This article was co-authored by Nelson Rodenmayer.
There’s no doubt that the coronavirus has had a huge impact on the auto repair industry. While auto repair was considered an essential service in many areas, concerns about the pandemic led many consumers to avoid venturing out for anything besides food and prescriptions, leading to a major downturn in business. In response, some shop owners opted to temporarily close up shop, while others tried to operate normally or furlough staff to survive the slowdown. In April, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that nearly all of the city’s top 50 rated auto repair shops on Yelp had cut hours or laid off staff.
How the industry will rebound post-pandemic is anyone’s guess. However, preparing now to meet pent-up demand is crucial. Depending on whether you furloughed employees, you may have to ramp up your staffing levels to accommodate increased business. The next step is to study the guidelines in your local jurisdiction regarding how to operate safely. You’ll also need to ask yourself what your customers will need to feel comfortable doing business with your shop. Contactless drop off and pick up, touch-free payment, masked staff members and social distancing may continue to be standard operating procedures, particularly in areas that have eased restrictions more slowly. Having hand sanitizer available and maintaining extensive cleaning protocols for vehicles will also help put your customers at ease.
Whatever practices you establish, make sure your staff is educated about what is expected. Mandate frequent hand washing and encourage employees to stay home when feeling sick. Your customers are most likely to return if they feel you and your staff are taking the potential health risks seriously.
Spreading the word
Once your staff is up to speed, you should feel confident letting customers know you’re open for business and fully operational. Even if you stayed open during the shutdown, it’s important to inform customers about updated hours or new policies you may have recently implemented. Make sure that information is posted prominently on your website and social media channels and communicated through newsletters or whatever communications tools you use. Posting signage on the exterior of your building to tout services like contactless drop-off and pickup is also worth considering.
While those efforts are designed to reach the masses, it also makes sense to conduct targeted outreach through more strategic campaigns. To start, you’ll need to identify your best audiences. Chances are, you’ll want to market to your loyal customers first. These are folks who have visited your shop frequently in the past and may have services or maintenance coming due. You may also want to target customers who have spent money with you on higher-priced services. Their past habits increase the odds of them returning to your shop first.
After reaching out to your existing customers, you should cast a wider net, focusing on the best potential customers in a three-mile radius of your shop. How you define the best customers will be up to you. If you specialize in European imports, you might target specific models such as BMWs and Mercedes. Alternatively, you might reach out more generally around your shop to target domestic vehicles of people who have spendable income and might need your service.
Let’s make a deal
The next order of business is to figure out which offers will motivate your customers (and potential customers) to take action. For your loyal customers, researching what offers succeeded in the past and sending offers that address the services their vehicles need will help drive them in and ensure strong redemptions. Existing customers might have declined past services on their last visit, so offering a percentage off those services could encourage them to come back to the shop sooner rather than later.
For the wider pool of consumers, a discounted oil changes is typically a good way to drive traffic. Another option is to connect with your vendors to see what type of discounts they’re offering on parts and accessories. Maybe your tire distributor is offering a two-for-one deal that you share with your customers. It’s always nice to be able to include a promotion that doesn’t cost you anything.
In addition, make sure you have some kind of finance program available. You can make the most enticing offer in the world, but it won’t do you any good if your customers can’t afford to take advantage of it. And with our current economic decline, chances are you’ll see more customers who need repair services but are short on cash. While Top Tier credit programs like Synchrony and Car Care One are great options, many customers will not qualify for these programs. It is important that shop owners offer secondary finance options for customers with lower credit scores or challenging credit histories. This will allow you to close more sales while helping your customers manage their auto repair expenses.
Get expert advice
In our business, we always advise customers to take a multi-channel approach to their campaigns. If you send out a postcard offer and reinforce those messages with strong paid search efforts, you’ll improve your visibility. The next time that customer searches for auto repair they’ll see your name and realize they already have a coupon for your shop sitting on their coffee table. Of course, you may not have the ability to market on a variety of platforms, so maintaining a presence on even one channel is better than forgoing advertising altogether.
To maximize your advertising spend, partner with a marketing agency that can identify the mix of media that will deliver the highest return on investment given your budget. Look for a company that specializes in the auto repair industry and has experience producing results for both small shops and national players. You’ll also want a company that is well-versed in a variety of platforms and uses data to drive decision making. If you’re falling short, your marketing firm should be able to make adjustments to yield better results.
The partner you choose should be able to provide you with metrics showing how well your campaign is performing. That means tracking not only sales, but possibly car counts, coupon redemptions, return customers and other key indicators to determine if you’re meeting your goals.
Finally, don’t forget to inform your staff about your marketing campaigns. There’s nothing more frustrating than when a customer calls to take advantage of an offer and they encounter an employee who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Train your staff to not only be aware of your offers and where they’re being placed, but to also actively promote those offers during any customer interaction. A weekly email or a meeting is a good way to keep staff abreast of any new promotions.
Although we are facing challenging times, if you make the right moves now, you’ll be well-positioned to increase your share of the market when the economy rebounds.
