Repair Shop Advice

Have you ever heard of upcycling?  Upcycling is a combination of recycling and upgrading – taking old items and turning them into something even more valuable or interesting than the original item.  RebornUK takes non-running sports car engines and uses them to build glass tables, for instance, and this Polish company turns vehicles into couches.

Successful shops upcycle their customers!  They work hard to upcycle their oil change and brake replacement customers into long-term, lifelong customers.  Of course, you know this isn’t as easy as it sounds – most customers have no interest in becoming a reliable, long term shop customer.  The ones that do are very valuable, and every shop is looking for them.  How do you build a business around upcycling customers?

1. Identify High-Value Customers

When new customers come in, one of the most important things to determine is whether they have the potential to become high-value, repeat-visit customers.  This isn’t because you preferentially treat them better, because even one-time oil change customers can damage your reputation if you treat them poorly.  You want to know if a first-time customer can become a high-value customer for your shop because you need to make sure you work hard to earn their trust during that first visit.

High-value customers prefer to keep their vehicle in good working condition.  They may not ask questions about what this entails, but they’re going to be interested in what you have to say about it.  They value their mechanic, so they’re going to want to know that you’re knowledgeable, easy to work with, and appreciate them and their business.  Finally, high-value customers are interested in what’s working now, but might need some attention in the future.  They have a desire for a relationship that’s more than transactional, so it’s important to provide that in order to satisfy them.

2. Re-market to High-Value Customers

You also want to make sure to continue to market to them after they leave your shop.

It’s expensive to use marketing to bring a customer into your shop for the first time.  If you spend $500 on mailing out flyers, and it doesn’t result in a customer who comes back again and again, it’s very hard to make that money back.  The reason you spend on marketing is that you want to attract customers who you can bring back into your shop over and over again.

It’s much less expensive to bring a high-value customer into your shop a second time – because you can target previous customers without marketing to thousands of people who would never even consider visiting your shop.  If you believe a customer who has visited you recently is a high-value customer, it’s worth your time to give them a level of attention that sets your shop apart.

One way to do this is a personal thank-you call to follow-up and make sure they’re happy with their service.  A hand-addressed letter also grabs people’s attention – especially if you include a small service with no purchase required, such as a vacuum and wash.  The important thing here is to make them feel like you’re telling them that their business was appreciated, not that they’ve been added to a marketing list.

3. Turn Your Fans Into Advocates

Customers who come to really trust your shop will turn into fans.  Some of them will go a step beyond this, and become advocates.

Big companies have a name for people who won’t stop talking about their products: brand advocates.  They’re different from “fans”.  You probably have plenty of customers who are fans of their favorite car brand – but only a few of them are dedicated enough to walk in with that manufacturer’s logo on their T-shirt.

If a marketing activity yields a single customer who becomes an advocate, it was worth the money.  They provide word-of-mouth referrals everywhere they go.  They give you the online five star reviews that attract people they’ve never even met.  Advocates of your shop take pride in providing you free advertising.

Learn who your advocates are.  If someone leaves your shop an online review, see if you can figure out who it is.  When someone comes into your shop, ask where they found you.  And most importantly, make sure you never give these people or their referrals a reason to look elsewhere for their repairs.  They’ve staked their own reputations on recommending your shop, and they’ll continue to do so as long as it makes them look good!

To learn more about how Repair Shop Websites helps your shop attract high-value customers, call us at 866-665-1605 or email us at Team_RSW@RepairShopWebsites.com.

Vehicles are lasting longer than ever without requiring a major, unjustifiable repair, which is great news for independent repair shops.  It’s not great news for new vehicle dealers, which are having to work harder than ever to convince people to buy a new vehicle to keep their vehicle sales up.  Since they can’t rely on old vehicles falling apart as easily as they used to, they’re having to lure customers who have old (but functional) cars with new technology that improves the driving experience.

Here are two technologies which are picking up rapidly in the new vehicle market – and one that isn’t.

Phone-Focused Technology

The average smartphone user is on their phone for more than 4 hours a day – one out of every four minutes they’re awake. The problem is that driving a vehicle and operating a phone don’t go together well.  Anything that new vehicle manufacturers can do to provide safer functionality from a driver’s phone will not only make their experience better, it will also keep people on the road alive.

Many newer vehicles have Apple CarPlay and/or Android Auto, which makes it far easier to communicate with your phone using your vehicle.  You can use voice commands along with buttons on the steering wheel to get directions, make calls, listen to music stored on the phone or even send and receive messages.

With more and more phones supporting wireless charging, some of the newest vehicles have a location near the armrest where a phone can be laid to charge wirelessly.  Pairing a phone is also being made easier.  While most cars require any unrecognized phone to go through a pairing process, the 2018 Accord has a place on the dashboard where you can tap your phone against to pair it automatically.  Anything that makes it easier to use a smartphone’s services without having to touch the smartphone itself will be a selling point for new vehicles.

Assisted Driving

Arizona’s recent order allowing fully autonomous driving was quickly followed by one of Uber’s vehicles hitting and killing a pedestrian.  Uber’s rights to test in Arizona were suspended, but Google and others are still testing vehicles both in Arizona and in California, with Texas tests coming soon.  All of these companies are aiming for fully autonomous vehicles, but there’s plenty of debate about when they’ll get there.

That debate isn’t beside the point – but it’s close.  Vehicle manufacturers don’t have to wait for fully autonomous driving to implement the self-driving technology.  Since the advent of cruise control, cars have come a long way in driving themselves.  Even mid-range cars now have lane assist, which prevents vehicles from switching lanes into a vehicle.  Some vehicles will automatically break if the vehicle in front of them slams on breaks, avoiding a wreck before the driver has even had time to react.  The most recent news is that Cadillac’s 2018 CT6 will include Super Cruise, which advertises hands-free driving but requires you to keep your eyes on the road (and in-vehicle cameras will make sure you do).

All of these systems are appealing to customers who want to stay safer.  As they become more hands-off, they’ll become more appealing to customers who want to relax while they’re in the vehicle.  And all of these are very complex, high tech systems that rely on LIDAR hardware and processors from companies like NVIDIA who have their roots in computers and data centers.  Shops that want to serve customers with these vehicles in the coming years will need technicians with plenty of training in systems that aren’t even fully developed as of 2018.

Electric Vehicles

One area that’s received more press than it probably deserves is electric vehicles.  While they’re certainly becoming more prominent, they’re still a relative rarity, and they will continue to be for the next several years.  These vehicles aren’t projected to see an exponential uptick in sales until after 2025 – and even then, they’re most likely to be prominent in countries with very strict pollution rules due to smog, such as China and India.  They’ll likely continue to represent fewer than 10% of all vehicles sold through at least 2025, and possibly through the end of that decade.  Still, if you’re in an urban area and are able to position your shop as the independent shop of choice for this niche market in the next few years, your profit margins will probably thank you.

To learn more about how Repair Shop Websites can help your shop succeed, call us at 866-665-1605 or email us at Team_RSW@RepairShopWebsites.com.