Why Your Car Wash’s Smell Matters

There is a science behind how your car wash smells that can negatively and positively affect your car wash business. People are more likely to remember scents and smells far longer than they will remember flashy lights and unique wash features.

Why? It has something to do with what we call the Proustian memory effect. In the brain are memory receptors that associate experiences with scents and smells. When things smell good, it creates positive memories. Conversely, when things smell bad, it creates negative memories.

What can happen if your car wash smells good?

There are positive effects when you car wash smells pleasant on the olfactory senses. For starters, your customers who like the various combinations of fruity, citrus, and floral car wash smells are more likely to have a favorable view of your car wash. Furthermore, happy customers have a higher probability of becoming repeat customers.

What can happen if your car wash smells bad?

As you might expect, there are negative effects when your car wash smells unpleasant. Rather than creating a positive memory in the memory receptors that remember scents, your customers will remember the foul smells and an unpleasant experience.

As a result, these customers are less likely to return to your car wash in the future. Instead, they will seek out a competitor with a car wash that smells much better. So, you need to make sure to address unpleasant smells quickly.

What could be causing your car wash to smell bad?

Several things could cause your car wash to smell bad. For example, many car washes reclaim wash water and recycle it. Unfortunately, water reclamation processes can cause car washer water to smell like rotten eggs—an unpleasant smell.

While recycling water is a highly recommended business practice, you need to ensure your customers cannot smell the rotten egg scent. One effective way to do this is to place your water reclamation processing far away from customers. You could also experiment with various scents you could add to the water to remove the rotten egg smell, such as lemon.

Other things that can cause your car wash to smell bad are mold and mildew. Mold and mildew thrive in damp, humid, and warm environments like your wash bays. Unfortunately, they can also thrive in wash brushes. So, you should get into the habit of cleaning your wash bays daily and replacing wash brushes frequently.

Additionally, standing water can smell bad. If you notice you are having drainage problems, you will want to get these taken care of as soon as possible. You also want to make sure any drainage trenches do not hold standing water for an extended period.

How to Make Your Business Smell Good

To ensure your car wash business smells pleasant all the time, you need to establish the appropriate cleaning and sanitation practices, including:

Prioritize Cleanliness

Customers will appreciate a clean, good-smelling car wash over new ones with the latest technologies that smell foul. At the end of each day, make sure to mop wash bay floors with chlorine bleach. You should also rinse out wash brushes to remove dirt, debris, mold, and mildew.

Depending on your car wash volume, you may need to swap out wash brushes weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. When you replace the wash brushes, you do not have to discard the ones you removed. Instead, detail clean and sanitize them. Then you can rotate them back in the next time you swap them out.

Establish a Cleaning Schedule

You should have a cleaning schedule in place throughout the day to keep foul scents at bay. For example, you could check and empty trash cans near wash bays every hour or two to keep them from getting full and smelly.

If you have restrooms, inspect them every hour and clean them as needed. You may also need to damp mop or do other light cleanings during regular business hours whenever possible.

Use Air Freshening Products

Releasing various scents into the air at set intervals can make your car wash smell better. The top scents that people remember as positive experiences are vanilla, lemon, and other citrus scents. You could use an automatic air freshener that releases a small amount of fragrance into the air periodically.

Implement Scent Marketing Practices

Scent marketing is using pleasant scents to create positive customer experiences. By implementing this marketing practice, you not only ensure your car wash business smells good, but can also use it to entice customers to make purchases.

For example, you could release scents to promote various products in your car wash waiting area like Little Trees car fresheners. You could feature a scent of the day by opening up a few of the car fresheners so customers can smell them while they wait with a display that is easy to see.

The scent will act as an incentive to want to find out more about that smell. Plus, if you use suggestive selling to sell air fresheners, you can say it has the same scent as found in the waiting area.

There are other ways to implement scent marketing as well. For instance, you could add a cotton candy scent to foaming car wash wax. When customers like this smell, they are more likely to add on waxing to their washes in the future.

Get a Second Smell Opinion

You and your employees spend countless hours at the car wash. Unfortunately, as a result, everyone can develop what is called “nose blindness.” Quite simply, this means you have gotten used to the scents, smells, and odors at the car wash, so you do not even recognize them.

Have a friend or family member who does not spend all their time at the car wash do a smell test for you. Since their nose is not blind to smells, they can let you know whether your car wash smells pleasant or foul.

Experiment with Different Fragrances

Once you know your car wash smells pleasant, do not stop there. Frequent customers can also develop nose blindness if you always use the same scents. Swap out and experiment with different fragrances to keep things fresh and new. This way, your repeat customers can be exposed to something new each time they visit to get their car washed.

Benefits of a Great-Smelling Car Wash

The primary benefit of a great-smelling car wash is it can increase the profitability of your business. Customers who associate pleasant scents at your car wash are more likely to return again and again.

Another benefit you can gain is a competitive advantage over your competition. If their car washes smell funky and foul, you can easily attract new customers who do not want to go back to a bad-smelling car wash.
 
Third, you can generate impulsive spending from your customers, such as our example about using the air fresheners in your car wash waiting area. Not to mention, customers who associate pleasant smells with your car wash will tend to spend more on wash add-ons, car wash accessories, and vending items.

As you can see, when you address unpleasant and foul smells at your car wash and replace them with pleasant smells, it not only makes your customers happy but also can grow your car wash business’s reputation and profits.

To find car wash accessories, vending items, vending machines, suppliers, and parts at wholesale prices, please feel free to browse our car wash wholesale supplier store online or contact Superior Car Wash at 800-554-9274 today!