Carwash Menus & Neuromarketing

Menu Application: The correctly designed menu reinforced by the autocashier or the well-trained service technician will satisfy the consumer that spending more is in the best interest of the buyer — if the menu demonstrates the gain. The best scenario is a pricing strategy that is gain-gain.

D) Deliver to the Old Brain

The Old Brain loves things that are emotional and visual. Grab attention early — say it with pictures and pack your message with lots of emotion.

Menu Application: Strategic graphic menu designs coupled with supporting graphic sales aids or custom, complementing graphic screens on the autocashier will satisfy the consumer’s need for visual stimulation. This professionalism will lead to a feeling of confidence and a feeling of well-being as consumers spend more.

Remaining Challenge

The challenge remains. Can an effective menu system be developed for a carwash that will give the consumer an incentive to spend more dollars per car while good feelings remain?

Let’s take a look at another business which utilizes menus to speak to their clientele. The restaurant industry uses a variety of menu systems to sell to consumers. Some restaurants are wildly successful while utilizing bulky menus that confuse with a seemingly endless number of pages and choices.

Forget conducting business while attempting to order in one of these establishments. The menu is information overload. Customers too busy to review the whole menu will select something familiar to them and move on. This is not conducive to upselling. The success of these restaurants could be improved if the menus were designed to upsell.

High-end restaurants differ with a simple menu approach that is typically two pages: four appetizers; four salads; two soups; four selections of fish poultry, beef, pork and seafood, if applicable. Selection is brief and easy, leaving clients with plenty of time to experience the company of those with whom they are dining.

Carwash menus should offer selections which can be quickly read, and value relationships that are easily visible, so informed decisions are made. This process aids the throughput efficiency of the wash. The correctly designed menu will speed the staging and length of time necessary to purchase and move on.

How Effective is this Approach?

While the application of neuromarketing to carwash menus is new, the initial results are exciting. One client reports that the ticket prices are up $1.25 per car as compared to last year, after changing the menu from an old style to this new concept. Twenty cents per car of the increase came after the introduction of an autocashier custom screen — designed to carry the neuromarketing of the menu through to the screen where selections are made.

Another significant observation for this wash: the correct strategic relationship between pricing and services offered shows the strongest argument for neuromarketing. This same wash reports that, of the three wash selections they offer, the new menu has been responsible for a 1 percent move from the lowest price wash and a 3 percent move of the total washes purchased, from the middle wash to the most expensive selection. At this wash, this movement represents a $3 per car difference.

According to Mike Matthews, a consultant with Mpower Wash, “The movement of wash selections from the middle range to the top wash selection is the most difficult change to make in buying patterns.”

This seems to be a natural migration with menus which utilize neuromarketing. As competition causes markets to tighten, taking advantage of every rational method of increasing the price per ticket will eventually lead us to seek the science that is known to create a predictable competitive advantage.

Perry Powell (www.perrypowell.com) is an independent sign consultant specializing in coaching business owners in the application and acquisition of site-specific signage. If you have more questions about effective menus, he can be reached by phone at 817.307.6484 or by e-mail at perry@perrypowell.com. The use of content from www.salesbrain.net was used with the express permission of its owners.

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