Every car wash needs a way for customers to pay their bill, but the best car wash POS systems can do far more than just handle transactions. If you’re looking for a POS system and your top priority is getting paid, you’re missing out!
The true purpose of a modern POS system is to make the buying experience as smooth as possible for the customer, no matter what kind of vehicle they have or their prior history with your car wash. Here are some features we see in the best car wash POS systems.
Membership Programs
One of the most-loved features of the best car wash POS systems is a prepaid membership program. Membership programs let customers skip leaving their cars to pay for their car wash. Membership programs let cars push through your wash faster and increase your revenue.
Many car wash dealers use a yearly membership system. This nets you more money up front and helps raise capital needed for further upgrades or opening additional locations faster than waiting for the end of a season.
Some membership programs use a card swipe or a key fob to register people, but license plate scanning tops them all. Washify’s plate scanning system can identify a vehicle quickly as a member, track the visit, and allow them access to the car wash.
Reporting and Analytics
Owners need to see what’s happening at their car washes quickly to identify problems and gain insights about their business performance. Modern car wash POS systems have reporting and analytics capabilities built-in that you can check from your computer or smartphone.
Different POS systems use different reporting techniques and dashboards. Before you invest in a system, identify which reports are most useful to you and see if it can provide what you’re looking for. You should also choose a system that can offer real-time tracking and cloud backup.
A strong reporting suite will help guide your business decisions on things like hiring, supply ordering, site performance, and much more. You don’t have to do these by hand anymore, or make a guess!
Customer Apps
Yes, some people do like pushing buttons at a traditional POS station, but many people prefer using apps these days to handle memberships and wash orders. The best car wash POS systems have app features like:
- Custom branding
- Appointment booking for specialty services
- Membership purchase, renewals, and cancellations
- Personal information and card information storage into your CMS
- Location information
- Push marketing capabilities (e.g. coupon messages)
Apps have burned many car wash owners in the past because they couldn’t make them work with their old POS systems. If you choose to make an app, or already have one and plan to upgrade your POS, make sure you can tell your customers if they need to upgrade or change apps.
Website Integrations
If your car wash has a website, why not let it have the same capabilities as your app?
Washify’s system lets you integrate your website into our POS so that you can sell memberships, merchandise, gift cards, and more through your website. The system tracks where the purchase came from and centralizes all the information for reporting.
If you sell detailing at your car washes, this is a powerful feature. People feel more comfortable ordering an expensive detailing service on a traditional website than over an app. They may also see downloading an app as an extra hurdle, and there are still holdouts who cannot or refuse to get a smartphone.
Intuitive Interfaces
The best features mean nothing if you and your customers can’t figure out how to use them. Excellent car wash POS systems try to minimize the number of taps or clicks to get to the most common purchases or reports.
There are principles that UI creators follow, but until you have the system in your hands, it’s hard to judge how easy it is to use a system. That’s why we offer demos of our software and hardware so that you can see for yourself how easy it is to set up and use.
Mobile Payments and Access
If you’re still using coins to operate your car wash, you’re probably not doing too well these days! People prefer using their mobile device or chip cards to pay for their washes these days. Owners and employees can also take advantage of this preference through mobile access systems.
For instance, if you have a backed-up line at your wash, an employee could go down the line processing payments in advance. This reduces customer frustration and helps move people through your wash faster. It could help even more when all a customer needs to do is tap their phone to a tablet for mobile POS.
The Best Car Wash POS System: More Than Just Money
As you can see, the best car wash POS systems do much more than take money! They can become the heart of your car wash. Depending on your needs, you can also look for features in your next POS like:
- Employee management systems
- Integrations with your current software and hardware setup
- Inventory management systems
To see how Washify implements all these advanced car wash POS features into our product, contact us for a demo.
