Every car wash ultimately has the same goals of producing the perfect wash, resulting in loyal, happier customers, and making a great profit.
However, the perfect wash business does not come easily, and there are many factors that need to be met first.
We have talked about some of these previously, most notably car wash chemicals (check out our blog archive)!
But one significant aspect of having a great car wash is knowing the importance of training for your staff. For instance, it is very important for car wash staff to know exactly how to use the specific products, equipment, promote and upsell wash packages, and be able to tackle unique car and customer situations.
Training Geared for your Team
The perfect training regiment comes down to understanding your specific wash facility and ensuring your team knows exactly how to use their tools to their greatest potential. It also supports developing new skills to build the business, plus improving the wash experience for customers.
Achieving the perfect wash
The car wash process may look simple from the outside, and as any and all experienced car wash owners or workers would know, it is complex and can change on many small factors.
Your wash quality can differ from many different aspects such as water quality, equipment types, chemicals, and much more. If one factor stops working well, the whole wash operation can suffer.
This is precisely the reason that your staff must know the ins and outs of their tools, to be sure the best car wash can be achieved. This can be achieved with regular training, equipment upkeep, and fine tuning.
Effective training is not an easy feat to accomplish, and can be a big time commitment, but you will want to be sure to do so to make your business a success. Hopefully, you have a strong supplier (like us!) who can help car wash operators in their training efforts, and take some of the burden off their shoulders.
The Car Washing Industry is a competitive one, and every advantage is key
Training your team in how to upsell wash packages, set customers onto a loyalty program, maintain equipment, manage a backroom safely, and other necessary skills will ensure you are making steps to improve your business, and get ahead of the competition. Every advantage your car wash can get should be taken within such a competitive industry.
Car Wash Training: How To Do So Effectively
The best way to train your staff is to make it a priority, not only for new hires, but to build skills across your team. Taking the time and ensuring it gets done will pay off down the road when wash results, customer satisfaction, and hopefully profits have improved.
There are numerous different types of training areas and techniques that can be used to help your team learn the ins and outs of the business.
A big asset for you here is your car wash supplier, who should act as your partner to help you get ready and best situated in using their products.
The Importance of Chemical Training
Managing carwash chemicals is a huge aspect of any car wash business. This is why you will need to understand the wash process that makes cleaning successful, and how to properly and safely harness chemistry for best results. Work with your chemistry manufacturer or distributor with their expertise on the product line.
They can teach you which chemistry combinations will perform optimally at your location, show cost-per-car analysis methods, and how to dilute, monitor and manage chemistry for the best car wash performance.
Understanding and managing carwash chemicals and how to optimize them will have your team ensuring it is bringing out your wash's best results.
The Importance of Equipment Training
Whether a tunnel, in-bay automatic or self-serve, knowing how to best utilize, set up, and maintain your equipment will prove to be invaluable to your total car wash success as it can make a large difference in your end results. A car wash business utilizes a lot of different operational equipment ranging including water softeners, conveyor belts, payment systems, robust tunnel systems and dryers and much, much more. All are vital pieces that must be running smoothly.
Knowing how to do some repairs and regular maintenance is a much needed skill as you want to have as little downtime as possible, (also getting your business back running as fast as possible).
Having team members who understand general and tunnel equipment maintenance, including basic repairs, managing equipment performance optimization and the electrical components controller, preventative maintenance techniques, or a just general equipment overview are a few examples of important skills in a successful car wash. Reaching out for support from suppliers with up to date knowledge can be a great first step in gaining a thorough understanding of the systems in your wash.
Hands-On Experience
Offering your staff practical hands-on workshops, especially if new to the industry, is a great option for a car wash operator to build success for his business. It can be led by a visiting product representative, if related to a specific chemical line or piece of equipment. For more specific training to a particular car wash, often car wash owners can train their teams in any educational gaps they perceive. Training can even be led by a more experienced staff member during non-peak or off-hours, ensuring that your team is comfortable, competent and safe in handling large machinery or commercial chemicals. Distributing this practical knowledge will be essential especially if more experienced staff are not available, or move on to a new company.
Other Training Areas
There are many more aspects to a car wash than just chemicals or equipment. Training must be done for other areas such managing inventory, operational, finances, marketing and customer service, which are some broad areas that will need to be part of any business. More specifically, inventory management, effective budgeting, and people management are examples of skills that will acted in your business. Teaching your staff to upsell products to customers, educate them on premium wash packages, and encourage visitors to join a loyalty program can be of huge value to a car wash business as well, encouraging a more reliable income with higher profit margins.
Turtle Wax Pro can help you Train
Your car wash supplier is a powerful asset that can help get your team up to speed quickly and easily on car wash methods, products, and more (we have a blog detailing the importance of your car wash supplier).
Here at Turtle Wax Pro, we have a strong focus in ensuring our clients and partners have training resources that will help their staff use our chemicals more effectively. Our biggest tool for car washing facilities is our exceptional Training tool, FREE and available online for all our customers:
TWP LEARN: Turtle Wax Pro's Online Learning Center
Turtle Wax Pro not only is premium car wash chemistry, with exceptional marketing and branding advantages, but also offers exclusive online training in subjects across the car wash industry.
This is because we understand the importance behind providing training to car wash staff: your car wash can thrive and employees can become actual car wash professionals.
Simple and Convenient Training
This tool is so easy for car washes to use for training their teams, as they can use any device at any time to complete online courses and quizzes. Participants will receive a solid education and certificates at the end of each of the training courses. This saves time for car washing operations as they don't need to build and execute fancy training seminars, and best of all, it's FREE for our customers and their staff.
Over 20 Hours of Video Content
From learning about the five factors of car wash, the chemistry of cleaning, to marketing with the Turtle Wax Pro brand, chemical setups, cost-per-car analysis, titration, advanced car wash knowledge and much more, TWP Learn has content plans for all skill levels.
How Training can Help your Car Wash Business
The importance of training your staff should not be understated, as it can be the difference between a good car wash and a great one. A well-trained team will know how to use their tools better than anyone else, meaning they can provide a higher quality finished product and happier customers, helping your business stand out from the rest!
Contact Turtle Wax Pro for your Car Wash Success
Training is just one facet of the car wash world that we strive to help our clients with.
Turtle Wax Pro is one of the most recognized car wash brands in the world for a good reason, we have over 75 years of car care experience and decades in providing national carwash solutions (and international) to car wash industry operators and businesses.
Contact us if your business could use some better support whether that be with your chemicals, marketing, or training.