A loyalty program for car washes

What makes a car wash different: the reward is a whole service

In a coffee shop the reward costs you the beans and the milk. At a car wash it costs you the shampoo, the water, half an hour of somebody's shift and a bay you cannot sell during that time.

That changes the arithmetic completely. At 4+1 the customer pays for four washes to get one free, so you are giving up roughly 20% of that customer's spend. If your wash sells for 28 EUR, the reward has a shelf price of 28 EUR even though it costs you less than that.

First conclusion: the threshold cannot be high, because nobody remembers a ten-wash card, but it cannot be too low either, because then you give the reward away too often. Four is what Super Nova uses, and it is a reasonable starting point for an interior/exterior wash.

The second conclusion matters more and is the subject of the next section: you have to make sure the reward reaches the customers who wash often, not the ones who turn up once a quarter.

Super Nova Car Wash, Constanța: 4+1 on a 45-day term

Super Nova Car Wash is a car wash in Constanța, on Cumpenei street. Their Stampino setup, exactly as it stands in the panel:

• One offer: after 4 interior/exterior washes, the fifth is free.
• Expiry period: 45 days, switched on.
• Birthday reward: switched on, with their own wording, a free interior/exterior wash.
• Advanced reports: switched on.

Their plan allows two offers and they use one, so there is room for another if they want to add a separate offer for polishing or upholstery cleaning.

The expiry shows directly on the customer's card, as in the image next to the title: "Valid until 10/09/2026". It is not buried in terms and conditions, the customer sees it every time the card is opened.

The expiry is not paperwork, it is the mechanism

This is the idea that makes the offer work, and it is worth doing the sums on.

Four washes in 45 days is one wash every 11 days. Somebody who washes the car once a month never finishes the card. Somebody who washes weekly or fortnightly finishes it without effort.

In other words the term is not an administrative formality, it is the filter that decides who receives the reward. And it filters in exactly the right direction: the expensive reward goes to the customer bringing you four washes in six weeks, not to the one who passes by twice a year.

Without a term, the same 4+1 offer becomes "every fifth wash free, whenever", which is a standing 20% discount for everyone, including customers who were never coming back often anyway.

If you sell at a higher price or work on a thinner margin, you have two levers: raise the threshold or shorten the term. Shortening the term is usually the better one, because it does not discourage the good customer, it only rules out the occasional one.

The customer is warned automatically seven days before and one day before the expiry, so a tight term does not mean people lose progress without knowing. Expiry comes with the Standard plan and up.

Loyalty card for a car wash: how you start

When they hand over the car or pay, while the customer is standing in front of you waiting anyway.

The first time: the customer scans the magic QR code at reception or on the window and the card lands straight on their phone, from a single scan. No account, no email, no password. The card can also live in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet.

After that, on every wash: they open the card and you scan the code on their screen with the phone or tablet you already keep at reception. No separate reader.

A car wash has an advantage few businesses use: the customer sits and waits. This is not a queue at a till where you have ten seconds, it is twenty minutes during which they are looking at their phone anyway.

The reports show how many customers signed up, how many stamps you gave and how many rewards were redeemed, so you can adjust the threshold or the term after the first two months instead of guessing.

What it costs and what covers the plan

A plan with a listing in the Stampino app starts at 36.50 EUR a month, plus VAT where applicable.

An exterior wash sells for roughly 10 to 18 EUR and a full interior plus exterior for 20 to 40, depending on the car and the level of service. Over materials and working time, a full wash usually leaves you somewhere in the low teens.

At a margin of around 12 EUR a wash, the plan pays for itself with about three extra washes a month. Not new customers, just cars that would have been washed later or at the place down the road.

A single customer who goes from one wash a month to two brings you twelve extra washes a year. Three or four customers doing that cover the plan for the whole year.

As with any calculation of this kind, what is left is margin over materials and labour: rent, utilities and the rest come out of it afterwards.

The birthday reward

🎂

Stampinonow

Happy birthday!

A free interior/exterior wash for your birthday. Come and get it.

Super Nova has it switched on and wrote the wording themselves: a free interior/exterior wash on the customer's birthday.

The reward appears on the card by itself on the day and is redeemed in the window you set. You keep no dates in a calendar and send nothing by hand.

At a car wash it works because it is a gift that feels big but can still be scheduled: if the birthday falls on a busy day, you tell them to come in the slot that suits you and the reward stays valid.

Weather and season, the one variable you do not control

1

Stampinonow

The rain has stopped

We have morning slots free tomorrow. Come and get the car washed with no wait.

A car wash does not have a steady rhythm. Winter with salt on the roads and autumn with mud bring peaks, and a week of steady rain cuts your takings with nothing you can do about it.

That matters when you choose the expiry period. A short term that looked right in a dry month can wipe the cards of loyal customers in exactly the week it rained non-stop and nobody washed anything.

Two reasonable options: either set a term longer than seems necessary, or look at the reports after the first season and adjust. The term can be changed from the panel at any time, it is not a permanent decision.

Push notifications help precisely here: after three days of rain, a message to the customers holding a card fills a morning that would otherwise have been empty.

What else can go on the card

The plan allows more than one offer on the same card, and at a car wash the second one picks itself: the service you want to sell more of, not the one you already sell.

• Polishing or waxing, on a low threshold, because they are bought rarely and carry a good margin.
• Upholstery cleaning or interior detailing, where the ticket is large and the customer is slow to return.
• Engine bay cleaning or headlight restoration, as a seasonal offer.

The customer switches between offers using the tabs at the top and each advances separately. The number of customers is unlimited on every plan, so signing up your whole list costs you nothing extra.