HB Truckwash: A modern truckwash franchise

Creating the software running Europe’s biggest truckwash

Every day truck drivers are lining up in long rows to wash their vehicle. This causes downtime for drivers and jams the roads with trucks waiting - lots of frustrations.

HB Truckwash noticed this problem and wanted to solve it. Their approach? Building the biggest truck wash in Europe and contacting us to build them a tailor-made online booking system for scheduling and washing trucks. And we’ve exceeded their expectations.

One system for customers, employees, and managers

There are lots of people who touch our product with varying degrees of involvement.

Truck drivers and managers in companies managing their fleets have totally different approaches to how a booking should work for them.

Washers and service staff have to make sure bookings are correct and the client is in good care while the administrators have a proper overview of what’s paid and where the revenue comes from.

There are multiple ways how to make a booking and how to review the booking, so there is a lot to consider!

We’ve created user journeys and flows for every role involved to better understand what every person needs to get their truck washed. Those guided our client and us in how to shape the website for customers and the interface for the washers and administrators.

The challenge of Booking a wash

A very particular flow I want to point out is the booking processes. We asked ourselves - How do we make a speedy booking process for truckwash customers? We looked at online hotel and restaurant booking systems and how they make this process easy for their customers. In our further research we stumbled upon a remarkable insight that came from Maggie Stanphill’s Google I/O 2017 presentation:

“People don’t want to commit to booking before seeing the availability.”

So our objective became “how can we get as quickly as possible to an overview of availability?”. We don’t want the user to lose interest by filling lengthy forms before arriving at that step; Potentially finding out that there is no availability for them.

The problem is, different trucks and different washing programs take different amounts of time. In other words, we couldn’t simply show a calendar with availability without knowing the duration of a wash. And there are -a lot- different truck types and sizes and exponentially more programs that fit them. So we need this information at the very least to know if we had a gap available for the user with a less intensive wash. For those two necessary steps, we’ve chosen to work with visual representations of truck types so with more certainty the right truck type can be chosen and quick browsing experience for program choices after.

From there we have further optimized the experience by offering a customer to sign up their account. The incentive here is that they can save time and go straight to availability. Companies are able to manage their truckers and give them allowances.

When trucks come and go

Another very interesting challenge. What has to happen when a truck arrives at the truckwash? Not every guest is the same, you have:

• people who made a booking themselves,
• people who had a booking made for them,
• people who just drop by and want to see if there is time for them and their truck.

Also, keep in mind that some bookings were paid beforehand, some are paid during the wash and others want to pay through an invoice way after the wash.

Our solution had to account for all of those scenarios and we’ve managed to press those all into a web app that works on tablets and phones. So any staff member in the washing hall could stay on top of reservations and address every scenario.

Payments and payment systems

Another challenge for us has been implementing multiple payment systems to offer the clients ideally what they need. While most drivers and companies stick to what they know, collective invoices, we’ve researched and integrated a few more ways that allow easy and accessible payments. After all, there is already a handfull of systems set up for truckers and transportation cone with a few clicks through Stripe. It works like online shopping. Using online pay automatically keeps track which invoices are settled. This is quicker feedback to the administration of HB Truckwash and less work for them checking bank accounts and keeping track of unsettled payments.

Prepared for growth

Today, Europe’s biggest truckwash is on full speed and our client is already thinking about expansion. More HB Truckwash locations are expected in the Netherlands and abroad. And when the company of our client grows, so will the software. HB Truckwash has the wish to provide other truckwash companies their software. As their dedicated tech-partner we stand-by to transform the current software in a Software As A Service solution in order to create new installs and connect other truckwash locations.

The future is now!