Does your carwash make your customers feel happy and want to spend money? A lot of research has been done on consumer spending and scents. Who hasn’t heard about real estate agents staging a house with fresh baked cookies, a pie out of the oven or cinnamon simmering on the stove? Smells trigger memories and associations that can encourage consumers to spend more freely.
There’s a reason that many carwash products have similar scents. Simple scents such as citrus or pine encourage shoppers to spend more money. The science behind this is that a customer’s mind needs to process a complex smell, reducing the available “bandwidth” to focus on shopping. We definitely want the customer to focus on wash package upgrades rather than subconsciously thinking about the smell of the carwash. Studies have also shown that when customers can accurately identify the scent, it significantly enhanced the scent’s rating of its pleasantness.
Scents that bring up pleasant memories or associations are also ways to enhance the customer’s experience at the carwash. Vanilla is a universally popular scent and is found in many perfumes. Using traditional winter holiday scents like evergreen, cinnamon, peppermint might put your customers in a holiday mood. Smells of sunscreen and tropical drinks like pina coladas will evoke vacation thoughts, relaxation and fun. You could even tie in a promotion like “every time you purchase a wash package with pina colada smelling Magma Shine, December through March, you’ll be entered into a drawing for a Tommy Bahamas gift certificate.”
You can’t make everyone happy with the smells of your carwash products but you will have a problem if your carwash smells bad. Stores and products with unpleasant odors are always perceived as inferior. Masking odors by overdosing on pleasant odors is not always effective and can backfire. Keeping your carwash clean smelling with products like Vision Wall and Equipment Cleaner and/or using Ver-tech Labs’ reclaim compatible products is the first step towards more satisfied customers. If your carwash smells like the reclaim system (something along the lines of rotten eggs), your customers will be subconsciously wondering if their car is going to get clean at your wash.
One final aspect of the smell of business is noseblindness. When you are in the carwash every day, you become accustomed to the smell of the products. Pretty soon, you are thinking the fragrance in the products is getting weaker. Before you think “I need more scent” – think about the commercials for a popular air freshener / odor eliminator. The commercials show a person who thinks her house smells fine and cuts away to her guests who think they are sitting on a giant cat, instead of a sofa. We often get accustomed to odors, even bad ones. Your customers will get used to the scents of your carwash, even the pleasant smells. Give the customers a different experience by just changing up the scents every few months. A subtle change can subconsciously register a positive change in your customer’s mind.
Talk to your Ver-tech Labs chemical sales representatives about scents that are available to add to products and added service products with specific smells. At VTL we manufacture products that perform and also smell nice!