Car wash operators can partner with local businesses in two ways: customer-facing promotions or employee-facing perks. While both can work, we recommend prioritizing employee-facing partnerships because employees are local, stably employed, easier to convert into members, and can be nurtured through CRM without disrupting the partner’s core business.
A car wash business partnership is when a local business helps distribute a car wash offer in exchange for a meaningful benefit - either to their customers or their employees.
The difference is who the offer is for:
Both exist. But one is a hidden gem that hardly anyone is executing to its fullest.
Customer-facing partnerships typically look like:
Customer-facing partnerships rely heavily on frontline execution - which is outside the operator’s control.
Employee-facing partnerships flip the model.
Instead of asking a business to promote your wash to their customers, you give their employees a tangible, no-cost perk.
Employee-facing partnerships work better because:
This makes them easier to implement - and easier to scale.
In an employee-facing partnership:
The employer does not manage redemptions.
The employer does not collect data.
The employer simply offers a perk.
This model works because it aligns with HR incentives.
HR teams care about:
An employee car wash perk:
When framed correctly, the partnership feels helpful - not promotional. The partnering employer is the HERO of the story.
Car wash operators should target local employers with 20+ employees, a geographically concentrated workforce, and roles that require daily driving or local field work. Businesses with HR teams and moderate employee turnover tend to produce the highest opt-in and membership conversion rates.
The best employee-facing partners typically have:
If employees regularly show up to work in a car - it’s a fit.
Target the HR, people operations, or office manager, not marketing.
Your outreach should position the offer as:
A free, no-cost employee perk - not a promotion.
Avoid discussing campaigns, discounts, or advertising. Focus on:
Offer support by supplying the graphics and/or flyers for the perk. Keep them in a folder and simply swap out the URL & name for each new partner.
If it sounds like marketing, you’ll lose them.
Create a single entry point for employees:
Achieve this with Rinsed: The Car Wash CRM's Contact Form feature.
Before receiving the free wash, employees:
The free wash is delivered digitally and instantly.
No physical vouchers. No manual tracking.
Once an employee opts in:
The partnership doesn’t scale because of the free wash.
It scales because follow-up is automated.
That’s how employee-facing partnerships become a repeatable growth channel - not a one-off idea.
It should take you 10 minutes to set up a new partnership from start to finish. Whether you have 1 or 50 partnerships ongoing at the same time, the workload scales the same.
No. Employee-facing partnerships work for:
I've watched this system work at scale and at mom & pops.
No - it’s a prioritization strategy.
Customer-facing partnerships can still make sense in:
But employee-facing partnerships:
That’s why we recommend starting there.
No. The employer pays nothing. The free wash is funded by the car wash as an acquisition cost.
Yes. Employees show higher conversion and longer membership tenure due to routine driving behavior and stable income.
No. Distribution is handled internally and never impacts checkout or service workflows.
Most operators see redemptions within days and membership conversions within 30–45 days.
A CRM that supports:
Local partnerships aren’t the problem - who you target is. Local store marketing is TOUGH!
Customer-facing partnerships depend on execution you don’t always control.
Employee-facing partnerships leverage audiences you can nurture.
When paired with CRM automation, employee perks become one of the cleanest, most predictable ways to turn local relationships into long-term recurring revenue.