There are a variety of ways to boost your car wash business’s bottom line. For example, you can raise prices, trim labor, or decrease expenditures. But if not done correctly, some of these methods can hurt you in the long run. Therefore, the best way to improve revenue is to increase your car count and wash more vehicles.
A car wash point-of-sale (POS) software system can help you get cars to the tunnel faster while still providing a consistent, professional image to your customers. Choose a multi-faceted, cloud-based POS system created with input from real-world operators and designed exclusively for the car wash industry.
What Are the Capabilities of POS?
Maximizing vehicle throughput while upselling additional items and still offering a quality service can challenge many car wash owners. POS systems connected to payment kiosks can help you solve this challenge while maximizing your site’s profitability using capabilities including:
- Cash flow management
- Loyalty program signups
- Automated billing
- Inventory management
- Customizable reports
- An optimized self-pay process
- Various payment options
- License plate recognition integration
It does all of this while retaining the ability to seamlessly blend with your company’s processes. As a result, many experienced owners believe that continual POS system upgrades are likely a chief contributor to the car wash business boom.
Why Is Point of Sale Important?
Car wash enterprises can be challenging to manage with multiple tasks happening at one time. Providing customer service, selling a car wash package, and collecting payment from customers are just a few of these.
In a competitive industry, a well-thought-out, easy-to-operate POS system is essential for automating tasks to save you time and money. It collects data on your customers, boosts service volume, and calculates your labor efficiency variance, all with a lightning-fast interface to keep your business running and growing.
How Can I Get Cars to the Tunnel Faster?
The faster your customers can buy their washes, the more you can increase your car count. Increased car count means higher revenue growth.
There are two effective tools to help you do this: Self-serve POS pay stations and license plate recognition (LPR).
Increase Throughput Rates With Self-Serve Pay Stations
Payment technology has significantly changed over the years. Today, customers can complete their own transactions and expedite the process using a POS self-serve payment kiosk. Additionally, pay stations offer reduced labor, automation, and the ability to run dozens of more cars through your wash per hour.
Your POS system is typically the first item your customers interact with and often serves as the face of your company. Therefore, make sure it has flexible and convenient features like these to keep the line moving while leaving customers with a positive lasting impression of your brand:
- A large touch screen that enables quick and easy transactions
- Easy-to-read displays for rapid wash selection
- A station that can accept cash and credit cards but can also be configured for credit cards only to facilitate express lanes
- A bill recycler that can give change from prior transactions, minimizing cassette restocking.
- Cloud technology that automatically texts you when cash is running low or high, allowing for longer autonomous runtime without employee interaction.
Your POS system empowers you to sell extra services during slower seasons while enabling fast, seamless usage. This way, you can maintain a fast-moving line of customers while serving even more!
Improve Car Counts Using License Plate Recognition (LPR)
Accelerate transaction speeds and increase your car count by utilizing state-of-the-art license plate recognition (LPR) for car washes technology.
With LPR, customers with monthly or unlimited plans can go through the tunnel automatically without stopping to pay.
How Does LPR Scanning Work?
When a car approaches your wash, the LPR camera can identify the vehicle by its license plate. State-of-the-art LPR systems like Washify’s then capture your customer’s plate as their car is moving.
It snaps photos of the license plate, and sophisticated software reads the numbers and letters. That data is stored, and if it’s a new customer, a profile is created automatically. New customers can use their phones to add plate information and enroll in your unlimited plan.
On their next visit, they’ll be recognized as an unlimited member. When membership-plan customers return for a wash, their visit is tracked and their purchase is automatically applied against the customer’s plan. LPR eliminates:
- The need for staff to affix readers or devices to customer cars.
- Additional information requirements from customers.
- Slow, inaccurate license plate reads.
- Customers having to roll down their windows or get out of the car. Instead, they simply enter the wash lane, get scanned, and continue through the car wash.
Increase Car Count With Washify’s Next-Level POS System
Washify’s POS cloud-based platform and terminal system offer a modern, point-of-sale solution for your growing business. We design workflows to keep your lines moving and maximize throughput.
Learn more about our car wash POS system and our competitive pricing bundles. Contact us by completing our online form or giving our consultants a call. Get started right away, and let Washify erase your worries of long lines and slow throughput!
