Want to run a business with top-notch customer service? Learn from this one
Remember the movie “Field of Dreams,” which had a tagline “Build it and they will come”? I found a corollary to that at a car wash in Los Angeles.
Bear with me here. I know this sounds bizarre, but let me tell you about an experience I had a few weeks ago that made me realize (again) how important customer service is to being a successful business. Even in a mundane business and during a pandemic.
My husband and I took a road trip in May to California and Utah. I had several takeaways (please, Boise, never have traffic like California’s), and we had some odd highlights along the way. One was at the Santa Palm Car Wash in West Hollywood. “The car wash of the stars,” it’s called.
After driving from Boise through Oregon and Nevada to northern California and then down I-5 to Los Angeles, our car looked like a bug cemetery. We noticed the car wash and decided to take a few minutes and get cleaned up.
An unexpected hour and $36 later, we had a car cleaner than it had been even when it was new, inside and out.
Talk about service.
We started at the check-in point, a four-car lineup where two employees focused on each car, checking to be sure the owners had gotten critical items out and left the keys in.
They then inched each car into the washing deck, a 30-yard-long enclosed washing, soaping and cleaning tunnel. The equipment was old-ish, and at each of the key washing stations, two employees stood on either side of the car, washing, scrubbing and cleaning the windows, doors, and wheels as the car moved through to the next station.
I figured about a dozen people worked in the tunnel and at least two continuously brought clean wash cloths and dry towels.
When the car exited, one employee focused on each car, drying inside and out and checking for any spots that were missed. That took another 15 minutes.
In total, we were there nearly an hour. And we did not get the optional detailing, which probably would have taken another hour or two.
The cars we saw included old-timey classic pickups, Maseratis, Land Rovers and Roll Royces. Along the tunnel wall were photos of mostly older movie stars and celebrities such as Johnny Carson, Dean Martin and Dolly Parton. If there were any stars there that day, we didn’t recognize them in their “go get the car washed” clothing.
The place was full of employees and customers. Washing cars is back-breaking work, and in all likelihood not that interesting, but the place never seems to stop. We drove past several times during our stay, and there were always cars nosing out of the tunnel.
So the lesson may be less “build it and they will come” but more “offer unparalleled service and they will come.”
Nancy Napier is a Boise State University distinguished professor. nnapier@boisestate.edu. She is co-author of “The Bridge Generation of Vietnam: Spanning Wartime to Boomtime.”