Need a Carwash? There’s an App for That

Quick Quack Car Wash has launched an iPhone application to help customers find the location nearest to them. In addition, customers will receive exclusive promotional offers through their mobile phones and will be able to check out the company’s latest news. The chain of exterior-only, soft-cloth carwashes operates 14 facilities in California, Colorado and Texas.

The free app was developed by MobSpree, a Folsom-Calif.-based software and design firm specializing in social-mobile marketing.

Kudos to Quick Quack for its forward thinking. At some point, mobile marketing will become a common extension of promotional and informational business activity for most retail businesses, including carwashes. Although several carwashes currently use some form of approved texting to customers, to my knowledge Quick Quack is the first carwash to launch an iPhone app.

The trick, of course, is to get customers to download the application to their phone and use it. According to Apple, there are currently more than 200,000 apps available through its store, many of which are free. Optimizing an app’s use through existing customers, though, is the first step, and no doubt Quick Quack will endear itself to some customers whose universe exists through their handheld device.

If you think about it, a mobile campaign makes good marketing sense for an exterior carwash company that promotes its ability to produce a clean vehicle in three minutes with no waiting. The express carwash model appeals to time-challenged customers on the go. The technological capabilities of BlackBerrys, iPhones and smart phones have the same urgency appeal for many consumers, so there is potential for good synergy between the customer, venue, medium and message.

You can check out the Quick Quack iPhone app at iTunes.

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