Concierge Car Wash
How handcrafted text messages turned a business around
Potential
Covid killed car washes. And marketing budgets. Armed only with a sparsely populated customer database and a text messaging platform, we set about to change Concierge Car Wash’s fortunes.
Our plan was to differentiate ourselves, in a category which is driven by limited brand distinctiveness, little customer loyalty, and unplanned, discretionary spending.
Our approach was to demonstrate the ‘handcrafted difference’ of our service using the humblest medium. A simple text message.
Realised
Our idea was to not only use text messages as our sole marketing channel, but to break the rules too.
Best practice was for text messages to be brief. So, we intentionally wrote longer, more entertaining messages, (character limits be damned). We also personalised everything from names to regos and favourite locations.
We targeted our based carefully: light buyers (one visit only) who we hadn’t seen for a long period of time, received larger value offers. And high value customers received special surprise and delight offers to ensure they kept coming in.
We sent our messages at unusual but highly effective moments in the week too. Linking our sends to weather patterns and customer data intelligence, revealing the perfect day to send a message for an almost guaranteed visits to a Concierge Car wash.
Proof that a simple text message is sometimes all you need to accelerate growth.
Results
- Increased returning customers by 9.5% in 2020 and 62% in 2021.
- Increased “lost” customers won back by 21.9%.
- Increased average Car Wash spend by 15.3%.
