RFID Tags for our Self Service Bays?

[thoffmanjr]

Is an Unlimited Wash System in our future?

Radio frequency identification tags (RFID) are becoming smaller and cheaper. Some are the size and thickness of a credit card and can be affixed to the inside of our customer?s vehicles. An RFID reader could be installed to detect these tags as the customer enters the bay. A vehicle detector (loop in the floor) senses the car in the bay as it washes too. The control system could turn on the equipment and keep it on until the customer turns to stop or presses stop depending on the coin box. The vehicle detector could shut it off too.

Unlimited wash programs typically attract a small percentage of tunnel car wash customers. Car washers charge a fixed amount for unlimited washing. Few customers wash often enough to justify the cost of joining. In the northeast, with our inconsistent weather conditions, customers would be dropping out of the program too frequently.


Wouldn?t we want every customer to think they should join and never want to drop out?



Free to join gets you an RFID tag for your vehicle?s wind shield. It may cost us $2 or so.



Attendant swipes the customers credit card with a hand held Symbol computer which stores the customers credit card information.



Customer uses the wash as often as they want. We charge 75 cents per minute, our full price rate.



Benefit to the customer? We charge their card on the last day of the month for the amount of time they used during the month never to exceed $20



If they only wash for 10 minutes, we charge $7.50. If they don?t wash at all, we don?t charge them a dime. If they wash for an hour, we only charge $20.


Shouldn?t we be trying to get as many people as possible to wash a little more often and spend just a little more?

Maybe RFID will appear in a self service wash someday. What do you think?

[pitzerwm]

No reason that you can't do it now.

[Charles Ho]

Execellent concept. Easy to understand by operators. The consumers may have a hard time understanding. Don't forget the occasional cc expirations and cancelled cards, gift cards, and etc. I would go for a fix $ at beginning of the month. This provides predictable fixed revenue. Benefit goes both ways - customers get unlimiited use. We get paid no matter they washor not. Now..how do you control the high school kid that resells your service with one RFID?

[MEP001]

Now..how do you control the high school kid that resells your service with one RFID?
The tags would have to be designed like toll tags in that they'd be destroyed if removed from the windshield.

[Earl Weiss]

I think the credit card linked cell phone is the future. It's big in europe and rolled out hre by at least 2 companies. I do not know if it is strictly RFID based or how it works. Seems you wave your phone near the credit card terminal and the charge is made to your credit card. I would hope that you must enter a PIN in the phone to activate it to prevent unauthorized use if you lose the phone. For that matter every Credit card transaction should require a PIN.

[Bubbles Galore]

What if the same concept applied to self serve bays? You would sell the RF tag for $xx and then the bay would activate once the vehicle bearing the tag was in the bay?

Have I overly simplified it, or is this a feasible option?

[bigleo48]

First problem is the cost per bay install...then would be the cut the RFID company takes. Third would be the potential wastage in an uncontrolled environment.

It's not that I don't think its a good idea, but the concept and equipment would need to be adapted for the SS application.

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[Bubbles Galore]

All valid points, I'm just surprised at how neglected the self serve industry is when it comes to these types of innovations.

From a corporate standpoint, if you can make it appeal to an operator and make it cost-effective, you have just increased your market share that much more. Sometimes, I just don't understand, maybe it's just me.

[washnvac]

Something like a Exxon speedpass would be better. The customer would actually have a card they would wave in front of a reader. That should be much less expensive then RFID. You would have to set it similar to credit cards; with a max charge and/or when stop button is activated the charge would stop. Something like that.....

[pitzerwm]

Isn't that what wash gear does?

[JMMUSTANG]

I think Tom Hoffman was trying to get a RFID system in his washes.
Not sure if he did though.

[Whale of a Wash]

http://calling-plans.com/cell-phones/tag/near-field-communication/

http://www.rfid-weblog.com/50226711/near_field_communication.php

http://www.gizmag.com/orange-near-field-mobile-phone-payment/11216/

Some of the countries starting with Korea for the last five years have been using near-field technology, paying for everything with your cell-phone, the receivers are under $50, and hook up to the internet. We all should have cell-phones by now that do that, our car wash Hookup would be very low cost and easy to retrofit. Even a low tech way would be to text the carwash computer to start a bay. The Us is behind in a lot of technology, I have some (Foreign) renters tell me how slow our 5mb Internet is. This is how the US Compares to the rest are we on the top 10--No

http://www.jaystech.com/2009/02/top-10-countries-with-fastest-internet.html

[Bubbles Galore]

It just seems as though there are solutions out there that the self serve is missing. I like the idea of the credit card count up method, it has worked great for us. I just think that there are other and better options out there that haven't been brought to market.

[Bubbles Galore]

Lets bring it back to the top boys. Ideas, thoughts?

[Earl Weiss]

It just seems as though there are solutions out there that the self serve is missing. I like the idea of the credit card count up method, it has worked great for us. I just think that there are other and better options out there that haven't been brought to market.

Absofrickinlutely. why can you equip a taxi with credit card acceptors and receipt printers where it all transmits wirelessly for about $500.00 but a SS bay is 2 - 4 times more factoring in Back room equip?

[MEP001]

Absofrickinlutely. why can you equip a taxi with credit card acceptors and receipt printers where it all transmits wirelessly for about $500.00 but a SS bay is 2 - 4 times more factoring in Back room equip?
I can't answer why a credit card system for a cab can't be retrofitted to a self-serve car wash, but the reason SS credit card systems cost so much more is the numbers made. I'd bet there are more cabs just in New York City than there are SS bays in the US. Mass-production processes and the spreading of design costs across millions of units makes a big difference.

[Earl Weiss]

I can't answer why a credit card system for a cab can't be retrofitted to a self-serve car wash, but the reason SS credit card systems cost so much more is the numbers made. I'd bet there are more cabs just in New York City than there are SS bays in the US. Mass-production processes and the spreading of design costs across millions of units makes a big difference.



Well, that is kind of my point. Few things in the Car Wash industry are proprietary. They are adapted from other industries. It would seem like this could be one of them.

[Bubbles Galore]

As the cost of technology continues to drop as it has in the past 2 years, why don't we see more innovations in the car wash markets?

Regardless of what business I have ever been involved in, I hate hearing "that's how we have always done it." That statement is like a preemptive destruction of innovation.....looks like I might have found the niche I was looking to fill.

[JJJakubowski]

Tom Hoffman (ahead of the curve as usual) posted a thread on adapting RFID to SS a couple years ago. He saw using RFID as a way to get customers to “wash more, spend more” by adapting the "Unlimited Washing" dealio that has proven quite successful in tunnel washes.

"UW" and quick-slick cashless pay could certainly appeal to many customers. BUT I have to suspect that there would be some customers who’d be inclined to abuse “UW” in a wand bay. For example, I’d be leery of granting UW to pretty much anyone with an open bed pickup — especially guys such as mechanics, commercial painters, and those in construction. They’re all notorious for routinely leaving hellacious messes in the bay.

Setting it up and establishing as a policy that was as failsafe as possible would be a bit tricky. But apart from that concern, there could be potential in this concept.

JJJ/SSCWN

[Randy]

You guy's should go to the conventions more often. IDX has had a RFID system out for a few years now. I first saw it at the ICA convention 3 years ago.

http://www.idxinc.com/carwash/wickets.htm

[JJJakubowski]

Randy, for sure adaptations of RFID type technologies have been available to SS for some time. I think WashCard may have been the first 5-7 years ago (I soooo lose track of time as time rolls by) with their devices that the customer could wave near or tap an RF reader.

And I believe that's much the same with IDX's "Widgets" -- that is, they have to be passed within an inch of an RF reader. What I was referring to is "Unlimited Washing" and the type of RFID system that is used by toll road and many tunnels whereby a slim, discreet, unremovable RF "card" is positioned on the bottom-left of the windshield or top edge of the rear view mirror which is instantly/automatically/very conveniently recognized by the RFID reader as the car drives up to a tunnel entrance ... or perhaps someday into a SS wand bay.

BTW --- IDX makes unquestionably great products. But they really do, shall we say, a, uh, "not so great" job of informing the industry as to all the fine stuff they bring to the carwash market. I'm not even suggesting they buy advertising. C'mon, Mike, at least send the trade mags product press releases for inclusion in our new products columns ... it's a free service. :)

JJJ/SSCWN

[bigleo48]

It just seems as though there are solutions out there that the self serve is missing. I like the idea of the credit card count up method, it has worked great for us. I just think that there are other and better options out there that haven't been brought to market.

Bubbles,

I have and continue to work in the wireless telecom industry. When I started my wash, I was a little taken back that the carwash industry was so "low tech". Especially the SS side of the house. I'm not an early adapter of technology and in some ways I like it that way, but generally I am frustrated with the lack of developments to make it easier for the customer to give us their cash.

When dealing with those well know manufacturers, I always ask why software or hardware is the way it is and the most common reply is "We only have a couple of guys in the back room working on this kind of stuff" or "It was developed a while back and we have patched on updates to get it to this point"

I'll give you a couple of examples in the IBA world, first the PDQ M5 is Microsoft CE. It needs to reboot itself every other day. In the last upgrade, I asked if the machine still did this, I was told it still had that "Feature". I've seen other systems with memory leak problems, but nobody ever called it a feature!

The next one is my 2 year old Unitec WSII and the recent internet CC clearing upgrade. You need to add a Dataran IP 'modem', but it still requires the regular dialup modem to function!? So now I can clear the CC via the net, but I still can't get it to send me an SMS or email when there is a fault!? I use to use TAP (paging) with my wireless provided through their paging/pcs gateway to get and SMS (BTW, they no longer support this).

These two very common machines don't interact very well either. If the M5 doesn't reboot properly, the Unitec doesn't notice and will take the customers cash, signal an impaired M5 and leave frustrated.

Big