Clean Stop offers professional car valeting services in Swords Plaza Car Park, Dublin, City Square Car Park, Waterford and The Courthouse Car park, Summer Street, Limerick. Aiming to make a difference in the market, they are working hard each day toward this goal. They have been using Loyverse in their business since they started and we are happy to share their story. 

Can you briefly describe your business?

We are a business Clean Stop, based in Ireland. The business started around 3-4 years ago. We provide car valeting services. Our management team has over 10 years of experience in the car valeting business. When we decided to open a business, we had a strict vision of what we wanted to achieve. We didn’t want to be another car valeting service provider company since there are a lot of these and they are pretty much the same: just clean the car, some guys will wash it and off you go. We wanted to be something more since there is new technology and new options possible these days and obviously, people’s lifestyles have changed. 

To that understanding, we would be providing online booking for our customers so they can choose their time, date, and package. They can review all the packages we offer and choose the one that they want. They would know at what time they would pick up their car, it is all up to them to choose. To be honest, the online booking platform exceeded our expectations because when we told them that it would be a random decision to pull in their car, it permitted our customers to plan out their day and it worked really really well. 

Of course, in this business, locations are very important. We are located in iPairc Car Park, which is located in Dublin, Waterford and Limerick. That works perfectly for us because IPairc Clean Stop assures the time course. iPairc provides clean and self-parking facilities, is very user-friendly and the environment is in a very convenient location. That brings people to the car park and these people will obviously visit our car valeting places as well.

How many employees do you have currently?

Due to the pandemic, we are working in low capacities. Each location has 2 employees currently. As the restrictions will be eased, we are looking forward to increasing the number of our staff as the demand will increase as well hopefully. 

Was the online booking platform an idea that came from the pandemic?

The idea was before the COVID. When we started Clean Stop, we already had the online platform ready. The pandemic accelerated things and put more attention on it because obviously a lot of people went contactless and instead of calling and asking for the packages that we offered, they can easily check and choose independently from the website. They need to have contact with the staff only a few seconds when they drop off the keys and a few seconds when they pick up the keys. 

From the safety point of view, this method worked perfectly for us and the customers. We also offer online support if any customer wants to call us. We are happy to help and explain to them all the packages in detail. Packages are adjusted to each city, they are very flexible. We also evaluate these packages regularly according to the customers’ feedback regarding what they would like to be added or removed from the packages. Packages are adjusted so that they can meet all the demands of the customers. 

How do you advertise your business?

We use the online platforms: Facebook, Instagram and we also do on-site advertisements. We collaborate with shopping centers as well and advertise the business on their platforms. Sometimes, we use newspapers as well. With the time being, quality works in your favor. That’s why we are pushing quality rather than quantity. A lot of customers have visited us because their friend or their family had had a good experience with us previously. 

This is very crucial, we aim to clean and pamper each car as best as we can to achieve customer satisfaction, otherwise, they would not recommend us to their friends. One of the reasons we look after our brand is people. Looking from my own perspective, if I were to bring my car to a place to valet, I would look for a place that looks decent, which can represent themselves. I couldn’t trust someone who can’t look after themselves. That’s why we try to keep our brand strong. 

I believe that one of the reasons the customers choose us is because we have decided to work only with industry leaders and the best chemical providers companies. And if any of our customers inquire a bit more about their car will be looked after, we are proud to say that we are using only brands which people have heard about and know that their products are good quality. Also, when we use chemicals we are using the best products in the market. Using these brands makes our job easier because it allows us to finish the job in the shortest amount of time possible. This makes customers happy as well. 

We have our own clean stop academy in place. We make sure that each staff member whom we employ, is highly trained and has a high understanding of what they are doing. When we employ, some experience is always preferable but sometimes it is better to train someone from scratch rather than retrain to your needs and your requirements. 

What are your business goals for the next 5 years?

What we are looking for is that we don’t want to stop in our current few locations. We want to go nationwide. We are looking for new extra locations where we can start our business. It can be quite challenging these days, but we want to bring new innovations, new technologies and become one of the leaders in the car valeting area. This is something that is achievable and I believe we can deliver the message to our customers that quality matters. 

How did you first learn about Loyverse and which features have been most useful for your business?

We were looking for the best and yet simplest POS system and most importantly that could work in multiple locations rather than one since I mentioned before that we have several locations and plan to expand even more. Before, we were using a system that could be installed only on a PC. The positive of Loyverse is that it can be installed on a tablet and operate really well. 

Besides, I believe that we could be the only ones or the rare ones that accept card payments with Loyverse and SumUp. Normally, when people think of the car valeting business, they think of cash. But, we are very proud to have this option and our customers are very surprised when we tell them that they can choose if they want to pay by cash or by card. This is very important, especially these days where most people are trying to avoid cash payments. We are very satisfied with the integration of Loyverse with SumUp. 

We are using Employee Management. We find it really useful to manage the access rights of our employees so we can protect sensitive information. 

One of the features that I like the most is the Back office which makes possible that all the data we need to be available at our fingertips. On a daily basis or even hourly basis, especially now that we just restarted after the restrictions, we check the figures in the Back office and we love that we can have the data there just in a few clicks. We can filter the report by period of time and store very easily. We can adjust our packages in just a few clicks whenever we want. 

In addition the system is very easy and our employees get familiar with it very quickly. We might spend half an hour or an hour in training and the employees understood the app and were ready to use it. I have asked them if they needed additional training and the answer has always been NO. The system is very straightforward. I think training my employees for Loyverse has been the shortest training I have ever provided. 

In our business, we also need discounts and Loyverse has this option and it is very easy to configure and trace. I am absolutely delighted about it. 

What would you like to see in Loyverse in the future?

So far Loyverse has reached all our demands. I would struggle to answer this question now. 

Keep up the good work. I believe that you have done very good research because the interface and everything is so user-friendly which is really rare these days. Normally when you want to acquire something that will meet your demands, it gets complicated. Your team has managed this rare combination to keep the system simple and yet deliver a great product. Well done, guys.