The Airffect effect: break the old routine
How to make customers to your wash bays into returning customers? Airffect can be of help. The Austrian company offers a unique innovation for the self-service car wash. Their car dryers really can make a difference.
Most car wash customers would like to have a preferred car wash. One that they use every time to clean their vehicle. These regular customers are elemental to the profitability of a car wash. But not every customer values a preferred car wash, and not every regular customer uses a single car wash exclusively.
Break the routine
Car washers usually run on routine. Both the location, timing and procedure at the car wash often follow the same path. In the past, this fixed date for the car wash was Saturday afternoon, when soccer fans listened to the soccer broadcasts on the car radio and extensively washed their cars.
Nowadays, this routine has faded. People wash on every day of the week. Nevertheless, car washes still benefit from routine consumption today.
For example, when customers combine the car wash with weekend shopping or regularly wash their vehicle on the way to work or on the way home.
From rags to air
Incorporating innovations into a routine process to increase sales at a carwash is a special challenge. The Airffect self-service dryer is familiar with these circumstances. At self-service carwashes, customers are not used to using a self-service dryer. They often dry their washed cars with rags.
But this is rapidly changing. Optimal product placement and clever marketing are important levers here.
Airffect has succeeded in offering an innovation for the self-service car wash in very close coordination with experienced car wash operators, extensive market and product analysis, surveys and studies, which not only delivers a high-quality product, but also brings an optimized marketing concept.
“Studies that we conducted together with car wash operators from 2016 to 2019 show that customer demand for a self-service dryer is very high. Every washer would be willing to pay an additional fee in a self-service wash box for drying,” says Airffect managing director Andreas Pasching, summarizing the development.
The Fun Factor
For all the demands made on the quality and price of a car wash, Andreas Pasching also mentions another important element: The Fun Factor. “This is key for the car care professional”, he says. “To achieve this, the handling and drying power must be perfectly matched to the car care professional.”
“To get the most out of an Airffect , placement is key. The right place for this innovation in the self-service wash area is in direct proximity to the self-service wash boxes and with direct visual range between the self-service wash bays and the self-service dryer.
While customers are still washing their vehicles, they should become aware of the use of the Airffect when they see other customers dry their vehicles with it. They hear the powerful drying and see the handling of the self-service unit. Man is a creature of habit, the fear of new things prevents him from trying ‘new things’. But with the right positioning, two of the biggest inhibitions of vehicle caretakers are easy to overcome,” explains Andreas Pasching in conversation with our colleagues at CarwashPro.de.
Convince your customer
If car washers in the past have managed without an additional service such as self-service drying, it is because they were previously unfamiliar with the new way of drying and were unable to gain any experience.
In order to convince new customers now, the new offer must be so convincing, innovative and easy to use that customers value the performance effect, the time savings and the better cleaning result more highly than the type of cleaning without this innovation.
“With the right placement and targeted marketing, innovations such as the Airffect self-service dryer are the perfect addition to any self-service wash station,” says Andreas Pasching, summarizing his experience. “For me, it’s the best feeling when a satisfied partner calls and says the Airffect self-service dryer is the perfect finishing touch for my wash bay.”
