accepter we use tracks how much money is in it by value and denomination, so there is a very elaborate cash-control system built into the software.”

In addition, state-of-the-art kiosks offer detailed reporting features for operators, allowing them to see how often customers are coming back, track car volume according to day of the week and time of day, gauge the effectiveness of promotions and identify the most popular wash and service packages, Carleton said.

Bath said he knows of several car washes in Canada that have eliminated cash as a payment option, but that is easier north of the border because many Canadians use what are known as Interac debit cards instead of cash. The cards offer enhanced security features; transactions are approved online and in real time as customers’ money is exchanged electronically between their financial institution and the merchant.

“We tried to make a couple of sites in the U.S. cashless, and it has not gone well,” Bath said. “It’s gone much better in Canada because almost everyone there has one of those cards, so cash is used far less in Canada.”