Like speed dating, your online presence is most people’s first impression of you and provides the opportunity for customers to get to know you quickly. How do you present online? Think; Know - Like - Trust. This is the same with selling your automotive repair services. Without Trust, there is no relationship between you and your customer. Some people may be willing to buy from you to get the lowest price or a special deal; however, this will be a transaction and not a relationship.

This February, we want to talk about developing long-term relationships with our customers. 

By focusing on our customers, their needs, and their pain points, we make them feel special and unique. How do we do this? It is easy when we build authenticity and communicate clearly. Customers get to Know you Like you, and Trust follows naturally. Trust is THE most important part of a thriving long-term relationship. Accomplishing this is easier to do than you think with your online brand, website, and iSocial presence. Here is how.

Let’s start by building Trust in our brand by taking a look at what our customers see when they visit us. When someone pulls into your parking lot, what do they see? Is the exterior of your shop inviting and looking polished? It only takes a few minutes to walk through your lot, pick up any trash and look through a customer’s eye to see what your initial presentation is like. Do you have a clean parking lot?

How does a customer navigate to get to you? Is it easy to find you? Do you have clear signs directing traffic into your parking lot, and once parked, is the way to your waiting room clear and easy to locate? Adding a friendly touch like planter pots with bright flower plants outside of the entry welcome in customers can help people feel at ease when they enter your shop. Once inside, what do your customers see and feel? Does your waiting room feel friendly and welcoming to guests? 

It’s what they Like About You

So, what can you do to help make your customers feel special once they are inside? Simple acts of kindness and service, such as, if you have a coffee station, asking them how they like their coffee and making it for them, helps your customer feel cared for. If you learn they prefer caramel creamer, take the time to make a quick note in their file, so the next time they come in, you can reach for the coffee and say, “You like it with two caramel creamers, right?” Now that is customer service that will really blow them away!

Do you make a note of their birthday in their file? If so, take the time to send them a birthday card, text them, or give them a phone call. This simple personal touch, showing that you care about them, builds Like and Loyalty, which leads to Trust. What are other things you can do to make your customer feel special? How about opening and holding the car door for your customer when you walk them to their vehicle? Yes, I suggest walking each and every customer to their car, helping them get in and settled, and taking the time to answer any questions they might have about their car or repairs. Imagine how impressed they will be if you vacuum out the inside of their car and wipe down the dash or clean the windows. We suggest you make this part of your SOPs. When your customers notice things like this, they feel like you genuinely care about them. These are a few simple methods that help build quality relationships with your customers, creating a loyal fan base. And we all know that a raving fan is the best marketing we can hope for.

An excellent way to network with your community is by hosting events in your shop. You will want to be sure to take an hour and clean up your shop before the event. Nearly everyone is curious about auto repair shops, and opening up your space for people to come in and see your equipment, workflow, and where the auto repair magic happens is a perfect way to build relationships with your customers while generating more referral business, is the very best kind of business. Invite your local Chamber of Commerce and host an after-hours event, perhaps, offering a car care clinic or a merit badge workshop for your local Boy or Girl Scout troop. These are all ways to build community, build loyalty and help your community.

Getting to Know You

What can we do online to help them get to know us better? Posting online can be hard and even make us want to freeze or hide. The reality is that it is quite simple. We do want to share our personality online, our story, and our passions. People want to get to Know you; you want them to Like you and therefore Trust you. 

So, how do you let them in? By sharing your life with them. What does this look like, anyway? Well, it looks like candid photos, talking about your hobbies, and sharing your challenges online. This truly is a secret goldmine, a relationship builder, and an opportunity to grow relationships with your community.

Some simple things that you can you do to put yourself out there is to sponsor a local little league team. Don’t just purchase their shirts; actually, show up to games and spend time with the parents in the bleachers. This is a quality opportunity to connect with the parents and family of the team you sponsor. What about hosting a car care clinic? Specify that it is for women, families, or maybe a high school shop class. By opening up your shop, showing you are invested in the community, and putting in the time shows that you truly care.

Let’s talk about pets. Do you have a shop dog or cat? There is a shop that has a shop chicken, believe it or not. And how cool is that? Customers who come into the shop leave talking about the shop chicken, sometimes even leaving with eggs. Pets are a great way to break the ice with people who don’t feel at home in an automotive repair or transmission shop. Animals are healing creatures and help with anxiety, and can be an excellent conversation starter. Try asking customers about their pets or experiences with pets when they come in; everyone has a story. 

What about your hobbies? What do you do in your spare time? Do you spend time on the lake? Or, play catch with your kids? Do you love to bake? Whatever your favorite pastime is, take a photo and share it with your community. People will identify with you and are more inclined to feel a connection, which builds Trust and loyalty.

Building Trust

Do you celebrate birthdays or work anniversaries in the shop? If so, take a photo and celebrate your employee online too. Their family and friends get to see these posts; it makes your employee feel special and builds community, and increases Trust by sharing how much you care about your work family online.

Another excellent way to build Trust is to show your expertise and also how you helped a customer save money through a second opinion. How do we do this? It all starts by sharing your jobs online. This means pictures, videos, and sharing the story behind the repair. Has a customer brought a vehicle into your shop to get a second opinion? What did you find? Now, in support of our industry, we don’t want to talk poorly about other shops or mechanics in general; however, we do want to share our expertise with the world and share interesting jobs that come into our shop and share how we saved our customers money.

One thing that helps build Trust is consistency. Let’s talk about posting consistently to your iSocial channels. What is consistent posting? It is posting twice per week, at minimum, to share with your audience. We suggest posting more than this and taking candid shots of your staff, projects, vehicles, and pets that come into the shop. Share articles and information relevant to your industry and post light-hearted things such as jokes, tips, and people-centric things like dates and locations of your local farmers market. Be a resource for your community. Create engagement by asking questions or targeting your client base’s pain points. Do they struggle with not having enough time in the day? Is there a local road in the town known for its speed bumps? How about a local soup kitchen that could use an extra hand serving the community? Do you have a humane society hosting a fundraising event? These are all excellent things to post about. What we don’t want to do, is have all of our posts about us and our shop. We want to focus on our community and provide them with information and be a resource and an expert in our field. We want to show that we care about them and are interested in what they need. It is important to make your iSocial a welcoming place that makes everyone feel good and engaged when scrolling through.

It is true that iSocial engagement is a tricky thing to measure without taking out targeted ads to track; however, if you are anything like me, when you are looking up a company that you might do business with, you start by looking them up on Google. Then we scan their website, look at their reviews (and responses), and then hop onto their social media links to take a quick scroll through to see if they are posting consistently and what they are posting. This provides an initial feel for their business presence their personality and also gives a mental picture of what to expect when I plan to visit their establishment. It is important that the photos you post on your website and on your iSocial are of your shop and your staff. If you use stock photos, now that your customer has a picture in their head, imagine the slight betrayal they will have when a new customer drives up and your shop doesn’t look like the picture on your website, and none of the staff look like the pictures online. We want to build Trust, and we can do this through transparency. Be candid online and be brave; I know it is hard, yet I encourage you to share your successes, what you stand for, and your hobbies online and do it often. 

Let’s talk about when things go awry in the shop, and a customer becomes dissatisfied; how do you handle it? Specifically, if your customer leaves a poor review for the world to see, how do you respond, if at all? I suggest that your company reach out to your disgruntled customer to see if you can directly resolve their issue and get them to take down their review. If the situation is not resolvable and the poor review stays up, then it deserves a thoughtful reply. I have one client who has reported that they earned two new customers and one employee through a 1-star review response. This proves that your review responses get read.

What does it say about you if you don’t reply to a poor review? Does it say that you don’t care? That you do a poor job? What about attacking the customer and proving them wrong? What would that say about you? I suggest that you write something that validates your customer, mentions the attempts you make to communicate with them to resolve the issue, and shows empathy to the customer. I often suggest that you say that you are taking the opportunity to use this in your training so that the situation is avoided in the future. Sharing that you have talked about the situation with your team shows sincerity and energy and validates them.

All of these things combined help your community get to Know you, Like you, and build Trust with your brand. There are many more ways to create a sense of community and show that you genuinely care. If you don’t have time or are looking for new ways to help build your customer base, building relationships, and customer loyalty, we are here to help you. Feel free to reach out to us at BirdsiSocial.com.