As we start the year, we ended up a little behind from where we thought, and wanted, to be with announcements made in 2024. But, January has brought everything we previewed in 2024 to fruition. The major new offerings include the Virtual Pay Station environment and Mobile Wallet Kiosk in support of Site Level Memberships. We will be evangelizing the value of the site level membership and using our own washes within the United Auto Wash brand to showcase these capabilities. If you are operating a traditional multi-profit center unattended location, please take the time to read the Site Level Membership article. For this part of the Dencar business, it will be our primary focus to build and enhance this model.
From a pay station perspective, in 2024 we introduced the revamped retrofit door line up which currently supports Hamilton ACW/Goldline footprints and Unitec Wash Select II footprints for under $10,000. These are now shipping. We are in the process of adding a Standard Changer retrofit and could support an Exacta footprint if there is demand. We will look at any others as demand dictates. Our thought process is if the unit is typically bricked-in, a retro door makes a lot of sense as you can avoid construction costs. In addition, the sub-$10,000 price point is extremely attractive. For locations that are not bricked in, we also added the Eco-10 pay station which is a fully stand alone cash and credit machine with LPR for under $20,000 including a full HVAC. If the retrofit desire is only a pricing issue without a bricked-in consideration, we will steer operators to the Eco10. Alternatively, we expect to have our first “Keep Your Kiosk” Overpass units in February as well. This will allow you to offer membership management in a hybrid app/hardware solution that keeps the 1:1 membership model (no fraud) Dencar pioneered for roughly $4000 per unit. As compared to an app only membership platform, the Dencar solution typically results in a 40% more profitable membership model by eliminating fraud. Any upfront pricing differences in Overpass versus an app-only solution should be quickly recouped with the improved profitability of the Dencar solution.
We also solidified our gas pump point of sale integration during 2024 and will be marketing this under the Side Kick name. Our intent is to add membership sales to the gas pumps in the coming months. This type of revenue stream should be very attractive to your neighboring gas stations that don’t have a car wash. We have developed this technology so you can partner with gas stations, irrespective of geography, and drive revenue for both of you. A nice win/win.
One item we showcased at the ICA in May of 2024 was the auto adjusting “Right Height” base. In retrospect, we probably should have offered that 6 years ago. During the course of 2024, we determined that we made the “Right Height” technology obsolete with the development of the Mobile Wallet Kiosk. Your customers will soon be able to scan a QR code on the pay station and mirror the pay station experience to their phone - WITHOUT downloading an app. This is now natively supported in everyone’s phone. This will be included in all new pay stations later this year for no additional cost and will be offered as an enhancement to existing pay stations. It didn’t take a genius to recognize “free” would be preferred to “price” so the Right Height just didn’t make sense to move to production.
In addition to the new product announcements in 2024, we spent a good portion of the year revamping components to enhance reliability. On all new pay stations, you will see a fully enclosed optically bonded touchscreen monitor. Our original desire for cheap component replacements has been trumped by the need for enhanced reliability and simplified support. In addition, we have moved to all AC powered components connected to an inside the pay station Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). Power at older car wash sites has been a consistent problem (nightmare for support) that is hard to identify, and often ignored. Adding the UPS will virtually eliminate this problem and has the added benefit of dramatically simplifying parts replacement. Simply unplug a bad component and replace it with a new one - no hard wiring required. Two other components we have upgraded are the USB hub and the audio board. We originally thought that all USB was the same. We were wrong. Our new standard is the gold standard. We are using optically isolated USB hubs manufactured by Sealevel Systems in North Carolina. If you want the best, here’s the direct purchase link (no need to come through us): https://www.sealevel.com/seai-o-270u/ The other area we have struggled with is audio quality. This was the last item we upgraded in 2024 as we now have a new audio amplifier. Finally, if you do reach out for any new quotes, one new line item you will see is a spare parts kit. The criticality of the touchscreen monitor makes this a key component of the kit as well as other peripherals.
If anyone wants to upgrade their components as we identify improvements, we will sell parts at cost or provide direct sales links so you can buy at the same price we buy at. The Sealevel USB above is an example of that. Here are two more links:
- Audio Amplifier https://a.co/d/dwwQhv1
- Uninterruptible Power Supply https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DBAA696?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_JCRE93F4XC83D9KMR47X&skipTwisterOG=1&newOGT=1
If you have been affected by power supply issues that manifest themselves frequently in a failed power converter or supply on monitor displays, we strongly suggest switching to a UPS inside the pay station and move your monitor display power to an AC power brick.
As we are now a 7 year young company, we have been asked a couple times how are we going to treat our customers that have been with us since the beginning as we come up with improvements? The answer is simple; exactly the way we would want to be treated. For touchscreens and monitors, we have built a replacement kit for the S1 pay station. For S2 pay stations, the metal opening does not permit a same size replacement. However, the existing S2 design with proper seals and AC settings has resulted in a very stable environment as we run this design in our own washes. For 13” touchscreens on the EP13, this has also been stable with proper seals and AC settings, especially when moved to an AC power brick. However, we have been working on a 10” enclosed monitor replacement for the original 13” retro doors that will also be able to be installed in EP13s should you desire. If you prefer the simplicity of a monitor over the separate component design, this would be a good option. For any existing operators that want replacements, or spare parts, we will sell these components at cost as well. To buy cost effectively and not jeopardize our existing spare part process, we would like to be notified of anything you want and we will procure in bulk over the coming months. Just open an online ticket with “spare parts request” as the first line of the description.
Final comment on the hardware front. If you like the Dencar membership sales experience, and you have an existing Dencar pay station, we will offer a trade-in program where you’ll receive 50% off the retail price of a new Dencar pay station, if you trade-in your existing Dencar pay station. We know we are not perfect and will continue to improve hardware over time and would like operators to know they have an easy upgrade and replacement process over time. This type of pricing model is how we would want to be treated if our roles were reversed, so that’s exactly what we are doing. If you have any questions on this, we hired Chris Zuchegno to lead our Dencar sales efforts. If you have not met him yet, please stop by the SCWA booth later this month and shake his hand. If you are not attending, please email Chris at chriszuchegno@dencartechnology.com to introduce yourself and your wash. Chris has been a great addition to our team.
And now, sandwiched in the middle, the most boring part of this update…core upgrades. This past week we experienced a core processing slow down. This manifested itself as delayed wash firings. The temporary fix was immediately deployed which was essentially removing capped processing power. There have been additional optimizations over the past week so we are in a very good position now. In addition, we have been planning the next iteration of our core infrastructure for about a year and we will be kicking off this project in Q2 this year. By the end of Q3 of this year, we will be running in 6 geographically distinct high availability Amazon data centers across 2 high availability zones - East and West USA. We will also have (as we do today) redundancy into a separate (non-Amazon) cloud provider. We are also moving to a very large time series database platform that will finally allow us to start filling in the reporting table on the CMP home screen for wash tier summary reporting. Once this is complete, we will be building (finally) the reporting engine we have always envisioned with graphs and predictive analytics.
So what else should everyone expect? Lots and lots of enhancements. One consistent question we get is, “can I get my logo on my customers’ phones?” Today, the answer has been a qualified yes as it requires a pretty expensive custom add-on app build for App Store and Google Play registrations. The answer soon will be YES, for no additional cost! iOS and Android have introduced some new branding capabilities that we have been waiting for that will allow you to get your logo on your customers’ phones. In addition, we are working on a location services option that will prompt your customer with a pop-up on their phone when they pull onto your property to automatically open their app to their membership QR code. This will dramatically simplify the experience for your customers (and our United Auto Wash customers too) and keep the lines moving faster.
How about tunnel support enhancements? We talk a lot about the IBA market because our focus has been on reducing labor costs by enhancing the unattended sales and fulfillment flow. However, the Dencar platform, and Denpay software, fits nicely into the tunnel market. In the coming months, we are adding attendant logins which are restrictive access logins to the Customer Management Portal (CMP), attendant wash pass sales tracking via QR scan, and we are adding retract and control buttons to the Visual Queue Manager to simplify loading controls. In addition, we will be publishing an app for handheld sales and redemption that integrates with the existing Visual Queue Manager. You’ll be able to deliver the Chick-fil-A experience while running attended, and utilize pay stations when you run unattended. Or if you only want to run attended, you won’t need pay stations at all, and you can still feed the queue with automatic gate control. We expect the handheld pay station to retail around $1600. We don’t think there will be a more cost effective solution on the market.
On a slightly different topic, you may have noticed a new link in the Customer Management Portal (CMP) that says, “Text Marketing”. If you haven’t clicked this link yet, log in and check it out. Here’s the skinny. We have wanted to add this capability for some time, but did not have a clear vision for implementation. After trialing multiple other provider options that seemed overly complex, we went with the KISS approach. The two items we heard from everyone of our operators that responded were that you wanted your own texting phone numbers (no one wants to use a shared Dencar phone number), so you can own your customers from the very first text. And, you want simple on/off marketing campaigns. This is exactly what we have built and you will see the option to turn these on soon. To get ready for this, make sure you check out the Text Marketing link in the CMP.
Since we are on the topic of marketing, let’s talk about Opt Spot, Rinsed, Jolt, and Home Base. These are absolutely fantastic marketing and management tools used in the car wash industry today. They just seem ridiculously expensive to us. We have always envisioned adding the features that these platforms provide to the Dencar experience. However, we made a strategic decision to separate the features that are unique to Dencar, from products and services that have a need for all car wash operators, regardless of point of sale platform. As such, we will be advancing all the customer support, communications, and marketing features originally envisioned for Dencar, under a sister company called Carwash Communicator. You will see marketing soon, and an initial release at the Southwest Car Wash Association show in February. If you have not met her yet, we hired Shara Gray to run the Carwash Communicator business. Please come meet her at the SCWA later this month. If you are not attending, please take a moment to email her at sharagray@carwashcommunicator.com and introduce yourself and your wash. Given the experience we have had with United Auto Wash, Carwash Communicator has the likely potential to be an important part of your business in the not too distant future.
For the initial release at the SCWA show, Carwash Communicator will include our unique approach to site and brand level communication for customer support, privately tracked team communication and task management for your employees, team members, and groups, sales training, and mass messaging using text, email, and prescriptive or bulk post cards. Two additional modules are being pre-released including Checklists and Street View Marketing. The idea of the platform is to combine all the features of Jolt, Rinsed, Opt Spot, and Home Base in a much more affordable tools model. These tools will be the initial entry point for many of you to the Carwash Communicator platform. And, since we are all looking for ways to grow our revenue, we are very excited to get the Street View Marketing module into production as soon as possible. We will post some videos that will make you go hmmm. If you plan to be at the SCWA show later this month, make sure you stop by and scan the QR on the Carwash Communicator Street View Marketing sign. We will be showing something that has never been seen before. As we mentioned, our case study will be United Auto Wash, so we expect to have some metrics to showcase around the middle of the year from using this new platform. Of everything we have been working on, this is my personal favorite.
In addition to these tools, we are enhancing our services and marketing capabilities within the Carwash Communicator platform. Many of you utilize Dencar Customer Support as an extension of your team to support your customers today. Due to this demand and continued growth, we are in the process of adding specialists to this team with even more dedicated focus. The result will be a hyper focused team that supports the software side of the business so you don’t have to. Carwash Communicator will provide you Dencar certified customer support agents, for your customers, that are knowledgeable and focused on car wash support for you and your customers. If you are interested in taking advantage of this team, just reach out to Shara.
Another area we have been consistently asked about is social media. Usually, whenever the topic of social media comes up with a typical operator, there is a tremendous amount of fear and/or concern that it could go poorly. This concern is valid. Should we do it? Do we do it? Do we do it well? The United Auto Wash answer is we are doing a pretty good job and it absolutely has a positive impact on our car wash sales and our community engagement. If you haven’t already, like/follow us on https://www.facebook.com/unitedautowash and https://www.instagram.com/unitedautowash/ If you like the content, you are welcome to copy it. If you like the content, and don’t have time (or even want) to manage your social pages, we have a great option in the works. We are planning the launch of a social media and marketing service package later this year. We will offer content generation, posting, response management within platforms as well as via private and direct messaging. We are also working on Google Review management. You won’t have to be glued to your business profiles as we will have a team dedicated to improving your brand. As we scale up to support this environment, we have brought some more creative team members onto the team. We historically supported a very basic website development process and we now offer an enhanced template (check out www.unitedautowash.com) and even full custom website development at very cost effective pricing. We know most operators we support are not at a scale where hiring their own full time marketing personnel, or even a marketing agency, makes sense. We are making these investments for all of us, and will offer a subscription to the marketing platform at a fraction of what even hiring one person would cost.
This isn’t everything we are working on, but this update is getting long. Congratulations if you made it this far. Consider yourself not part of the Too Long, Didn’t Read (TLDR) crowd. If you would like to talk about any of these options in more depth, please come see us at the SCWA show in Dallas February 26-28 https://swcarwash.org/events/2025-convention-expo or the ICA show in Vegas April 26-28 https://www.carwash.org/events or the NRCC in Atlantic City October 6-8 https://nrccshow.com/.
Also, we are sponsoring a breakout session in Vegas for IBA and Self-Serve operators on Saturday morning, April 26 at 8:30 at the ICA. This will be an opportunity to hear your peers talk about growing their sales and best practices for running their business.
If you can’t make it to a show, give us a call:
Dencar Sales: 330-595-2022 x3
Carwash Communicator Sales: 302-289-6450
Editorial Comment:
During many sales conversations, we get asked, “how come you cost so much less than the other guys?”. The answer is fairly simple in that our approach to the market has been based on cost, not value. We have kept our costs low with not too much overhead. You’ll see this in the Dencar pricing model, everything is online and totally transparent, and we will be doing the same with the Carwash Communicator platform too. One of our tag lines has been, “twice the technology (value), half the price”. It’s really just how we prefer to do business.