It was 7:45pm, on a Wednesday night and my car was filthy. Normally I work late and don't get home until after these car washes are already closed, so today I was accidently going to be *that guy* that shows up right as a place is about to close at 8:00pm. Great.
I pulled into the well-lit entrance which was easy to find and involved a slightly tight U-turn, but thankfully my car has a steering wheel so no problemo. They offered the normal car wash option packages, although, the available options are on the higher priced side of things at $6, $12, $16, and $20. The $20 option looked sweet - it even comes with train noises! - but noting the current time, I settled for the $12 option.
I pulled my car into the wash and the attendant comes out with a brush and starts scrubbing away at my dirty car. Ok, this is normal for the $20 option but at $12 I figured the attendant would maybe knock the clumps of mud off of my wheel wells. Nope, this guy goes to town scrubbing for about 3 minutes. Maybe they have junky automatic brushes and this guy has to put in extra effort to make sure the car comes clean the first time? Maybe my car is just extra dirty? It was definitely dirty but I can't imagine an *automatic* car wash relying on minimum-wage employees to prep cars this thoroghly. Maybe he just wants to make sure that I don't ask to wash it again since it's so close to closing time. Seems likely.
As the car washed, I engrossed myself in a phone game. Out the chute, I drove on to the vaccumes. Since my floorboards looked like someone had tried to save $1 by getting dirt and gravel from random places one handful at a time, I'd have to be quick. 5 minutes into vaccuming, at 7:55pm, the attendant comes over. Great, this guy wants to close and I'm fudging his closing process, I thought to myself.
"Need any help?" he asked. "No, I'm ok, I just have to vaccume out the driver's side and then I'll be out of your hair. Thank you for asking though. Sorry to come in last minute like this." i said. "It's no problem at all! Well, let me know if you need anything, I'll be more than happy to help." he said. He smiled after he spoke. It was a kind smile, one that service people generally reserve for when they actually want to help someone. As he walked away, I returned to my vaccuming, wondering if he may have been genuine.
As 8:00pm rolls around, the lights don't automatically turn off, the vaccume stays on, and the attendant isn't giving me the cold stare from the visible office. A couple of minutes go by and he comes back outside. "I noticed you might be able to use these." he said, as he hands me 3 packs of disposable dash cleaner cloths. I had brought some armored dash cleaner from home, but sure I'll try these, why not. "Thank you, I really appreciate it. I'm almost finished." I say while trying to hurry and finish my cleaning process. Surprisingly, the cleaner cloths actually worked really well at getting the mud off of the interior dash and footboard sections.
As I'm getting in my car to leave, I manage to catch his eye once more and I motion for him to come over to the car. "I really appreciate your professionalism and assistance tonight, it makes me happy to finally get this done." "No problem at all Sir, have a great day!" he says with another smile. It's genuine. I can tell. He really did just want to help. "Hey, one more thing" I say. "You've given me really exceptional service tonight, is there something I can do for you? Do you have a survey I can fill out or something?" He thought for a moment. "Actually, there is something. Our search engine reviews are great, but our Yelp page looks pretty bad. Could you leave a review on there?" I was more than happy to help, since he'd given me nothing but great service with no expectation that I would do anything in return.
So yes, writing this review wasn't my idea, but I'm more than happy to help spread the word that this is an establishment worth visiting. 5/5 read more
