In my work coaching and consulting with auto repair shops all over the country I come in contact with hundreds of shops every month and one of the things that always drives me crazy is how low the bar for customer service is. This an auto repair marketing disaster.

I talk to grumpy service writers. I talk to uninformed service writers. I talk to service writers who just don’t seem to care. And this is at shops that have at least some awareness about auto repair marketing. It gets really bad when you start talking to the shops that don’t have a clue.

So, that’s the bad auto repair marketing news for them, but it’s the good news for you. In the biggest most powerful area of auto repair marketing the competition is lame. All you have to do to dominate with this piece of your auto repair marketing is be friendly and responsive.

So now that you understand how important the customer experience is to your auto repair marketing effort how do you make sure that your service writer and the rest of your staff excel?

Two simple tools; first, pay your service writer for each testimonial they get. Tell them it’s a limited time deal to help raise everyone’s awareness. Do it for 30-60 days and it will become habit. Your customer service will improve, plus you’ll get a lot of great testimonials to use in other auto repair marketing pieces.

The second tool is to lead by example. The best way to get your employees to deliver a great customer service experience is for you to deliver a great employment experience. This doesn’t mean coddling them or lowering the bar on performance, just the opposite it means requiring that they perform at “SuperBowl” levels. It also means giving them the tools and encouragement to do this.

Creating a great customer experience is one of the most overlooked auto repair marketing tools. Use these tips to uncover this golden opportunity.

Until next time…
Dave

Auto repair marketing is one big promise.  We are promising customers a result; a car that is fixed.  Through our auto repair marketing we are making a commitment.  How we honor that commitment either creates or destroys trust.

Too many times I see shop owners put out auto repair marketing messages that are poorly thought out or unsupportable.  When you are creating and auto repair marketing message (making a promise) ask yourself, “Can I deliver on this promise?  Will delivering on this promise strengthen my relationship with the customer and provide great value to them?”  If the answer is yes, promise away.  If the answer is no, then re-write that auto repair marketing piece.

The biggest most important auto repair marketing promise is that you will solve the customer’s car problem and they will not have the same problem again in the near future.  This is the promise every customer is looking for when they read between the lines of an auto repair marketing piece.  Why not just come out and say it?

I have been an advocate of the lifetime warranty (sometimes marketed as the million mile warranty) for years.  It is an incredibly powerful piece of auto repair marketing and if you are fixing cars properly with trained technicians you will not get hurt by it.  I used it in my shops and my auto repair marketing.  It gave me a huge competitive advantage at virtually no additional cost.  If you are looking for a simple easy effective addition to your auto repair marketing tool kit try a lifetime warranty.  Make the big auto repair marketing promise that your customers are looking for.

One final thought about auto repair marketing promises.  We just talked about the big promise and how important it is, but in your auto repair marketing, don’t forget that every little promise matters.  You can’t afford to drop the ball anywhere.  Auto repair marketing is a cumulative thing.  In other words keeping your promises adds up to trust.  You only have to break a couple of little ones (late on a delivery time, over shooting a cost estimate) to instantly subtract all the auto repair marketing trust you’ve worked so hard to build.

Honor all your auto repair marketing promises… big and small!

Until next time…

Dave Dickson

So, let me see if I understand this correctly.  Every time you do the auto repair marketing I suggest you get a flood of new clients and now you’re whining because you aren’t making a ton of money on their first visit.  Pardon me while I slap you!

Here’s the deal… if you do effective auto repair marketing and all you do is break even or lose (invest) just a little bit of money to get that first visit… it’s a HUGE win!

If you don’t understand the last statement, let me explain.  Auto repair marketing is designed to create an introduction.  If it’s good it generates enough interest in the potential clients mind for them to say, “Hmm…I don’t know if I really trust these guys, but the offer they are making me is soooooo good that I would be crazy not to at least give them a try.”

When your auto repair marketing works and the customer comes in for the first time it’s a test! Don’t blow it by trying to club them like a baby seal.  That is dumb, dumb, dumb!  They are testing you to see if you are honest and trustworthy.  They will smell naked profit motive a mile away and your auto repair marketing will be wasted.

The smart auto repair shop owner is going to deliver on the auto repair marketing promise and then spend most of his time building rapport.  You know, getting the customer to like and trust him.  This is the most important and powerful thing that must happen on the first visit to make your auto repair marketing dollar most effective.  Get them to like you and trust you.  If you do this, you’ll have plenty of other visits where you can focus on profit.

Remember, auto repair marketing is where the conversation with the customer starts don’t make the mistake of thinking the first visit is going to be wildly profitable; it may not be, but that’s ok, if you treat them right and earn their trust. The first visit is all about starting the long and profitable relationship the right way.  You don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression.

Until next time,

Dave Dickson

Wouldn’t it be great if I could give you just one auto repair marketing strategy that would bring in all the customers you needed?  No, not really, let me explain why.

I had a friend who had a business that replied on one strategy to reach his market.  Fax spam.  That’s right; he was one of those guys who would send you those long unsolicited faxes that ate up the ink and paper in your fax machine.  Of course he did it because it worked.  Enough people responded so that he had a fantastically successful business.  Unfortunately, he got lazy.  The fax spam became his only marketing tool.  You probably know what happened next… the government outlawed fax spam!  Overnight the only marketing tool he had was taken away.  His business was decimated.  Financially he was a wreck.

When it comes to your auto repair marketing, don’t be that guy!  Develop lots of different, unrelated auto repair marketing strategies.  If you don’t have at least 4-6 six primary auto repair marketing strategies and another 4-6 secondary auto repair marketing strategies you are in danger.

A question I get regularly is, “Dave, how do I decide if a particular auto repair marketing strategy should be one of my “spokes”?”  Simple, if the strategy brings in one customer at little or no cost then it belongs in your auto repair marketing tool kit.

Too many times I see shop owners discard effective auto repair marketing strategies simply because they aren’t producing big numbers of customers.  That’s a bad decision.  If the auto repair marketing strategy is producing any customers, and it’s paying for itself from sales it’s a keeper.  As a matter of fact you should probably spend some time trying to figure out how to scale it up.

The last thing I want to mention about having multiple auto repair marketing strategies is that they don’t have to be expensive.  The most effective auto repair marketing tools and strategies are FREE or dirt cheap.  Just because a strategy cost money doesn’t make it effective.  Just because it’s free doesn’t mean it should be overlooked.

If you’d like some FREE or dirt cheap auto repair marketing strategies that you can put to use today email me at perfectdayinc@gmail.com Just put “Marketing Strategies” in the subject line.  You can also call me at 727-565-1806, just leave a message and I’ll return your call.

Until next time…

Dave Dickson

As soon as most shop owners meet me and find out I’m an auto repair marketing expert they begin peppering me with questions about how to find new customers.  They tell me about all the strategies they are using and how most of them are just marginally effective.  They practically beg me to give them the “silver bullet” or “magic pill” that will bring them boat loads of new customers for very little cost.

The good news is that there is a silver bullet and a magic pill.  The bad news is that they are rarely excited when I tell them what it is.  How about you, would you like to know the secret?  Do you think you can handle it?  Here it is:  The trick to getting boatloads of new, highly profitable customers is to maintain constant, regular, personal contact with your existing customers.

This is auto repair marketing at its simplest.  It’s not as sexy or as exciting as some fancy ad or six step sales letter, but it works.  Not only does it work, it works better than any other marketing tool… if it’s done properly and consistently.

There are two keys, consistency and personal contact.  Consistency requires systems.  You can build one yourself (hard, expensive work) or you can use one that already exists (much easier and cheaper).  The benefit of using an existing system is that a lot of the contact is pre-programmed.  You don’t have to remember to do it.  You don’t have to write the content.  You don’t have to do anything but initiate the process.  If you just do this part alone (get your customer data base into an existing follow up program) you will be light years ahead of your competition and you will see fantastic results.

The final key to getting boatloads of new customers from your existing customer base is personal contact.  It requires a commitment on your part to share a little bit about yourself and your business on a regular basis.  I’m not talking about going on Oprah here and spilling your guts.  I’m talking about once a month in your newsletter (you better be doing a newsletter-if you need more info on how to get it done painlessly email me at perfectdayinc@gmail.com and put “newsletter” in the subject line) just putting in a couple of facts that make you human.  Talk about your kids, your pets, your vacation (as long as it’s not too extravagant) or your hobbies.  Just a couple of sentences or a short paragraph will do.

If you follow these two keys you will be amazed.  New customers will start to appear almost magically.  And they’ll all have a similar story; something along the lines of, “I was talking to my friend Bob and he said you guys were the most honest, trustworthy people who have ever worked on his car.  Well, I think I need brakes so here I am…”

I think you can take it from here.  Remember, get a customer contact system in place and then let them see you as a person.

Until next time…

Dave Dickson

If you’re around me for any length of time you’ll hear me ask the question, “What’s the most profitable thing you could be doing right now?”  If the answer is anything other than what you are doing, it’s time to stop and do the most profitable thing.

Usually, the most profitable thing you can do involves talking to a customer.  Ideally you’ll be selling a repair.  However, if you’re not selling a repair right at the moment there is still another very profitable, often overlooked way to talk to a customer.  Follow up calls…  resist the urge to stop reading… stay with me!

Follow up calls are one of those things that everybody talks about and few people do.  There are usually three reasons why shop owners and service writers don’t do follow up calls.  The first reason is fear.  They are afraid the customer is going to be unhappy and angry at them.  The second reason is lack of organization.  There are no systems in place to make sure it happens.  And the third reason is poor goal setting.  I’m going to give you the solution for each one of these obstacles.

Fear!  The easiest way to overcome fear is practice.  If you doing good work and verifying each repair then the odds that the customer is going to be unhappy are very low.  And, if they are unhappy it’s much better for you to call them and correct it rather than have them tell twelve people (the national average) about how unhappy they are.

Another antidote for fear is a good script.  Here’s a short easy script to use on follow up calls to customers who have recently been in your shop.  “Hi, (customer name) this is Dave at Dave’s Auto Repair and I was just calling to make sure everything was good with the service you just had done.  Is there anything I could have done better?  Great!  There is something you can do for me.  For each friend or co-worker you send to me, I’ll give you a free oil change as my way of saying thank you.  Would you be willing to do that for me? Great!”

Notice how we give them a chance to give us feedback.  Whether they do or not, the answer is “great” and “thank you”.  Then, we ask them to help us out AND we make it worth their while.  Again, whether they say yes or no, the answer is still, “great”.  This is a very low stress, low pressure script.  It takes very little time to deliver and opens up some fantastically profitable conversation.

The next challenge is lack of organization.  There are two ways to overcome this, technologically or “old school”.  If you are going to use technology then simply set up reminders in your point of sale system to trigger a call three to five days after the customer cashes out.  If you want to go old school then go to the office supply store and get one of those file folios that are numbered 1-31.  Make a copy of the work order after you cash the customer out and put it in the number for the date of the month that is three to five days away.  Each day you simply grab the work orders in the file for that day and those are the people you call.

The final challenge is poor goal setting.  Many owners or service writers set a goal to “call some customers” or “do some follow up calls”.  Those goals are too vague and weak.  Call three satisfied customers every day.  Not two, not four… exactly three.  It doesn’t matter how many work orders you have, start by just calling three.  Do it starting tomorrow.  Make this simple commitment and you’ve solved the goal setting problem.

Use the tools I’ve given you here to overcome the obstacles to doing this “most profitable thing” and watch your business grow.

Until next time…

Dave Dickson

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

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

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 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…