Talking Tech: Boosting Brand Loyalty with Better Data

Do you know how your customer really feels about your business? What keeps them loyal to your brand? Or what’s contributing to membership churn? As the car wash space continues to experience a tech boom, it’s important for car wash operators to know what resources are available and identify the specific technology solutions providers that might be a right fit for their business to boost operational efficiencies and enhance the customer experience.  

This episode examines how one company is capturing consumer sentiment, categorizing and quantifying customer data, and leveraging it to provide real-time actionable insights to operators to help make informed decisions about their business. Host Lanese Barnett talks with Director of Operations Michael Pelikan and Founder Bobby Thomspon of Retention Express, an omni-channel, white-labeled customer experience support provider specializing in the car wash industry, about customer retention and retention of revenue.  

For a full transcript of the episode and more, check out the post.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to Car Wash M ⁇ A, the podcast, brought to you by Amplify Car Wash Advisors, the number one advisors of car wash chains nationwide on mergers and acquisitions in capital advisory services.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

Hi, I'm Lenise Barnett, Vice President of Business Development at Amplify Car Wash Advisors, and your host of Car Wash MA, the podcast. Here we'll take a deep dive into the current mergers and acquisitions activity of the car wash industry with the goal of keeping car wash owners informed on where the market is today and where it's going tomorrow so that you can make informed decisions about your business. We'll help you answer the question: should I sell my car wash now or should I enter growth mode and really scale my operation? Each month, I'll speak with industry experts who will share practical advice on how to sell or scale your car wash. While the industry is undoubtedly changing, what remains constant is the need for solid information so you can evaluate where you are and chart the course for the future of your business. This is episode 18. And today we are talking about a subject that is so important to all car wash owners, especially right now. And it is about how you can leverage data in your business to really drive profitability and boost operational efficiencies. And as we keep moving through the rest of the year and looking forward to next year, that operational efficiency component is so important. So without further ado, I would like to introduce my guests today. With me today, I have Michael Pelkin with Retention Express. He's the director of operations. And I also have Bobby Thompson, who is the founder of Retention Express. And today we're going to talk about what they do to help really provide resources to car wash owners on how to understand their customers better, understand their business better, and uh and provide these solutions for cost saving for operators. Hi, everyone. Thank you for being on the show today.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Good morning. Morning, Leninese. Thank you. Congratulations on episode 18. Big deal.

SPEAKER_03 2:29

Right. Yes. And just um as a reminder for our listeners, Bobby was featured on uh an early episode of ours on episode five. So if you'd ever like to go back and hear more about kind of the origin story of Retention Express and hear that early conversation, you can find that on amplifywash.com backslash podcast, and you can search for episode five. Okay, so Michael, would you please first give us a little background on you and uh what your role is at Retention Express, as well as just a quick overview of what the goal and mission of Retention Express is.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Yeah, absolutely, Lanise. So again, my name is Michael Pelican. I've been with Retention Express for about six months. Um, prior to joining, I worked at a large managed service company where we're doing a lot of outbound contact center-driven work um within Fortune 500 state and federal governments. And Bobby gave me an opportunity to join about six months ago into kind of this startup environment. And my role as director of operations is to really look at our processes, our procedures, how are we operating from a contact center customer experience perspective and not only manage our current environment to be successful, but also to build our processes and procedures to be scalable. We're continuing to add new customers every month. And what we're building needs to be sustainable, not only for now, but also in the next three to five to 10 years as this company continues to evolve, not only in the car wash industry, but potentially into other verticals. And so my job is to be hands-on with our agents, to be hands-on with our clients, to be able to provide the feedback that we're seeing, but also ensure that the customers of our brands are really getting top-notch white glove service. And so uh not only do I manage the performance, I get on the phones, Bobby gets on the phones. We interact with these customer brands all the time, and it's really great to get a pulse of the customer for from a first-hand experience.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

Before I ask the next question, so Bobby, can you give a like a quick overview of Retention Express and why you felt that there was this need for your company when you were starting out in uh 2020?

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Yeah, great question. So, part of my background, you know, which I've told before, being an ATT, we had a huge problem in a $2 billion company. And when you don't listen to your customers, it can definitely contribute to your churn. It creates a lot of other problems. And when I was in the kind of a role working with car wash owner and operators, the problem existed even down to a one-site location, let alone multi-site. So I felt like there's definitely a really good opportunity to help owner and operators to improve efficiency, right? Really listen to their customers to gather the data and the insight because that's really what goes, you know, away from day to day on how employees operate and manage, right? They're busy on site, they don't have time to kind of capture the data, which is really what you need. So you can get away from kind of that gut feeling, or here's what we hear quite a bit, and an issue that maybe one or two times, you know, you blow it up and it becomes like a big ordeal, and it's really not a big ordeal. So the data kind of really tells you what your problems could be, let alone what are the good things that you're doing too, because customer feedback comes in all forms, shapes, and sizes, and you want to give that outlet to your customers and moods. Believe me, we we get we we get every mood swing coming in, you know, on behalf of these owner and operators that we work with. And when you deal with the public, you know, there it's funny. There, there's some funny people out there for sure. But at the end of the day, we want to make the experience a really good one for the customers, help the owner and operators get better, you know, in handling their operations, let their employees really kind of focus on what you want them to focus on on site, and we help them really on an off-site. But the the key thing I think that we drive and do is communication, right? Like our collaboration every day throughout the whole day of how we communicate to site managers, to owner and operators is very visible. And when we share a partnership, the partnership is hey, customer has a problem, we need to help solve it, but we need your help to do it. So we work together. And the fact is we can keep track of that process from start to finish to ensure that the customer doesn't get left behind and it doesn't drag on longer than it needs to. So the whole goal is kind of really shorten the gap of how we communicate, um, make sure the customers are being taken care of, whether it's a cancellation, whether it's a refund issue, whether it's a billing problem, right? Double billing happens quite a bit and is real. So it takes time to investigate it. And more importantly, customers want to ensure that everything is taken care of.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

Yeah, we're a white label, white glove, customer experience, third-party support. Um, so we handle predominantly inbound contact for our owners and operators. We're taking that lift of that customer interaction and handling the majority of that back office functionality, which gives our owners and operators the freedom to be able to focus on what really matters is the customers on-site at location, making sure that their wash experience is positive. So we handle all of that volume and then partner with obviously our site providers to ensure that you know we're providing this feedback to this data, the leading reasons for cancellations, or you know, what sort of feedback are we receiving? So we handle in all incoming contact as well as then produce and perform some outbound campaigns as well.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

Perfect. And thank you for that background on Retention Express and also both of your roles. So, Michael, earlier you said you, your part of your role as director of operations is you know, making sure that the company itself or Retention Express is scalable, but you're also a mission of Retention Express is being able to help car wash owner and operators scale their business by solving some of these major problems or issues or or challenges that they have with how they interact with their customers and how they communicate with them, especially off site. And then also, what do they do with the information that they receive? So if it is a customer issue and they a customer calls the location, maybe it's answered, maybe it's not answered, even if it is resolved, was that information captured? And then is there this aggregate data that then can drive decisions for the owner operator on how they move forward or how they make decisions about their business? So could you share with us some of the examples of data and information that you capture and where that goes? And then ultimately we'll talk about what you do with it.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Yeah, absolutely. Great question, Lanise. And I'll share my screen here in just a moment. But the the way our company operates is out of a telephony and ticketing system. And what that means is every customer call, text, email, web form submitted, live chat is a recorded ticket. And our agents document that ticket very detailed. It's obviously the brand down to the site location, down to the reason for that ticket. And as Bobby mentioned before, it could be for a number of things. It could be a member that is looking to dive into their billing and why they were double billed. It could be a retail customer who's calling in about hours of operations. We detail and document all of those categories to really paint a picture. And with that, we provide all of our customers with access into our Power BI dashboards. So it is a client dashboard that funnels in the data from our telephony system and provides various dashboards in terms of specific areas. And so areas that we highlight are obviously cancellations. Cancellation data is critical, gives you the opportunity to really view and look at trends that could be happening in the business to be able to pivot. So we provide our customers this access so they can get a real-time sense of what's going on. Um, so I'll share my screen here, just kind of highlight briefly what we kind of have from a customer view perspective. And so on the screen here, you will see that this is for 2023, and it gives us a snapshot into cancellation reasons, the amount of cancellations we've had that have just been a natural discontinue. So customer calling in three weeks before their billing for whatever reason, they're sitting they want to cancel it as a natural discontinue of that membership. We also track terminations with refunds. What could those reasons be? Why were those terminations occurred? And also tracking the refund amount categories. Was it a month? Was it two months? What led to that?

SPEAKER_03 10:32

Michael, for our listeners that uh are listening via audio only, can you just give me and paint a picture for the listeners about what it is that your your clients and these car wash owners see on um the dashboard through Retention Express?

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Absolutely. Great, great point, Lenny. So they're able to see various data points, such as number of cancellations that occurred over a set period of time. Within that, we have another graph that'll highlight the cancellation reasons top to bottom for their leading categories down to their lowest categories. Constantly, we see the leading categories always lack of use. And we've actually had recent calls with customers about how do we drive lack of use down? What is the strategy behind Retention Express, as well as our clients, to say how can we get use and lack of use as their leading reason to maybe disc, you know, drop that down by several percentage points. We also provide customer exit sediment, and I think this is a really important one. We try to capture how that customer is feeling on the exit. Are they a promoter? Are they someone who's saying, hey, you know what? I love this brand. Right now, money's tight. I'm gonna go back to single washes, but I love y'all. We're gonna continue to represent and promote you to all my friends and family. That is a positive story. We also capture passive people that may just not use the wash enough. They really don't have much of a way of saying, Am I a promoter, a detractor? And then you have the detractors, the ones that you really want to dive in on. What was the experience that led to someone? So we also provide a graph that highlights, you know, what are the different areas of customer exit sediment for us to really be able to attack and ensure that we continue to have those high promoter scores as well as low detractor scores. So that is all on a dashboard in a in a one screenshot.

SPEAKER_03 12:07

I love this because from an operational experience for myself, it was really hard to capture why people were canceling uh because you don't have time. You, if you're if you're on site and it's a busy Saturday with a line of cars, finding out all of that information can be a real challenge. And so this sounds like because this is your agent's sole job of communicating with customers, that there is a different, a different capability to dive into what that is, and then what you can do about that information. So having it and then also seeing patterns and different points of data about it.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

And I'll jump in real fast too. So the whole point, like when we talk to customers are looking to cancel, right? We we're all about trying to retain customers too, right? Like it's not like we're just support, like hey, why are you canceling? We move on. There are actually really reasons if people give it to you that we can actually help them to solve their problem where they can keep their membership active. And an easy one that we found is people wrecked a car and like, hey, I need to cancel my membership. Well, did you know that we can transfer your membership? Like literally, they are not aware that it's a simple process to do that. So we really try and help keep revenue on a continuous path for the owner and operators and not have a break in it. Because if you get a break in the billing, you may or may not get them back. And if you can keep them going, and then obviously you increase that LTV and the lifetime value of that consumer, it's much better for the bottom line. So when we tie in the customer excess sentiment, if we have a lot of detractors, we're getting that feedback of like why they do not want to do business with that with that brand. That's immediate feedback that we provide to them. And sometimes it's controllable, sometimes it's not, right? If if they feel like you scratched their car and they're just really upset and you're not going to prove a damage claim, you're probably not gonna get them back. But we capture that sentiment to really let them know what that exit is. So it's basically a deep, deeper view of their customer. And is there a good opportunity in the future when they do leave the brand? Will they come back to them? That's what we want, right? The exit of a of an exiting member doesn't mean they're not gonna come back in the future. We hear all reasons, and it does vary throughout the whole year, right? May and June, all the Florida customers are going back to Canada. You make it difficult for them when they come back in the fall or Scottsdale, right? Yeah, it's seasonal. There's a lot of seasonality that goes that goes on throughout the whole year. And those are the people you definitely don't want to make upset, and they'll find somebody else. So we really try to make it easy for them and capture the sentiment. And if they're a promoter of the brand, we love that. We love getting more of that feedback.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

So, Bobby, something that I hear you say, and you know, we've known each other for quite some time and have been following your, you know, why you made this business and and the the purpose that it serves to really help car wash owner and operators protect that back door of their business. So just like you were talking about with the customer exit sentiment, that even though somebody might be leaving a membership plan, they could still be a retail customer. But as you are putting all these efforts into marketing and to attracting customers, but really making sure that you're not losing customers and you're lowering that churn. Or if you are experiencing a higher churn, what what actionable strategies can you take to do about that? So that protecting that backdoor, I think is just so critical. But the other thing that you were really touching on here is being the voice of the customer. And that's another really, really powerful piece of this component that I feel is unique to you guys that you want to find out what that customer voice is and what their concerns are, but you also, again, have that time to really dive into it and explore that with them in a very different way than, you know, perhaps an on-site manager or a customer service attendant may be able to with the other operational obligations that they have throughout the day.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Totally. I mean, it's kind of a known fact that, you know, customers will leave a brand for, you know, if they have one problem one time that doesn't get resolved, their 65% of them will maybe never come back. So if you don't give them an opportunity to tell you what their issue is or what their positive feedback is, because we do get that on how they want to compliment employees who do work hard and it's 102 degrees or in Phoenix, you know, 120, you know, they're working hard out there. People do want to recognize them for the good and you know, but also for the bad. Just give them an outlet to express it. And you can do that in not only in talking to them, but responding to emails. You can do it in your surveys, right? And how you respond back to them, the feedback that they provide. And we work with all the different marketing companies that help these owner and operators, OpsSpot, Welcome Map, they do a really good job working with these owner and operators, and they're all trying to get the feedback from the consumer. And our customers who use those platforms, we can extend the messaging. So if a negative feedback came in, we actually take it a step further to call a consumer back and try and get them back on site with a free coupon, or just really understand what their issue was and pass that feedback on because it's it's really invaluable to the owner and operator to get the feedback and let the customer be heard. And honestly, we get we get feedback from the customers who thank us for calling them when they never expected to even get a call back. That helps drive the brand loyalty there too.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

Right. And Michael, this is something that in training and working with your agents, just to clarify, when this customer, this car wash customer is getting a call back, they're getting a call back from the brand that they frequent. So they have no idea that you even exist as Rententian Express, because your agents are operating in brand as the car wash that they serve. So that's an extension of the service that the brand provides and how they're able to communicate with customers and everything.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

100%.

SPEAKER_03 17:54

You have such an integral role in extending the communication line and the communication opportunities with customers in a very direct and meaningful way.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Absolutely. And the one thing I'll say is the thing we see the most is we are truly that extension of the brand. The customer experience on site is one element. What is their experience when they call the back office? What's the experience when they call with a problem? Oftentimes our site partners are providing them with a card that says this is our customer experience team. They can handle this. And they give us a call, they shoot us an email. So we truly do provide that extension. We always stay in brand. They don't know that our operators have potentially outsourced this service. It can be viewed as that they don't care when they outsource something that it's not as important, but it couldn't be any further from the truth. They're they're spending money to dedicate a service so that they're getting the best customer experience possible. And we have the infrastructure and technology, as well as the training, the agents, as well as the background from Bobby and I, with, you know, well over 30 years of contact center experience to really be able to drive that and really improve that element of the back end and the backdoor as we talked about, while the operators focus on the things that they do best, which is running that car wash effectively and efficiently and giving it a really great on-site experience.

SPEAKER_03 19:08

Yeah. And just in thinking about the advancements of technology, specifically as relates to the car wash space and how we're able to capture so much more data between license plate recognition and these other different marketing services that have a different communication outreach and channel to customers. But still, the thing that's different about Retention Express is that you have the live communication component to where it's not a one set piece of data that maybe is captured kind of existentially about a customer, like a license plate or you know, a phone number, an email, or things like that. You get to get their their thoughts, their sentiment, their story. You can ask different questions on the phone based on where the conversation is going in real time and then categorize the information that you receive to then paint a better picture of your different types of customers or feedback or or that sentiment, which I find really interesting, and that there is the opportunity for it to you know continue to grow and evolve. And you can learn to ask new questions based on that of what you're finding out.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Absolutely. And the one thing I'll say is, you know, Bobby and I always note this to our brands, we are not an answering service. We are not getting on the phones to quickly get someone off of it. We are problem solvers. And Bobby and I refer to this all the time. It's either the customer journey or the customer story. And it is more than just looking at their usage. It is really diving into their billing, into their issue that they have, hearing them out about their experience they had on site. And you mentioned it before, Lanise, if you're an on-site operator and you handle a cancellation, it's really viewed as a singular transaction. Well, always our singular transactions, the data and the stories and the feelings that our agents are able to take from those calls and then bring forward to our leadership team, we can make quick and effective change on site. You know, oftentimes we hear that the sales component at the pay station is often not very clear. And when we hear that several times, our agents are aware enough to say, hey, this isn't a one-off. Something's happening at this location where customers are not having a good experience in terms of how the membership's being sold and articulated. And we can provide that feedback to those operators and they can add additional training to those attendants to clean that element up of that interaction because you only get a few seconds with them. You got to be clear, you have to be concise about what they're signing up for. And if they feel deceived, if they feel like they've been misled, that is going to lead to that negative sediment, that quick exit, and they're not going to come back. And so by us being able to again capture that customer journey and those true feelings, we're able to give a lot of insight back to our sites and let them know how people are feeling in terms of just their overall journey with the company.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

And so, you know, as we started this and just talking about the theme of this series that we're working on of how data can be a tool and help boost your bottom line. So it's it's one thing to get the data, but But then it's another thing to categorize and organize it. And then it's, you know, a further thing to have that make a difference in your business in a very impactful and meaningful way to enhance your operational efficiency and to provide greater customer service or enhanced customer experience. As we talk about these different actionable insights, so one of them being what people or sales agents are saying, talking to customers, and you can reveal if there are incongruencies with what customers, their car wash customers are saying back to you of what they heard there, and then offer suggestions and insight on how they could adjust those, you know, those messages that they have. What are some other things that that you guys find?

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Typically, like new members when they get signed up on location, it's easy to kind of pitch a promotional uh offer that you're providing to them. And that is where the expectation has to begin to create the best experience. And oftentimes, you know, it happens quite a bit. It could be new people, it could just be people on contest, right? Whatever it may be. You never want your end user to feel like it's a contest, right? Like they're getting hard sold.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

A lot of times they they will call in and go, they told me it's only for 30 days. And they just never take that next step to go, this will automatically renew in month two. And people, you know, they they they want to blame it on the employee every time because it's not their fault, right? But those are things that, you know, you just tighten up from a training standpoint that help out. And when we get a lot of feedback, we definitely pass it on to the owner and operator. Just go, hey, your churn is kind of going up. We're getting a lot of people who are upset because they feel like they didn't get the correct information at the time of sale. That is a very controllable thing by an operator, much more than, hey, I moved out of Scottsdale and went to, you know, Utah, right? So things like that, uh, you really want to identify what are the controllable issues that you can manage and control at an employee level. And then look at the other things that are maybe uncontrollable. And you know, sometimes there's nothing you can do about it.

SPEAKER_03 24:02

And we don't have to dive too far into this, but just to make sure our listeners understand, too, that your team and your agents have access to the point of sales of the brands that um you represent so that they are able to take that resolution step.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

First call resolution. Yeah, the whole goal is first call resolution as much as possible. Part of the playbook that we build out with the owner and operators is the empowerment level, right? And that that was the one thing I learned, you know, ATT is you got to empower people to solve issues if you want them to be problem solvers. If you just want to answer the phone, you're not gonna give them any empowerment. You kind of hold the, you know, you hold them down. They're not gonna solve customer problems, and it creates more time for somebody else to actually go fix it. So with the empowerment, they get more enjoyment out of the role, and the customer feels much better about the brand. So getting access, we work in every point of sale provider. I don't I don't know of one that we do not operate in every single day. So all the major brands we work with, the app memberships we work with, every one of them we work every day in. And it doesn't matter if you're a private equity and you're acquiring other brands and they go from DRB on one site and then acquire another group that is Sunny's. We we can fill in immediately. And we are kind of an experts in these point of sales at this point, that we can step right in and help them from day one of any acquisition or new store opening, let alone you know new owners coming in, like you mentioned before, uh, with all the new people coming in.

SPEAKER_03 25:29

Gosh, I'm so glad that you um brought that up too, Bobby, because it is a really important overlay of these different POS providers they have, or these different sites, especially from an acquisition level. It's very costly to change out the equipment and there's there's time and cost associated with that. As brands are growing and they have a mix of different POS providers. This is really a solution for operating seamlessly within side of multiple types of them, but within one brand that is really helpful as regional and private equity backed or who are just chains looking to grow as they're looking to do that, then this is a real uh tool and solution for some of those challenges that they can face.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Yeah, we have customers that have five different POSs. So when a call comes in, like the first thing we have to do is identify, you know, where are they located, location, things like that, because the location, you know, even in a given market, you can have three different POSs in one given market. So it's really important that you don't waste a lot of time in one POS, you can't find them because you got to identify if they're in one of the other two. But it happens every day and is pretty common. I think the operators that know this is it adds another level of complexity, and complexity adds the time. And so uh that's one really key value I think that we do provide is that you know, we can we're agnostic, we can work with them in any POS. And the goal is, you know, we we're trying to help the customers, right? And all these some of these investigations do take 20 25 minutes to really dive into it. That's time that somebody would have to spend to do it effectively for one customer, not you know, for five, like for one. And we get that kind of detailed level, you know, and service.

SPEAKER_03 27:13

Right. So uh, Michael, as you are working with your team and you know, who have multiple brands and that they represent, are there any trends that you're seeing from an industry perspective on things that are coming up that maybe you hadn't built into the original model that you're seeing as a as a thing now that wasn't a thing? Just are there any industry trends that you're noticing as you work with more and more car wash owners across the country?

SPEAKER_02 27:39

Uh for me, it's it's tough because I'm only five months into the industry as a whole. So I don't have a long road of of what it was like before. But what what I will say is I've really noticed a strong trend of people being very driven by these promotional offerings and being very tied to them. And we have a lot of brands that are sending out potential offerings to specific locations, but based off their marketing, that customer may go to one location, hear about a $9.99 offer for three months, and we have to talk through that kind of trend in terms of is this offered to you? Is it not? Member calling in saying, hey, I see you guys are giving off a great deal right now. I've been with you for a year. How do I get that? Right. And so one of the things we're seeing is just how the customers are engaging from a promotional standpoint, both active members in terms of what it means for them. And a lot of our customers are starting to look towards, okay, when we do these promotions, our current customers may feel slighted. They may feel like I never got this when I signed up a year ago. And so we're really starting to see several brands start going to more of like a loyalty program, whether it's maybe giving swag, they're looking at tenure wash activity to say, okay, this person washes with us, you know, five times a month. They're they're obviously a heavy user. What can we, you know, is there a club that we can put them in? Can we give them certain offerings? Can we give them, you know, anything that could just put them above just a normal user? And so we've really started to see how not only just the membership model has changed, but how the brand loyalty and like a VIP type club that they're looking to take care of their biggest promoters are really starting to come to fruition. I can say at least three or four different brands that we work with have something in the pipeline to roll out in the next three to six months in terms of how do we take care of our most loyal customers and really show that we care outside of just giving them a great wash experience.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

Right. And thanks for sharing. And it's that retention of the customer. So keeping especially your most loyal and your happiest customers happy in perpetuity and making them feel recognized and part of it and having that identification with the brand and that relationship with the brand.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

Absolutely. I mean, I those type of customers are the ones that have two of their own vehicles on a plan, or their whole family has a membership, or they've recommended 15 other peoples and friends and family. And so it's so much further than just that single interaction for that customer. They truly represent, they promote, and they drive further revenue. That's really tough to capture unless you provide them with a referral code. But the value and the and the input and the the drive to membership is really truly there with your you're obviously the most loyal customers that truly love the brand and love to promote it.

SPEAKER_03 30:12

Yeah, definitely. Bobby, anything you want to add to that?

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Well, I think you see a big push for technology coming in, right? As membership volume is multiplying, right, for owner and operators who are really gravitated to the model and they're really trying to expand on it. Technology is coming more into play of a how do you communicate with your people better, how do you manage memberships better, how do you engage with memberships better, how do you how do you use automation to help them, right? Renced and other platforms are very visible in the car wash community, trying to make it easy to do business because in scale, it is very difficult to do it one by one. And automation is important. You have AI, you know, that's out there, and there's Chat GPT, right? That can help you write better scripts. It can help you, you know, determine the sentiment of people of how they communicate in and make sure your reply back to them is at the right tone. So I just see technology coming in to really help this industry in a lot of different ways, all the way down to how you train employees, right? How do new hires get come on board? There's just so much out there of organization and process improvements. And I think the old days of car washing, you know, just kind of figuring it out is kind of, you know, definitely the old school way. Like there's just so much out there that I think people are realizing with technology can really, really help them help their business.

SPEAKER_03 31:36

And something that's really great about this emerging technology for car wash owners as these operational efficiencies and solutions tools is the collaboration and the how these different platforms work together. So I know, Bobby, that you guys have relationships and work very seamlessly amongst other technology solutions providers, like you mentioned, rinse, or I know AMP memberships and these other um areas, as well as the POS provider, but like we know that they have to have that. But it's these other even third-party technology solutions providers that that you work with.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

Totally. Like we're we're trying to help them, right? Like our common commonality is we're both trying to help the owner and operators. So we always want to partner, you know, be a good steward of a partnership, not only at the owner and operators, but have a all their investment in marketing and technology, how can we help them become even better? Because at the end of the day, we are the people element in a world of automation that's getting bigger and bigger, and you just can't do it on automation alone. Like the automation breaks down. Who's gonna fix it? When customers can't get that solved through any kind of automation, somebody's got to go in and do it. Somebody's got to follow up with the customer. So we are the live agents, the human interaction, you know, the element piece to it that really kind of brings everything in. We're a full technology platform ourselves. You know, I'm a technology solutions partner, so I can help people with their phone systems, everything else. The whole goal is how do you leverage it? And more importantly, once you do have it, whatever you put into it is what you get out of it. So it's one thing to have technology, but you got to dive deep into it to get the most out of it to make it the most effective.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

Yeah, totally. And I think that that has been one of the most interesting things that I've seen from my point of view, just watching the industry and being involved with it over the last decade plus, of seeing how this new technology has emerged and then how there's multiple solutions that all work together to enhance those efficiencies. And you were talking about the role of technology and that there's things that we can automate, and there's things that we can have systems in place that are without human oversight, but not all of it. Like it's like some things you can tactically use AI or use automated functions, but you still have to have the human interaction. And we have seen that from kind of an industry perspective of a time there was a shift to kind of like contactless transactions at the pay gates. So, you know, pay gates came around, and then do you have someone there? Do you not have someone there? That can be up to the certain brand or the location, and there can be all kinds of reasons why you would or wouldn't do it. But on a broader scale, people identify with uh other people. So the brand can be great and the product can be great, but that connection with a specific location and people more than just automation alone. So that coupling of that and the marrying of that is uh still really important, no matter what technology advances we have.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

Yeah, and look, people are busy today and people are very mobile. And we we we just find that your website could be beautiful, it could be well built, full of content, and people will call in the most basic questions. And what that tells me is they literally get on their phone, probably go and Google, type in your location and the brand name, and just hit call. They don't even take the time to go look for the information themselves. So having the people element there is definitely critical. And I just think that behavior that exists in the marketplace is not going to go away anytime soon. We don't see it going away. People still want to get a hold of somebody and talk to them and try and get their issue resolved.

SPEAKER_03 35:22

Yeah, that's that's such a great example because it's so true.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

We're all like that, right? I do I do the same thing, right? It's just easier to hit a phone to call and keep your day going or keep driving. If it's legal legal to talk on the phone in your state while you're driving.

SPEAKER_03 35:38

But also how great if you are the caller when you have somebody answer and solve your your question right away. That I mean, that's that's totally a win-win. And that's something I see, you know, for retention express that you know you're looking for the win for the for the brand and the win for the customer. And it's it's representative of both of those.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

It's a win-win model, a hundred percent. It's all about retention revenue, retention of customers, which makes it a win-win for both sides.

SPEAKER_03 36:07

Absolutely. Thank you guys both. This is such a great conversation today. And I always enjoy talking about customer experience and how how we can provide better experience and a better service to our clients and how the car wash industry is evolving and really focusing on their customers and their experience on the washes and off the wash sites. It's just a different conversation on a much deeper level than it was in the past because we have different tools and resources and technology like you guys available to be able to understand this and to dive further in than say 10 years ago. So, Michael, you have been in the car wash industry for a little over six months. What is the the biggest thing that has surprised you about the industry or in in your journey so far?

SPEAKER_02 36:59

That's a really great question. I have to be honest, I was not a heavy car wash user previously uh to joining Retention Express.

SPEAKER_03 37:06

Where'd you find this guy, Bobby?

SPEAKER_02 37:08

Yeah, right. My my wife, my wife loves it. She's always been I actually take her car more than I took my own. All right, you're redeemed. But just the passion on both sides the operators, the attendants, the passion they have for the work that they do, but the passion of the customers. The customers really care about getting their car washed. And we see that from the angriest of customers who are upset by their experience to the customers that just love these brands so much. I spoke with a woman yesterday and she called in to say she wants to give the entire crew at this location a huge shout out and that she goes almost once a week. She knows them all by name, she brings them waters on hot days, and like she just wanted leadership to know that like they're fantastic, their energy, the way they connect with the customer. She just loved it. And I was like, you don't see this everywhere. You don't see people calling Netflix to thank them for everything that they do. And these customers really connect with these sites. They know these attendants, they know these site managers, and they build a bond. And that has been probably the most surprising to me was just like the connection and passion that the whole industry has and the people that leverage the service app as well. And so it is, it's been infectious to me. I now have a membership. I go once a week and I take my my wife's car. So I will say I've redeemed myself. I have one now, but I see it, I feel it. And it is wonderful to go to these washers and to see how hard these operators work and how these people truly connect with these attendants. And so that's been the most surprising element for me so far.

SPEAKER_03 38:34

Oh, thank you for sharing that. I asked that question, you know, off and on throughout the years, and that's a little bit different take on the passion part of it, which I really, really like. And especially when you're talking about, you know, passion can go both ways, you know, negative or positive, but it's because there's a there's a caring and there's a there is a connection. Otherwise, it would be indifference. I like that. But most people that I talk to say that it's something about the people.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

Oh, yeah, it is. And it's I swear it's animals, children, and your car are the three things that people care most about. And people are really serious about taking good care of their vehicles, and it is evident in in all sides. And so I couldn't agree more with you, Lenise. It is it is a passion industry and I love it. It's it's been infectious for me as well.

SPEAKER_03 39:19

Well, we're happy to have you. It is neat to see how people get exposed to it and then talk about retention. Most car wash people don't leave. So, like if you become, you know, into the car wash industry, like you just stay because of all of these great things about it. But really, just to kind of sum up what we were talking about today is we're passionate about making sure that we are providing tools and resources and information and insights to car wash operators and professionals on how they can run a successful business because we love this industry and it's a great place to be. And we want to be looking forward to all of the things that it can continue to grow into and be successful and provide successful careers and livelihoods for folks. So thank you for sharing about what Retention Express does on capturing data, but more importantly, what you can do with that information to make critical decisions about your business and have it be more successful and have it be more efficient and boost your sales and all of those kind of good things wrapped up in one.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

Absolutely. Well, thank you for having us. We enjoyed it as always. It was a pleasure, Lenny.

SPEAKER_03 40:22

Yes, thank you guys so much. And so for me here in Texas, it is hot as I'll get out. You guys are in Atlanta. How's the weather there?

SPEAKER_01 40:30

We're we're gonna hit triple digits and it's gonna be miserable next two days. So well, welcome to the south. Little steamy.

SPEAKER_03 40:39

Yeah, well, oof. Does steam get the cars dirty too? Like some some some mineral deposits from that somehow.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

I'll I'll keep you posted. I'm actually taking my wife's car this afternoon, so I I gotta do my weekly trip. So we'll see how they're doing over there at the wash.

SPEAKER_03 40:55

Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for um sharing. And if any of our listeners want to find out more information about Retention Express, you can go to retentionexpress.com. You can call Bobby or you can call Michael, and I'm sure they would be more than happy to connect with you and share their passion about uh what they do and how they can help you.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

Absolutely. Thank you, everybody. Thanks, everyone.

SPEAKER_03 41:17

Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Car Wash MA, the podcast, with your host, Lenice Barnett. Like what you hear, subscribe to our podcast feed, and leave us a review or follow us on social media at Amplify Car Wash Advisors. Want more MA information? Visit our website at amplifywash.com and listen for new episodes on the last Thursday of each month.