Website for car valeting, with packages people can actually book
The work sells itself once it is done and almost never before, because nobody outside the trade knows what a stage one machine polish is or why the middle package costs what it costs. Somebody sitting in a car park is looking at three names and guessing.
The site runs on your own domain, with SSL, hosting and nightly backups in every plan. From £49 to £199 a month, excluding VAT.
Three points in a working day
Each one is a moment where a decision gets made about your money, and in all three cases it gets made without you in the room.
Half seven, and the boot tells the story
The car arrives, you open it, and it is a school run, a dog and a summer of building work. It was booked as a mini valet, at mini valet money, and it is going to take most of a day.
You will do it anyway, because the owner is standing there, and the two cars behind will run late. The whole thing started with a page that offered one price for one word and never asked what state the car was in.
Lunchtime, three package names on a phone
Bronze, silver, gold. Somebody on a lunch break is deciding between them from the names alone, and those names mean nothing whatsoever outside your unit.
If the page does not say what goes into each one, what it costs on their size of car and how long they will be without the vehicle, they either pick the cheapest or they close the tab. Neither of those was the one you wanted them on.
Six in the evening, the interior nobody offered
The car goes back looking superb on the outside and exactly as it was inside, because nothing asked. The owner would have said yes at the moment they were booking, when they were already thinking about the car and already spending money on it.
By the time you are handing over the keys that moment has gone, and mentioning it then sounds like selling rather than helping.
Four things a valeting business needs
Not the whole product. The parts that decide what somebody books and what they add to it.
Packages priced by the size of the car
A supermini and a seven seater are not the same afternoon and should never carry the same number. Each package can hold a price per size of vehicle, so what appears on the page is the price for that customer rather than a range that has to be argued about at handover.
Anything genuinely open ended, a ceramic coating or serious paint correction, sits in the same list as quoted work.
A slot the length of the actual job
Every package carries its own duration. A wash and wax and a two day correction are not competing for the same afternoon, and the diary knows the difference before anybody arrives with a dog in the back.
The customer picks the package and the size of car first, and only then sees the days that are long enough to hold it.
The add-on offered at the moment of booking
Interior deep clean, pet hair removal, engine bay. These get bought while somebody is choosing a date and thinking about their car, and hardly ever afterwards.
Upsell and discount codes are part of the system, so the extra is put in front of them during the booking, and a quiet January can carry a code without anybody at the unit ringing round.
Rebooking that does not cost you a day
Detailing slots are long, so a cancellation is not fifteen minutes, it is most of a working day. The link in every booking lets the customer move it as soon as they know, rather than at eight on the morning it was due.
The day goes back onto the site while there is still time for somebody else to take it.
How the package list can read
Your names and your prices. What is worth taking is the pricing type and the note under each line.
Grouping into maintenance valeting, detailing and add-ons lets each category carry its own prices and read as a list of its own.
What detailers ask before they buy
Yes, a service can carry prices per category of vehicle, so a small hatchback and a large estate each see their own number on the page instead of a range that starts an argument on the day.
They will book the date. Longer work can be listed as quoted, so a coating starts as a quote you write and agree together, while the valeting packages stay bookable in a single go.
Put it in front of somebody while they are booking. Add-ons and upsell appear during the booking rather than at handover, which is the one moment where saying yes costs nothing but money already being spent.
Discount codes and campaigns are built in. You set the code, the dates and what it applies to, and it works on the site without anybody at the unit having to remember it exists.
It is not searchable and it is not bookable. The site becomes the place with the packages, the prices and the diary on it, and if there is an existing website it can be imported into the new one.
The four plans are £49, £99, £149 and £199, each per month plus VAT, and all of them run the site on your own domain with SSL, hosting, nightly backups and support.
More trades
- Driving schoolsBooking per instructor and car, packages up front.
- Garages and MOT centresBooking per ramp and mechanic, with reminders.
- Tyre fittersFifteen minute slots and tyre storage as a plan.
- Hair salonsBooking per chair and treatment length.
- BarbersA booking that takes ten seconds on a phone.
- Nail salonsThe three week refill books itself.
- All trades
Get the packages onto a page
Describe the packages, what goes into each of them and how long they take, or point the builder at whatever you have online now. It comes back as a first version with the sizes, the add-ons and a bookable diary you can edit on the page.
The site runs on your own domain, with SSL, hosting and nightly backups in every plan. From £49 to £199 a month, excluding VAT.