In this webinar, Jocelyn Stearns Streingruber, a data analyst team lead at SUDS and DRB®, and Connor Cox, a marketing manager at SUDS, share invaluable insights on leveraging data to drive growth in the car wash industry. Here’s a summary of their discussion on the top three metrics that can transform your car wash business.
Metric #1: Traffic Breakdown
The first crucial metric is understanding who is using your wash by breaking down your total car count into three customer categories:
- Members: The ideal benchmark is 65-70% membership traffic, with members visiting approximately 2.5 times per month.
- Retail Customers: While these customers aren't providing the consistent revenue you want, they still represent an important portion of your business. They are, however, the best candidates for converting to membership. Promotions and upselling by attendants can help increase membership conversions.
- Prepaid Customers: This typically smallest group includes customers using gift cards or wash books. They wash consistently but not frequently enough to justify switching to an unlimited membership.
Depending on your traffic breakdown, different strategies apply:
- Heavy Retail: Run membership promotions, train attendants on upselling and consider attendant incentives.
- Well-Balanced: Focus on customer experience, continue membership upselling, request Google reviews and run balanced promotions.
- Member-Heavy: Implement retail wash promotions and deploy evergreen digital ads to attract new customers.
Metrics #2 & #3: Capture Rate and Churn Rate
These metrics work together to give you the complete picture of membership growth:
Capture Rate: The percentage of retail customers who convert to membership. The benchmark is above 5% normally, or 7-10% during membership promotions.
Churn Rate: The percentage of active members ending their membership by choice. The target is less than 5% for voluntary churn.
The presenters outlined four scenarios based on these metrics:
- High Capture, Low Churn: Indicates healthy growth. Continue monitoring wash quality.
- Low Capture, High Churn: The worst-case scenario. Run membership promotions, optimize attendant selling, improve signage and deploy Google search campaigns.
- High Capture, High Churn: Suggests poor membership loyalty. Avoid constant discounting, focus on customer service, create membership rewards and check wash quality.
- Low Capture, Low Churn: Shows loyal members but slow growth. Focus on communicating value to retail customers and train attendants to sell memberships effectively.
Key Takeaways for Operators
These metrics are interconnected—they must be evaluated together for a complete picture of wash performance. Our experts recommend:
- Staffing Pay Stations: Ensure excellent customer service at every touchpoint.
- Staying Informed: Review performance metrics monthly and analyze trends over time.
- Creating Strategic Marketing Plans: Develop a promotion mix that addresses your specific situation.
- Reviewing Pricing Carefully: Don't assume price changes will fix performance issues without analyzing data first.
By proactively monitoring these metrics and implementing targeted strategies, car wash operators can make data-driven decisions that lead to sustainable growth in an increasingly competitive industry.
Request a free Membership Health Assessment to help identify the best growth strategies for your specific situation.
