Saturday, December 31, 2011

Why Carwashes Need WiFi or a Larger Escape Lane in the Information Age

The other day, I was sitting in the local Starbucks - it is a couple of buildings away from a very popular carwash in town. This particular carwash happens to do hand washing, and also has quick detail services which they call; Express Detail Service. Anyway, I was talking to one of the customers who happened to leave their car for the express detail, and run over to Starbucks so she could use the WiFi for their iPad, and their smart phone.

The lady I was talking to was concerned because the carwash to not have WiFi available, and when she tried to use the WiFi system they would not give her the password so she could get her e-mails. They gave her some sort of an excuse;

"If we let you use it, we have to let everyone use it, and they would tie up all the bandwidth, and we would be able to run our computer system,"

and the service manager at the carwash also made a statement;

"We never know if someone comes in to get a carwash, wants to use our WiFi system so they can hack us."

The lady was rather miffed, why would she come to a carwash and pay $45 to get her car detailed, and actually, every week for a $10-$19 carwash and suddenly become a hacker to break into their computer system? After all, she considers herself a very good paying customer, and after being in the carwash business for over 27 years before retirement, I would certainly agree that are regular customer like that is very valuable, and she didn't deserve getting the runaround from the carwash manager when she asked a simple question about using the WiFi system.

Now then, as a carwash consultant in my early retirement I can tell you that all carwashes in this day and age, in our information age, need to have WiFi available for all of their customers. If they don't have that available, especially on the weekends when the lines get very long, they need a Larger escape Lane so customers that have important things to do can get out of the line, so they don't have to wait to text message their friends, pick up their e-mails, or get online. Let's face it - we now live in a connected world.

All automotive service companies would be wise to have WiFi access available. And if these companies are worried about someone breaking into the computer system, then they should have a separate standalone WiFi system for their customers to use. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it. If you don't keep your customers happy, I bet your competition would be glad to.

Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on the Carwash Business. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net

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