Auto Repair Marketing Blog

I was talking to a shop owner about auto repair marketing and he was complaining because he didn’t think his auto repair marketing was working.

I’m a Tri-athlete. Triathlons involve swimming, biking and running. If the wheels on my bike didn’t have spokes, or didn’t have enough spokes they’d collapse. The same thing is true about your auto repair marketing efforts.

Effective auto repair marketing is all about contact with the customer. If you understand this basic principle you will be wildly successful. If you don’t you’ll be continually struggling to find new customers.

Lately I’ve heard a lot of people complain about negative customer reviews.  Heck, it hasn’t been just complaining it’s been outright bitchin’ and whinin’.  It’s always something along the lines of, “we’re at the customer’s mercy; they can put a bad comment on Yelp or Google Local or Bing and KILL us…”

My response, “Boo…hoo…hoo…”  Look, I’m not heartless and unsympathetic, I had 21 shops.  I understand how unreasonable some customers can be.  I understand that you’re not gonna please everybody; but here’s the point, to succeed in today’s market you better please 99% of them.  That’s just how it is.  It’s easy to do and if you’re not doing it, it’s time to learn how.

I’ve heard of people creating elaborate methods of trying to get negative reviews removed from their business site.  Well, the bad news is that long term that strategy is not going to work.  The big sites like Yelp, Google, and Bing etc… are COMMITTED to full and complete feedback loops.  They will not censor or restrict comments except in the most outrageous cases.

But, that’s ok because nothing has really changed.  We’ve always been at the “customer’s mercy” it’s just with the internet if we do a bad job they can kill us faster than ever before.  The key to the whole problem is to do a better job AND make sure your good customers talk about it.

The whole antidote to this negative feedback challenge is POSITIVE FEEDBACK! Get everyone (or at least most) of your good, satisfied customers to leave you feedback on Yelp, Google or Bing and the good will completely offset and drown out the bad.  Make it worth their while to do it.  Give them something of value (free oil change, wiper blades, tire rotation etc…) for their trouble.

As a matter of fact I’ve seen several savvy shop owners deploy “counter attacks” when they get an unwarranted bad review.  They have a group of advocate customers who will actually go online and counter the negative comment point by point simply because they believe in the shop.  That’s a fantastic way to give your most loyal customers a chance to help you succeed.

The other key thing to remember is that if you get a bad review you’ve failed in some way (big hint: it’s usually in the communication).  I know, it’s easier to talk about how crazy and unreasonable the customer was, but the fact is you can’t control them.  It’s much more profitable to focus on what you can control.  You can control how you and your staff communicate with them.  You can control how much you are willing to give up satisfying them (another big hint: most shop owners severely underestimate the value of a happy customer).

So, I challenge you on several points here.  First, stop wasting precious time and energy trying to figure out how to “sneak out” of negative reviews.  Second, energized and motivate your loyal satisfied customers to support you with positive comments.  Third, commit to doing a better job communicating (thereby eliminating virtually all your problems) with all your customers and finally forth, be willing to make a serious (time and money) investment in making any unhappy customer happy again.

Until next time…

Dave Dickson

Sorry for the slightly graphic title, but there’s no other way to describe it. Here’s a scary Christmas marketing tale…

Eve and I have a Christmas Eve tradition of going out for sushi (I know, a little weird, but hey we love sushi…). We have a favorite place we always go to. However, this year Eve found a coupon on the internet (side note: notice she found it on the internet. You can bet your customers will do the same thing).

Anyway, the fine print on the coupon said that it wasn’t good on “holidays”, so we looked at the calendar and noticed that Christmas Day is a holiday, but Christmas Eve is not. We also double checked on the internet, but just to be safe Eve called the restaurant to ask. Here’s how the conversation went:

Eve: I was calling to make sure this coupon I found on the internet would be good tonight.

Sushi employee: Let me check (puts Eve on hold for about 15 seconds) No, you can’t use coupon tonight; it’s a holiday.

Eve: But, I checked online and it’s not a holiday. We do this every Christmas Eve and we just wanted to try your restaurant.

Sushi employee: No, you can’t use coupon. Banks are closed. It is a holiday.

Eve: No, actually the banks were open today. Look, we’re gonna go somewhere for sushi tonight and I doubt you are gonna be busy, we’d really like to come to your restaurant.

Sushi employee: No, you can’t use coupon tonight!

Eve: Fine, we’ll go to our regular favorite sushi bar!

Sushi employee: Fine, goodnight.

That’s the story! Amazing, huh? They went to all the trouble of building a website, designing a coupon, posting it, getting traffic driven to the site and it worked! All but the part where they actually let the customer come into their business and spend money (we spent over $60 that night at our favorite place). That is seriously, hardcore dumbass marketing. The danger is that it could be happening in your business. That is how this relates to auto repair marketing.

Here’s the deal; when a customer gets a coupon they are automatically looking for the “catch or gotcha”. They are immediately skeptical, suspicious and distrustful. The only way you win is to make sure there is no catch.

Avoid fine print at all costs; I know, sometimes it’s unavoidable, like being clear about synthetic oil vs. regular oil, but keep this sort of stuff to an absolute minimum.

Finally, if the customer insists, let them win. Remember the whole idea of the coupon is to either get a new customer to try your services (and have a GREAT experience) or keep an old customer from wandering off to a competitor.

Remove all the barriers to doing business with you. Give the customer a pleasant surprise. If they come in with an expired coupon, let them use it. If they want something that is excluded by the fine print, stop and think for a minute. Maybe the smart business move would be to give it to them. I had a saying that I recited to myself every time I was working with a new customer, “The more I give at the beginning, the more I get at the end.” If the customer left the first interaction feeling like they won the lottery it was guaranteed they’d be back for more. Now, don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean I clubbed ‘um like a baby seal the second time, but I did get to make money. And, once the relationship was going, price and coupons became way less important, but I never would have had the chance if I’d started out with dumbass marketing.

No dumbass marketing-let the customer win so you win,

Dave

Auto repair marketing can be really simple sometimes. I was visiting a potential client once and his shop was a mess. I didn’t want to sit down or touch anything for fear of the layer of slime and grime that was everywhere. I’m usually not bothered by a little dirt; fixing cars is messy sometimes, but his place was a wreck.

My point is that one of the biggest pieces of your auto repair marketing effort is how your shop looks. And, the most important thing in making it look good is keeping it clean.

I did two things to make sure my shops always passed the “eyeball” test. First, tech’s had to clean up any mess from the car they were working on before I would hand them their next ticket. This was a simple, easy way to make sure clean up always got done in a timely manner.

The second thing I did was hire someone whose job it was to clean up the shop. Usually this was a part time person or maybe my oil change guy. They had a list of things that needed to be cleaned on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. As an added bonus they also changed the oil in the air compressor regularly (you only have to blow one up because everybody thought somebody else was changing it to learn this lesson).

Auto repair marketing is about impressions. Cleanliness makes for a fantastic first impression. Take some time and look carefully at your shop and then clean up!

I was talking to someone the other day and they said, “Dave if you could only do one piece of auto repair marketing, what would it be?”

I didn’t even have to think about the answer, I said, “Getting out into the community.”

They said, “No, that’s cheating.  That’s too effective.  I’m talking about auto repair marketing you can send out.”

Now, let’s just stop here for a minute.  It’s too effective! That tells you something doesn’t it.  I don’t know about you, but I can always use an auto repair marketing technique that’s too effective!  Plus it’s free!  Hmm… probably don’t want to do that… naw…

Look, I’m an introvert (I know it’s hard to believe, but trust me I am) and the idea of going out and meeting strangers to talk about my business used to freak me out.  Until, someone took me by the hand and made me do it.  Very quickly I discovered two things.  IT WORKED!  IT WAS KINDA FUN!

The key for me to get started was having a “wingman”.  Just somebody to ride in the car with me the first few times so I didn’t chicken out and not go meet people.

The other thing that really worked for my auto repair marketing was getting into groups like BNI or Community Service Clubs.  Groups were easy because all I had to do was show up and somebody would always ask me, “So what do you do?” once I told them I was one of the most popular guys at the meeting.

Did I mention this auto repair marketing is free?  These days a lot of people ask me in one-on-one calls for cheap auto repair marketing that works.  Well this is by far the best, and it’s free.  Of course if you use it you may get too busy, boy that’d be a problem…