Going to the corner car wash is for most people a huge waste of time as you often have to wait in line and stay on site. Having somebody coming to you is not only more convenient and represents a premium service but it allows you to understand better what you pay for by bonding and sharing with the person coming to you.

 

Even though you can get anything delivered to your home, that particular job requires some hard skills making the mobile car wash not a thriving market but a lagging one. The ones that detailed your car 10 years ago in Los Angeles are still the same persons with only better products.  

 

The "On-Demand" Economy has given birth to hundreds of start-ups that provide you with anything you are too lazy to get yourself and combine ease and convenience via, most of the time, a simple app. People are - especially when they can afford it - craving for those huge time saving services for which Uber paved the way.

 

 

As a non-technician customer, you have to be aware of what you pay for. When it comes to mobile wash, there are two types of services you can ask for. Bring the stationary and basic car wash to your home or office or have a real detailing to renovate your car.

 

On the one hand, mobile washers are in general non-legit people, not insured with no license number that would spill out a bucket of unfiltered water on your car for $10 on a parking lot. Always think about asking the credentials of your detailers. Yelp, Google+, Twitter, Facebook... are one of the best way you get to assess the credibility and the legitimacy of the person that will take care of your car.

When done right, mobile car wash is the perfect mix between high-value service and low value-added hand work. What you're looking for is convenience, time saving and a certain comfort. Even a basic wash allows you to feel good driving your car. 

 

On the other hand, mobile detailing has become a real high-end service in rich areas of Los Angeles. An art for the detailers to only reveal the beauty of fancy cars, owned by people ready to spend up to $800 on a detailing. Bringing back to life the its Bentley or Tesla to see it shine as as if just got out of the factory is something worth paying for to some people. It can go from a basic Waxing job and interior shampooing to a full renovation of the car with paint restoration or engine cleaning.

 

 

The difficulty for the consumers of mobile car wash and mobile detailing is to find somebody reliable enough to come to your place on time and to provide you with something you actually paid for. At Washos, we've been thoroughly studying all the mobile detailers in LA county and we've spoken to many of them.

 

The first statement we can make is that there is absolutely no consistency between those companies. If the price range doesn't differ that much from one another for the simple packages, there are huge discrepancies when it comes to full detailing. Also, the packages are very hard to understand for a newbie and you never get the same service when you change provider. And when it comes to techniques used, some use water, other use waterless or steam... Many people end up giving up when trying to choose a detailer as they finally realize they don't know what they need and they don't know what they'll get!

 

That much confusion for the consumer makes him believe that this service is not worth the premium price they might pay for. Indeed, most of the mobile car wash and detailers do not give their prices upfront so that they have a chance to upsell you.. Plus, finding a good detailer is really tough. If Yelp does most of this job you usually need to call more than one of them to be able to book an appointment when it's convenient for you. None of them offer a way to book directly online or through a mobile app.

 

 

Here is the problem this industry faces: How can we meet the expectations of all potential consumers and respond to the huge and dormant demand?

 

One key of the problem is to offer something anybody can understand and would be willing to buy without having second thoughts. The idea is to really make something people want: convenience, transparency, clarity, quality. Which is why the first thing we did was to analyze comprehensively what could be find on this market in terms of services and to build 3 easy-to-understand packages.

 

 

Now, you know what you pay for, how much you pay, how much time this will take while not preventing us from responding to your special requests. We strongly believe that this way, we can make the mobile car wash & detailing available to anybody.

 

The idea is that ordering for a mobile wash must come with as much certitude on the output and ease than ordering a pizza. We and make this such a service not a special and custom service anymore but something everybody can get. You can book a same-day appointment on Washos website and mobile application and you get a confirmation or a call in case of problems. That way, a part of the potential customers that see this lack of clarity  as a barrier are likely to become actual customers.

 

 

The simple fact that nobody is dominating this industry shows how difficult it is to build an entity that gather the best on the long-run to allow the company to grow. All mobile detailers, who can provide services from basic washes to full detailing, are entrepreneurs who choose at some point to work on their own, buying their own vans and supplies and hiring their own people. This natural turnover makes the biggest mobile car wash company of LA no more than an SMB rather than a real chain.  

 

One of the biggest difficulty is also that customers tend to be loyal to the persons doing the detailing rather than the brand as nobody has achieved to build a real brand awareness. This make easier for any detailers to start its own service.  

 

The challenge of creating a network of those best craftsmen has been accepted many times by people wanting to fill out one of the last remaining spot of the On-Demand services market. But how to meet the expectations of the consumers and the requirements of the detailers who prefer rely on no one but themselves.

As we are working closely with our detailers and meeting our consumers we came to understand that simplifying mobile detailing comes with 6 simple principles that Washos apply no matter what:

 

Convenience: forget about Yelp research, hazardous keywords typed on Google, asking the car wash at the corner of the street to come to you and detail your car. Build a simple platform allowing anyone to book an appointment on-line in a couple of simple steps of through a Mobile Application!

 

Quality: being on time, eco-friendly, having good supplies and being able to educate the customer to what the car needs and not what you want to sell him... are essential to make mobile detailing work. A happy customer is a recurring one and a car can always get more dirty!

 

Availability: Don't choose the best time to make your customer happy, let him choose what's convenient for him and strive to find a solution.

 

Guarantee: Don't go with detailers that are not legit. The last thing you want is a scratch on the Bentley for which you could do nothing about.

 

Simplicity: Propose simple packages that your customers - who are not detailing experts - can easily understand! Doing so, we greatly improve the consistency of the market allowing word of mouth to be more effective and new customers being more satisfied.

 

Customer support: Communications with our customers is key. Wether it is because we cannot detail his car or because we feel like he is unhappy, we know that they would be way more willing to give us a second chance if we are transparent. The car will still need to be detailed!

 

Find out more on our website and blog at www.washos.com