Getting Into The Conversation

Right now, your customers are talking about you. They are swapping stories about the quality of your service, your technicians and how they were treated by your service writers. The comments may be positive, or they could be negative. Your problem is the traditional means you have of talking with these customers are out of date.

In this issue, we have taken a closer look at how to make word-of-mouth marketing more effective for your shop through social networking platforms and how people today communicate using them. Your customers are more likely talking about you through blogs, Twitter, Facebook or some form of text messaging, rather than sitting around a coffee table with friends or family swapping stories about how great your shop and staff are.

This presents unique challenges and opportunities. In the first of several articles looking more closely at the aftermarket, John Nelligan, senior vice-president of CMG Marketing, which provides marketing and data analysis for the aftermarket, points out that effective marketing begins by focusing on meeting customers’ expectations, on providing quality service and support after the work is done. Isn’t this what they will talk to others about and what a shop has to be able to manage to effectively drive business forward? What shop owners neglect to use to their advantage, however, is the next step -using new communications technologies (as mentioned earlier) to talk about their business and service with customers.

To get a glimpse of how these new communications are taking place take a moment to see how today’s teenagers talk to one another. They are often not communicative in person, except for the occasional grunt in the morning to parents and teachers; but they become positively loquacious when using text messaging, Twitter or Facebook. More people today are communicating with each other through these technologies than ever before. If you are trying to reach people through traditional print media, such as taking out an ad in the community newspaper or through a flyer, you have already locked yourself out of the conversation.

How can you tell today’s ready-connected customer their car is finished and to be picked up if you can’t send them a text message; or use Facebook, a blog or Twitter to manage the conversations about your business and drive new and repeat customers to your front door?

Word-of-mouth advertising today must include these new modes of communication in order for your business to compete. None of this is expensive, many are free and easy to use. The challenge is making these technologies part of your shop’s customer service and marketing strategy. One way to start is to ask younger employees if they use these platforms. You will be surprised at how many already do, whether it be having their own Facebook page, text messaging through their cell phones, Twittering friends online or blogging about their day. Take them aside and ask them to help your shop utilize these technologies to better communicate with customers, to help manage the conversation about your shop and its services; and, of course, to converse directly with people much more quickly and effectively.

———

How can you tell today’s ready-connected customer their car is finished and to be picked up if you can’t send them a text message; or use Facebook, a blog or Twitter to manage the conversations about your business?