The Importance and Value of Weekly Maintenance Customers

[Coach Steve]

As a one-man operation working out of my converted home garage, I'll service between 175-200 vehicles per year. This includes, cars, trucks, vans, suv's, motorcycles, golf carts, utv's, RV's, boats, personal watercraft, and a porcelain bird bath/fountain type thing in the entry-way to a local mansion which I did only because a friend who was installing the custom AV system asked me if I wanted to make some easy money - which it was. There isn't a lot I won't do for $250 for an hour's work! As long as it's legal-ish, and I can maintain plausible deniability, I'll at least have a discussion about it.

There are an additional 10-12 vehicles that I service about once per week which account for roughly 1/3 of my annual revenue, even though I only charge $35-50 to service them. Follow along while I do the math and show how important these customers are to the continued success of my business.

I'll use one of my weeklies as an example.
John, (not his real name) has a very nice 2017 Dodge dually pickup with a ton of upgrades and a very nice trim pkg and various effects and lighting gizmos, and rims, and yada, yada, yada. The truck was shown at SEMA last year by the company that built out the truck. Naturally, John is very proud of his truck and likes to keep it clean and sharp. His wife has a 2012 black Lexus SX570 SUV that he likes to keep clean for her. Every week I do a wash & vac on each of them for $50 each. Both of these vehicles are large, have leather interiors, specialty wheels that require special attention due to their composition, etc. Neither is a walk in the park by any stretch of the imagination. But, I knock them out back to back in 3-4 hrs. depending how hot it is, how tired I am, etc. Now, at this point, you're probably wondering why I charge so little and if that's the case, this next part is going to completely defy logic.
Included in his $100 per week maintenance agreement, is routine paint correction as needed, quarterly sealant application, and carpet shampooing/steam cleaning as needed. Basically, I fully maintain the appearance of their vehicles without them having to give it a second thought. If I notice a scratch, I remove it. When it's time for sealant, I do it. If they spill something or the carpet starts to appear dingy or dusty, I take care of it. And I'm happy to do it for a measly $100 per week. Why? For a couple of reasons.
First, those two vehicles add up to $5200 per year, which would be awesome on its own, but it gets even better - way better. More on that later. And secondly, I'm the only one that touches their vehicles. I know every inch of them intimately; every nuance, factory blemish, imperfection, etc. and if there's a new scratch, blemish, snudge, whatever, I notice it immediately and remove it in less than 5 mins. usually. That's a very nice situation to be in with a customer's vehicle. There's never an hours-long correction session facing me. And with the exception of the 6-8 times it rains here in PHX, the only water that touches them is deionized which is a whole other level of bliss on its own. seriously, if you have the availability of deionized water in your area, sign up today! It changes the entire game. Soap is exponentially more sudsy, towels are softer and last longer, pads clean easier and dry faster, and of course the biggest benefit of all.... NO WATER SPOTS WHATSOEVER! I purposely leave the black Lexus in the direct 115°+ sun to dry sometimes just to watch the water evaporate with nothing left behind. Sort of my way of flipping off the sun!
Where was I? Oh yeah....
So, each and every week, their vehicles are returned to like-new condition and everyone's happy.
In addition to the truck and the suv, I also maintain their daughters' cars. Both of them compacts and both of them only 2 years old. I perform the same weekly maintenance on them and perform the "as needed" work whenever required. For each of these vehicles I receive $35.00. Extend that out to 52 weeks and it's an additional $3700.
This weekly maintenance customer that on the surface appears to be taking me to the cleaners is responsible for $9000 of my gross annual income. Suffice it to say, I am John's personal detailer, for all intents and purposes, and as far as he's concerned, I am. John also has a couple of big SeaDoo's, a 50' 5th wheel trailer, custom golf cart, and a Can-Am X3 UTV that I service as needed, which provides even more income.

Now, this particular customer is the kind all of want to snuggle up to for obvious reasons and yes, he's my best customer and gets a hand delivered Christmas card attached to a lovely wine and fruit basket that sets me back a couple of bills but I'm downright ecstatic to do it.

This is just one of my weekly maintenance customers. I have 3 others, and while they don't hvae as many vehicles serviced every week as John, they pay the same price and receive the same maintenance pkg. These 4 customers account for almost 1/3 of my income and all I really do is wash & vac their vehicles weekly and a little bit of heavier lifting 3-4 times per year.

If you've been pondering how to establish solid weekly maintenance customers but can't seem to find a way logistically to make it work by using your normal pricing platform, think outside the box and put together something like this that's extremely attractive to them from a pricing point of view and you'll turn some of those semi-annual or annual customers into weeklies and everybody wins.

I only have 4 weeklies because that's all I want. Any more would cut into hours I like to keep available for higher paying jobs.

If you read this entire post, I tip my hat to you. If you take away something that helps you work less and increase your income, then it was worth the time both of us spent on it.

I'll close with something I say to the girls' tournament fastpitch softball team I coach at the start of every game,
"Now, get out there and be somebody!!":laughing: :bolt:

 

[Dan Tran]

Thank you for the right up. I picked up my first maintenance guy two weeks ago. I’ll be back this Wednesday to do both his two brand new BMWs.

Being able to know the detail history of he car from the beginning is awesome. For as long as I do an amazing job, it compensates for at least $3k alone.


Sent from my iPhone using Autogeekonline mobile app

 

[Stevedotmil]

This is an outstanding post. Thank you for sharing with us. Your reputation is everything, especially when it's a good one.

 

[fly07sti]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing. While I have a handful of customers that recieve maintenance details, none of them are weekly so I charge a little more. The same goes for me as you said, I’m there one and only Detailer and know the vehicles better than they do. I actually would’ve never thought of charging so little, but with it being weekly, the vehicles probably won’t get too dirty and it’s guaranteed money on a regular basis. Thanks again for sharing.

 

[sudsmobile]

We have a handful of maintenance, maybe $1000/month (some people skip a month here and there). It's really all I want. We try to pick and choose pretty carefully. My best customer lives 5 minutes from me. We wash their 2018 Lincoln Navigator and 2018 Mercedes GLC43 every Saturday. $100 a pop, $120 with tip. The first time took us like 3-3.5 hours, although I charged a bit more. Now, less than two hours because the vehicles are cleaned weekly and are typically pretty clean inside. They are literally our favorite and best customer. The cars are ALWAYS in the driveway with the keys in them. Someone comes out and pays us about an hour into it and we lock the cars and leave the keys in the garage when we're done. Total interaction with the customer, 30 seconds. LOL

 

[sudsmobile]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing. While I have a handful of customers that recieve maintenance details, none of them are weekly so I charge a little more. The same goes for me as you said, I’m there one and only Detailer and know the vehicles better than they do. I actually would’ve never thought of charging so little, but with it being weekly, the vehicles probably won’t get too dirty and it’s guaranteed money on a regular basis. Thanks again for sharing.

You're trading a little bit of money for the security of guaranteed income. Think of that customer as an annuity.

 

[DMW]

I'm also in AZ. Who do you use for DI water and is it a tank that you swap out once it loses its effectiveness? How much does it cost you and how long does it last?

 

[fly07sti]

You're trading a little bit of money for the security of guaranteed income. Think of that customer as an annuity.

That’s exactly what I took from this thread. I can dig it!

 

[RTexasF]

Great article. I treasured my maintenance customers. Not only did they account for approx 1/3 of my income they constantly spread the word. That resulted in jobs more profitable than the norm so it worked for me. As mentioned previously I offered them an occasional freebie after "X" many referrals that resulted in work for me that was profitable. Those freebies consisted of a wash n vac which generally took one hour or less. They were scheduled when time allowed.

I concentrated on teachers/professors/real estate agents. They all meet on a regular basis so I had constant work with no advertising at all. Word of mouth is powerful if you get the right group.

 

[LSNAutoDetailingLSNAutoDetailing is verified member.]

Great article Steve! You hit the nail on the head, getting new customers is always great, but getting repeat and regular maintenance customers is really the pinnacle of where at least I am striving for. There is nothing like creating a maintenance plan, and having your customers stick to them. Steve can attest, as he lives a few blocks up from me, that doing a full correction and coating here in AZ in the summer is NO FUN! Steve, if I recall our hottest day last summer was 119?

The last few customers I had they were not single day events. Full paint correction, coatings, wheel coatings, plastic coatings, engine bay coatings... Those are multi 8-12 hour a day jobs, mainly had to work at night to avoid the heat. The prep work, and post-work to make sure you didn't end up with high spots is insane. Even take glass cleaning. We're a husband and wife team and approach the glass at the same time, I do the outside, she does the inside (Interior Gal)... We reference each other while working on the same piece of glass, so we can spot anything we missed.

But once you've done all this work and the customer has paid for it, it's really important to explain that it doesn't have to be like this all the time. If you come back every 3 months for a DD, or every six months for a garage queen, we can keep it looking like this in a fraction of the time and cost. I explain, if you let it get too far, you're back to a full detail again $$$$.

Besides, a good maintenance is anywhere between 4-6 hours for us. That includes the sprucing of the interior, Exterior gets Reload, and the attention to deatil to make it look as perfect as possible all the while NOT having to bust out the DA's, Carpet Extractors, Tornadors, Air-Compressors... all while being profitable. Maintenance is important for the customer after making the huge investment in the car, and with the initial full correction/coating detail. Why not take care of it.

I have one more piece of advice, if you're not using some sort of CRM, do so! I use Zoho free CRM. I can enter in all the customer contact info, notes, and even upload attachments such as the VIF, Pictures. I can create events, and tasks with reminders. So I can create a task to "Call John on x date". It also gives you a process to follow to stay in touch with your customers.

Again, great article Steve. Hope you've got to use some of those samples!

 

[Coach Steve]

We have a handful of maintenance, maybe $1000/month (some people skip a month here and there). It's really all I want. We try to pick and choose pretty carefully. My best customer lives 5 minutes from me. We wash their 2018 Lincoln Navigator and 2018 Mercedes GLC43 every Saturday. $100 a pop, $120 with tip. The first time took us like 3-3.5 hours, although I charged a bit more. Now, less than two hours because the vehicles are cleaned weekly and are typically pretty clean inside. They are literally our favorite and best customer. The cars are ALWAYS in the driveway with the keys in them. Someone comes out and pays us about an hour into it and we lock the cars and leave the keys in the garage when we're done. Total interaction with the customer, 30 seconds. LOL

This is a prime example of the importance of the trust that's developed by the customer not only in your abilities and the results you produce consistently, but also in your moral character. Let's face it, vehicles have gotten stupid expensive, so to have someone leave the keys to their vehicles for you is a huge leap of faith. In my case, it goes a step further. In the case of the customer I illustrated above, I almost always go get the vehicle and bring it back to the shop. I enter the garage door code, back out of the garage, hit the door controller inside the vehicle and off I go. There are lots of times that the customer is out of town when I do their vehicles so having this kind of access is good for both of us. Regarding getting paid, I've got the majority of my customers using a money transfer app of some sort which makes that whole process quick and convenient. Customers who use the same bank I do are really appreciated because they just transfer the funds from their account to mine and there's no fees - even if they pay by card as long as the card is issued by that bank.

I'm also in AZ. Who do you use for DI water and is it a tank that you swap out once it loses its effectiveness? How much does it cost you and how long does it last?

When I originally decided to explore ways to stop the madness associated with trying to dry a vehicle before spotting occurred, I bought an On-The-Go Dual Bed system which was great and it produced pure water with zero mineral content which was no small feat considering the water here in Chandler, AZ averages 750-800 PPM on any given day. The problem is that the higher the mineral content, the fewer gallons of pure water you get no matter what DI system youre using. In the case of the OTG system I bought, the media was depleted and needing replacement after only 150 gals. The replacement media was about $100 with shipping. That's roughly $.70 per gal. Not only is that expensive but with the volume of vehicles I do, I had depleted the media in less than a month. Luckily, my buddy Paul who owns LSNAutoDetailing, also here in Chandler, AZ told me about Purtec Industrial Water. They're based in So. Cal., but they have a plant in Gilbert that services the entire valley. They have several size tanks to choose from which produce increasingly more DI water as the size increases. In my case, I chose the 14" tank which produces about 1150 gals. of pure water based on the mineral content coming out of my tap. It's $75 for the tank which they drop off and pickup, and $15 per month for the service. Doesn't matter if I take a week or 2 years to deplete the tank, the price is the same per tank. That's a much, much lower price per gallon and the time saved by not having to deal with getting every drop of water off the vehicle before spotting is priceless!

Great article. I treasured my maintenance customers. Not only did they account for approx 1/3 of my income they constantly spread the word. That resulted in jobs more profitable than the norm so it worked for me. As mentioned previously I offered them an occasional freebie after "X" many referrals that resulted in work for me that was profitable. Those freebies consisted of a wash n vac which generally took one hour or less. They were scheduled when time allowed.

I concentrated on teachers/professors/real estate agents. They all meet on a regular basis so I had constant work with no advertising at all. Word of mouth is powerful if you get the right group.

That's another huge benefit I didn't even touch on in my original post. The income generated from the referrals by my maintenance customers is great. During my initial conversation with a prospective customer, I always find out how they heard about me, whether they volunteer the info or if I ultimately ask and those who were referred to me by a regular customer always say something to the effect of, "Bill Smith told me about you and says great things about you. I trust Bill's advice and I saw how nice his vehicle(s) always look so..."
I don't advertise. At all. All of my business is either repeat or referral. When your livelihood depends on this type of business model, it's beyond vital that your performance and the quality of the product you deliver be as flawless as possible with every vehicle you service. Word of mouth will literally drive or kill a business. And, when that business is a service that depends on disposable income to survive, your customers and potential customers have to have a good reason to spend it on you. We've all read the different articles that present stats on reviews and the people who tend to write them. something on the order of 78% of people who have a negative experience will write a negative review while only about 35% of those who had a positive experience will.
A customer's first impression has lasting effects!

Great article Steve! You hit the nail on the head, getting new customers is always great, but getting repeat and regular maintenance customers is really the pinnacle of where at least I am striving for. There is nothing like creating a maintenance plan, and having your customers stick to them. Steve can attest, as he lives a few blocks up from me, that doing a full correction and coating here in AZ in the summer is NO FUN! Steve, if I recall our hottest day last summer was 119?

Yeah, but those were the "official" temps. There were numerous days that the thermometer in my backyard exceeded 120° I honestly don't know how our mobile brothers do it. Twice this past summer, I saw a mobile guy setup in the parking lot of a business working on their clients' vehicle while I was out driving and went to the nearest conv store and bought them a big, ice cold drink and took it to them. I'm sure they had an ice chest or water cooler and weren't dying but It made ME feel better and allowed me to show them some indirect appreciation for the work they do and the conditions in which they do it.

The last few customers I had they were not single day events. Full paint correction, coatings, wheel coatings, plastic coatings, engine bay coatings... Those are multi 8-12 hour a day jobs, mainly had to work at night to avoid the heat. The prep work, and post-work to make sure you didn't end up with high spots is insane. Even take glass cleaning. We're a husband and wife team and approach the glass at the same time, I do the outside, she does the inside (Interior Gal)... We reference each other while working on the same piece of glass, so we can spot anything we missed.

But once you've done all this work and the customer has paid for it, it's really important to explain that it doesn't have to be like this all the time. If you come back every 3 months for a DD, or every six months for a garage queen, we can keep it looking like this in a fraction of the time and cost. I explain, if you let it get too far, you're back to a full detail again $$$$.

Besides, a good maintenance is anywhere between 4-6 hours for us. That includes the sprucing of the interior, Exterior gets Reload, and the attention to deatil to make it look as perfect as possible all the while NOT having to bust out the DA's, Carpet Extractors, Tornadors, Air-Compressors... all while being profitable. Maintenance is important for the customer after making the huge investment in the car, and with the initial full correction/coating detail. Why not take care of it.

That's exactly right and is why I don't mind doing a whash & vac for the price I charge my regulars. Their vehicles literally don't get dirty between washes so that's more than half the battle.
Agreed! Educating the customer provides them the opportunity to save themselves some pretty serious cash. Example: I have a semi annual customer that brings me their vehicle after 6 mos or so of infrequent automatic car washes and bird bombs left for weks at a time, etc. And, every time I service the vehicle, I have to start from scratch and do a full-on 3 step correction and everything that goes with prepping the surface for it. And, each time, I explain that it doesn't have to be so expensive, blah, blah, blah but what are ya gonna do?

I have one more piece of advice, if you're not using some sort of CRM, do so! I use Zoho free CRM. I can enter in all the customer contact info, notes, and even upload attachments such as the VIF, Pictures. I can create events, and tasks with reminders. So I can create a task to "Call John on x date". It also gives you a process to follow to stay in touch with your customers.

I didn't start using a CRM until a few years ago, mainly because I was too lazy to take the time to install and learn the software. After doing so, I can't help but wonder how much money I lost by not using it earlier. It keeps track of everything and, like you stated, it alerts you when to contact customers based on the criteria you set so that customers you haven't seen in 4-5 months that are due for sealant, are put on the list of those you need to call to get scheduled. Everything you do on the administrative side of your operation can be taken care of in a nice, tidy program that provides you with every imaginable statistic and figure related to your business. I will admit though, that while everything has gone virtually digital and has essentially negated the need for paperwork, I still print out every customer invoice and either hand it to them as I shake their hand and thank them or leave it on the pass seat for them. I've yet to have a customer tell me they don't need it or tell me to, "you cana just toss it, I don't need it."

Again, great article Steve. Hope you've got to use some of those samples!

Thanks, buddy! I appreciate that.
Still using them with outstanding results! rops:

Thanks to everyone who commented and/or Thanked/Liked my post.

 

[Coach Steve]

I'll add one more piece of advice that helps to maximize your profits from a time-spent standpoint. Always, always ask the customer to remove everything from the vehicle that doesn't fit in the center console or glove box prior to having their vehicle serviced. When you don't have to first, box or bag everything up before you can get started, it makes a big difference in not onl;y time saved but your overall attitude toward that job. If they show some sort of resistance, just explain that everything inside the vehicle is going to get wet during the process and you'd hate to have something get damaged by the chemicals, water, etc.

Because I employ this step with every customer prior to getting the vehicle in, I honestly can't remember the last time I had to package up a customer's stuff before I could get started.

This also eliminates the discovery of questionable/embarrassing/illegal stuff and the resulting conversation with them. The most disturbing item I've ever found was a suicide note stuffed under the backseat of a car. My customer had just bought the car used from a dealer and had no connection to the author but it still freaked both of us out a little bit!

 

[JustJesus]

Lengthy OP, but I took the time to read it all. Your math, it made sense in the end.

I've just about closed on my one and only maintenance customer. I have a regular 9-5 desk job, so I'm not exactly pushing or looking for wash/detail customers.

The customer is my friend's girlfriend. Her brother used to do the cleaning for her, but they don't live close to each other anymore. And my friend has better things to do.

Long story short: Since I meet with this guy at least 2x a month, fitting his gf's car into my schedule is easy. While he is out picking up our dinner, I'll clean the exterior of the car. He'll vacuum it on his own time. Oh, and this maintenance schedule actually starts with a dirt cheap, almost free, decon and light polish followed by a sealant application. And I'm happy to do it for this guy. When I did his 4Runner, THAT job became a nice poster child (err, car) of what I can do! It brought me some paint correction business.

Everyone is happy.

 

[LSNAutoDetailingLSNAutoDetailing is verified member.]

I'll add one more piece of advice that helps to maximize your profits from a time-spent standpoint. Always, always ask the customer to remove everything from the vehicle that doesn't fit in the center console or glove box prior to having their vehicle serviced. When you don't have to first, box or bag everything up before you can get started, it makes a big difference in not onl;y time saved but your overall attitude toward that job. If they show some sort of resistance, just explain that everything inside the vehicle is going to get wet during the process and you'd hate to have something get damaged by the chemicals, water, etc.

Because I employ this step with every customer prior to getting the vehicle in, I honestly can't remember the last time I had to package up a customer's stuff before I could get started.

This also eliminates the discovery of questionable/embarrassing/illegal stuff and the resulting conversation with them. The most disturbing item I've ever found was a suicide note stuffed under the backseat of a car. My customer had just bought the car used from a dealer and had no connection to the author but it still freaked both of us out a little bit!

Wow, disturbing find Steve. I think I would have a heart attack if I saw something like that. I've said many times, don't kid yourself. Your clients and potential clients READ THIS FORUM. Your on-line presence shouldn't be any different than in real life. Steve can attest, I'm pretty much the same in person as I am on the forum. When you come onto this or any forum, you are the representative of your company.

 

[Duy]

Steve and Paul, do you guys have any pictures of this DI setup that you are using? I'm local to the valley as well and water spotting seems like an issue that I constantly have to deal with. I'm trying to understand how this setup would work, is it a tank in the garage that gets fed to a pump or something that gets installed in between the water spout that you would use to do all your washing?

 

[Coach Steve]

Steve and Paul, do you guys have any pictures of this DI setup that you are using? I'm local to the valley as well and water spotting seems like an issue that I constantly have to deal with. I'm trying to understand how this setup would work, is it a tank in the garage that gets fed to a pump or something that gets installed in between the water spout that you would use to do all your washing?

Picture a large helium or acetylene tank with an inlet and outlet at the top. That's it. 14" in diameter and about 5' tall. Single tank. You can either run a hose to it or, you can do what I did and run a dedicated line with a shutoff valve and threaded disconnect. Here's my setup...

 

[Duy]

Awesome I understand it now. No issues with running a pressure washer with the tank correct?

 

[Coach Steve]

Wow, disturbing find Steve. I think I would have a heart attack if I saw something like that. I've said many times, don't kid yourself. Your clients and potential clients READ THIS FORUM. Your on-line presence shouldn't be any different than in real life. Steve can attest, I'm pretty much the same in person as I am on the forum. When you come onto this or any forum, you are the representative of your company.

Truer words have never been spoken. The biggest reality check I ever got was when I was contacted via email by someone wanting a quote and during our conversation, I learned that he was browsing this forum and saw in one of my posts that I'm in the same town as him. Every post I've ever made here flashed through my mind all at once trying to think if I'd ever written anything.... ahem.... unprofessional or sophomoric and at the same time, I could feel the color draining from my face. Luckily, I had nothing to worry about.
And regarding Paul's demeanor and overall character, he's as genuine and honest as they come.
(is that how you wanted it worded, Paul?):laughing::joking:

 

[Coach Steve]

Awesome I understand it now. No issues with running a pressure washer with the tank correct?

None. There is a slight reduction in flow but not significant enough to be concerned about. I'm very fortunate in that I live literally less than 1000 yds from the water distribution plant here in Chandler so my water pressure is phenomenal! I'm talking about pressure so good that it pins me against the back wall of the shower in the morning! rops:

 

[Wknd Dtlr]

No issues with running a pressure washer with the tank correct?

It works great with a a pressure washer.

I just got my Puretec tank set up over the weekend. What a game changer! It was actually enjoyable/relaxing to wash my wife's black car on Saturday. No foot race to dry it before the water spots dried.

I'm in the process of re-configuring my PW set up with a new hose reel, gun/wand/cannon and separate supply hoses with QD's so there is no set up time to use the PW. When I want to use it I'll basically snap the gun on the hose and go.

BTW, huge thanks to Wills, Paul and Steve for answering all my questions and convincing me to switch to DI water. Only wish I had done it years ago!