The Unlimited Auto Wash Podcast

Consistency Across Locations: How Unlimited Auto Wash Delivers Quality Every Time

Kevin Dalton Episode 8

What Strategies Are In Place To Ensure Consistent Customer Satisfaction Across All Locations?

Ever wondered how top car wash businesses maintain consistent quality across multiple locations? Kevin Dalton, owner of Unlimited Auto Wash, pulls back the curtain on the sophisticated systems that ensure every vehicle receives the same exceptional treatment regardless of which location you visit.

Kevin reveals the power of their strenuous training programs that standardize everything from the direction employees move their washing mitts to the final quality inspection. Monday manager meetings create accountability as teams review the previous week's performance metrics and customer feedback. Most fascinating is their quality control position—a role Kevin created eight years ago when expanding beyond a single location. This dedicated person inspects every vehicle before customer pickup, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.

The secret weapon? An anonymous shopper program that has operated for five years with eight trusted friends regularly visiting different locations. These undercover evaluations provide unfiltered feedback on the customer experience, with Kevin proudly noting they've received virtually no negative reports this year. Combined with their methodical approach to reviewing every customer comment—sometimes 30-40 weekly—it's no surprise Unlimited Auto Wash maintains Google ratings between 4.5-4.85 across locations, far exceeding industry averages. 

Ready to experience this consistency yourself? Visit any of their six Palm Beach County locations or head to unlimitedautowashclub.com, where they truly "make you look good."

To learn more about Unlimited Auto Wash visit:
https://www.UnlimitedAutoWashClub.com
Unlimited Auto Wash
561-WASH-ME-2

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Unlimited Auto Wash podcast. Get ready to discover the secrets to keeping your car looking spotless and new. Here's your host, Kevin Dalton, owner of the Unlimited Auto Wash, ready to make your ride shine like never before.

Speaker 2:

Running multiple locations means maintaining the same high quality service at each one. So how does Unlimited Auto Wash ensure every customer gets the same top tier experience, no matter which location they visit? Welcome back everyone. I'm Sofia Yvette, co-host, slash producer. Back in the studio with Unlimited Auto Watch owner, kevin Dalton. Kevin, how's it going today?

Speaker 3:

Fine, thank you. I hope you had a great weekend.

Speaker 2:

I did, kevin. Thank you so much for asking and that's great to hear so, kevin. Everyone wants to know what strategies are in place to ensure consistent customer satisfaction across all locations.

Speaker 3:

Great question. Well, I think it all comes from our strenuous training programs that we put each area in. For example, washing cars which direction to wash the cars with the mitts. Of course, I think one very important component is also our managers meeting that we hold on Monday mornings, where we bring all of our managers from our locations in and we sit down and have a long talk over the previous week's statistics and talk about any issues we may have had. Talk about our wonderful reviews we get, and occasionally that one that has some very, very good feedback, and we'll get a hold of that customer and get their important feedback and run with it also. I think myself being the owner and my top management team visiting the locations as often as possible is very, very helpful and useful in making sure we offer an extremely consistent product. And lastly, as I mentioned earlier, is the feedback from the customers. We love feedback and we certainly use that information as best we can to make sure it filters down to our frontline employees.

Speaker 2:

So, Kevin, how does employee training ensure a uniform customer experience across all locations?

Speaker 3:

Well, certainly having the same techniques and training offered at every location helps so much and we appreciate our training crew for what they do. We appreciate all of our employees listening to us and when we do our inspections, I mean they're still doing exactly what they do. We appreciate all of our employees listening to us and when we do our inspections, I mean they're still doing exactly what they were trained and they're showing also the newer employees that maybe didn't pick up on something. They're showing them what to do. It's so vitally important to make sure that the training is done correctly and that's why we have the same people, week in and week out, that are doing our training. When we haven't hired people recently, for example at the end of our busy season, we certainly aren't hiring anybody right then. For the next month, two months, maybe even three or four months, those training people are continuing to train our existing employees and retrain. It's just a very useful tool we have in our pocket that we utilize all the time, all the time.

Speaker 2:

What role do quality control measures play in maintaining service consistency?

Speaker 3:

So I've been at this for 15 years in this industry and about eight years ago, when we expanded and added more locations, I felt the need to not add not only having the manager on the front line, but add a quality control person that when the car is called for being finished, you know they'll yell blue Mercedes and they're standing by the door that person is to, before they call the car, look inside, walk around the car and make sure the car is done. If they ordered our special wash or our Ultimate Plus, it's to make sure we're offering the same product and service for every car, based on what wash they purchased. I think our guys do a wonderful job and our ratings at our location show it. We're sitting at 4.5. 5 to 4.85 on our Google ratings. I say 4.85 because he keeps going between a 4.8 and 4.9 all the time and I think that's outstanding. You just don't find car washes with those types of Google ratings. A quality control person has been one of our biggest helps in making sure that the job is done correctly and consistently.

Speaker 2:

That's amazing. And so, kevin, how do secret shoppers visits help improve customer satisfaction?

Speaker 3:

Well, that's interesting. So it was probably not until about five years ago that I asked some of my friends. I would say listen, irvin, I want you to go by our Wellington location. I want you to get this wash and here's the cash for it. I want you to go out there. They don't know you. They don't know you're my friend. Just go through the processes and make sure our employees are doing everything they are asking them.

Speaker 3:

Obviously he can't sit there and watch what they do in the wash tunnel, but everything from finishing the car, the windows, making sure everything's done when these cars called, to make sure our quality control person is walking around the car, and finally, when Irvin gets out to the car to walk at the car himself, look around the car, look inside the car and if there is something missing or one crumb in the back seat, on the floor, let them know and have them come out, vacuum it and get it up. But I'm proud to say in five years, irvin, our employees do not know that they've been secret shopped, if you will. They only know they were secret shopped. So he's continually done this for me over the years. But I actually have about eight friends that do this on a continual basis about every month and a half. So I'm getting eight secret shoppers every month and a half hitting different locations, and it's looking back. It's been one of the biggest and best things we've ever done, so we're going to continue to do that and I'm proud to say our secret shoppers. Actually, I'm trying to think of the last.

Speaker 3:

This year alone and we're in April now I haven't had one negative issue, except one day when it was raining and it was difficult for us to finish the car in the rain and we ended up having to move him to a different spot underneath a big canopy. And he just said well, it took a little longer than what it normally does. And I tried to tell her yeah, it would, because we had to take your car and move it to a different area. Uh, that was away from our, our facility right there. And my friend completely understood and said okay, I don't have a single complaint then. So it's just a wonderful addition we added a few years back.

Speaker 2:

That's amazing. So, Kevin, how does Unlimited Auto Wash adapt based on customer reviews and suggestions?

Speaker 3:

Oh boy, we go over every single review every week in our managers meeting and sometimes that could be 30 or 40 reviews and we just talk about each one. Of course, like I said, the overwhelming majority are five-star reviews and we go over every single one and give kudos to the name of the person that the customer had mentioned did a good job for them, and we certainly bring up those kudos to that employee when we're back out in the field later in the week. We take that feedback so seriously and I can't imagine what company wouldn't but we take it very seriously and we run with it and we implement those into our strategies. It's been a great addition as well. We've been doing that for quite a number of years, probably a solid eight to 10 years and of course it shows in our reviews at all of our locations. So you know we're doing what we feel are the right steps to maintain quality, consistent product and service at every location.

Speaker 2:

Love it, Kevin. We'll catch you in the next episode. Have a fantastic rest of your day thank you and good seeing you thanks for listening to the unlimited auto wash podcast.

Speaker 1:

Keep your car looking its absolute best by visiting one of our six convenient palm beach county locations or by heading to unlimitedautowashclubcom. Remember, at the unlimited auto wash, we make you look good. See you next time. To unlimitedautowashclubcom. Remember, at the Unlimited Auto Wash, we make you look good. See you next time.