Glide Xpress Car Wash is on a mission to be the fastest car wash in the nation while providing the ultimate car wash experience - every time. Located across Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri, Glide Xpress uses industry leading equipment and technology to continuously improve their car wash experience. This quest to always improve speed and customer experience has led to a multi year search to find the right ways to improve processing times of vehicles.
Challenge 1: How to wash more cars faster
For nearly 15 years, the leadership team at Glide Xpress has searched for the right technology and tools to help them improve processing time. From studying how fast food chains make drive thru’s efficient to thinking up ways of doing it themselves, the search seemed endless. They needed a solution that gave them analytics on how fast customers were entering their tunnels, the ability to compare locations, and the insights to make more informed decisions as they continue to scale.
While bottlenecks can be common at car washes because of pay station issues like a gate not opening, credit card problems, non-members entering a members only lane, and other common problems, these weren’t acceptable for Glide Xpress. They needed a way to make sure that their lines were moving fast and they had no bottlenecks at their pay stations.
Solution 1: Using video data to improve processing time
By using Vehicle Idle Time, the team at Glide Xpress was able to quickly understand where any bottlenecks occurred at the entrance to their car wash. They now had data into how far apart vehicles are, issues at the pay station, and data on how many more vehicles can be serviced each hour allowed Glide Xpress to take control of their operations and have the insights needed to plan for scale.
After years of searching, Shawn Peterson, EVP of Operations at Glide Xpress, says he’s “literally trying to not jump out of my seat. This is game-changing stuff for us and the industry.” Vehicle Idle Time gave Glide Xpress the visibility they needed into each location and how to quickly improve their operations.
Challenge 2: Ensuring the ultimate car wash experience, every time
To ensure customers have the ultimate car wash experience every time, it’s critical that team members are in the right places at the right times to help customers. High performing car washes succeed when their teams are prepared for any situation, are properly positioned, and know how to ensure a customer is helped quickly and has a great experience.
Getting this data to be accessible and accurate has been a struggle for many car washes. Without having data on how busy certain days are or if the team is present to help customers, car washes like Glide Xpress are left in the dark to try and understand how to improve their operations. This created inconsistent customer experiences and the possibility that they can go with a competitor for their next car wash.
Solution 2: Using video footage to train staff
To create the ultimate car wash experience relies on having a team that is correctly trained on how to best serve customers. This leads to higher performing teams and happy, repeat customers.
With People Presence, the leadership team at Glide Xpress knows that their team is in the right place at the right time to serve customers. They are able to dive into each of their cameras to know when their team is present, where they are present, and how to improve their workflows. The leadership team is able to pull footage to train their staff on best practices whenever they need in real time and on-demand.
Heath Owsley, Director of Operations at Glide Xpress says, ”From an operations standpoint, I’m able to know why a customer is waiting too long and this tells me if we’re staffed enough or we have an opportunity to better train our team. Idle Time helps us identify potential issues before they become real issues.” By taking a look back at their video in real time and easily pulling past footage, the leadership team is able to create trainings so the full team is always prepared to serve guests and provide repeat customers.
Learn more about how Glide Xpress is changing the car wash game with Spot AI
