The American Automobile Association has done more than create a list of horror stories for car wash owners. They have actually set the standard by which all car wash owners must measure their success. That standard calls for annual recordkeeping on your water usage so that you can report first to the American Automobile Association and then to the Wash Contractors Association of the United States (WCA). The result is best for everyone. Your customers, who know that the water used is tested before each crash, come back and use less water; your WCA members, who see reduced testing costs, keep their businesses in operation; and the whole automotive wash industry, which enjoys a strong economy supported by good jobs and the trade that support it, is in overall a very good deal.
This report was released just before: I visited Washington, DC. I had read about some of the problems in the car wash industry elsewhere and knew that there were some problems with washing in the District. What I found when I got there was surprising but disappointing. I was happy to see the workers doing a good job and somewhat pleased with the WCA report, but I will not spend any time here talking about the car wash operation at the Navy Yard, Lackland Air Force Station or Lackland AFB.
Instead, I want to discuss the recordkeeping: that the AMA has put into place. You may not know this, but the only way the AMA gets access to the information they require to calculate your annual statistics is if you submit to their request for information. You have to give the name and address of every employee of every car wash in the state so that they can make the calculations as accurately as possible. It may seem obvious to anyone who has been keeping up with such reports over the years, but that is the only way to get them done in a timely manner.
Another disappointment with my time in Washington: DC, was the recordkeeping at the Lackland AFB car wash. My car wash colleagues and I were given a bag of information to carry with us that consisted of a list of the employees and the dates that each had worked at our facility. I wanted to go over each of these names to make sure that they had been paid and if not, ask whether they were owed money or owed an owed date of payment. Unfortunately, none of them had been paid and I found that they listed dates of birth instead of addresses. If I were going to hire these people, I wanted to know who they were and where they lived.
I also wanted the AMA to get a better handle on how they are collecting: the information from all of these different locations. In the past, whenever I had a question about one of these areas, I was directed to the recordkeeping department. They would try to find the answer by sending someone out to the location, but there were always two people working there that year so it took a while to get their attention.
So my advice to you is to become more proactive in getting the information that you need: I know that many people have the misconception that once they get the information they can deal with it. However, this is not the case. If you don’t know where something is located, then you aren’t going to know what to do with it once you do find out.