There are dangers in up selling too much at a local car wash. Many times customers wish to simply get a quick car wash and leave and if you try to sell them too much extra services they will not be able to meet their time constraints. If you up sell your customers every single time they come into the car wash eventually they will stop coming as often.
You see, too often car wash owners assume that they will make more money if they charge each customer more. In fact, the car wash industry even promotes this in the International Car Wash Association at seminars during the annual conference and trade show. Speakers come and show car wash owners how to get more money at of each customer by up selling.
This is problematic when a good percentage of your customers or repeat weekly or biweekly customers. If you take all the customers money they will have no money left and they feel like they should not have come to the car wash in the first place.
The smartest thing a car wash owner can do is to have the greeter ask questions of the customer and only attempt to up sell them for things that the customer might need and not suggest things that they do not. Remember the customer comes every week or every other week and they have heard all the sales lines before.
If a customer complains about spilt coffee or a shopping cart that hit their car recently then it makes sense to up sell them for carpet shampoo or auto detailing. But to simply try to sell the customer on things that they do not need every single week will eventually turn the customer away to your competitor. Please consider this in 2006.
