We’re bombarded by advertisements all day, every day. Whether it’s Pepsi or Coca-Cola, McDonalds or Burger King, Geico or Progressive, or any other major player in any industry, they all have something in common. The mention of their name invokes a specific image. It’s their brand.

Branding your individual dealership is something that hasn’t been a priority until recently. As a cog in a franchised machine, it has been typically left up to the manufacturer to do the branding. But business models have changed, and now more than ever, it’s critical to differentiate your store.

You need to answer a question BEFORE your customer asks it: why should they choose your dealership?

Can You Answer Why Customers Should Choose Your Brand?

We aren’t talking about the car brand you sell. What is it about your store that sets you apart from the rest? If you’re a Chevy dealer, why should your customers choose you over the Chevy store ten minutes away?

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE DIFFERENT

It’s an even playing field in so many ways, and most dealerships do the whole process extremely well. How do you set yourself apart by doing things better than the competition? You’ve been told for so long that the customers will come your way if you’re the best at what you do.

You don’t really have to be different - your message has to be.  That’s what branding is all about.

Think about the basis behind branding on a ranch. You look out over a field full of cows. They all look the same at first glance, don’t they? But even though they all have the same basic structure – a hide, hooves, udder, maybe horns – they’ve been physically branded differently to set them apart.

The same goes for your store’s brand. Without being recognizably different in composition, your customers need to know who you are immediately.

AN EXAMPLE FOR YOU…

Is Coca-Cola or Pepsi the best cola on the market? You have your reasons for your answer, but are either of them better than the rest of the competition? Is there a store-brand cola that tastes the same or even better? Is there a ‘boutique’ cola that outshines them all?

What we know is that Coca-Cola and Pepsi both have established their brand in the marketplace. And that’s the point of a brand – to be KNOWN above all the others, even if you aren’t necessarily better.

The Two Major Factors of YOUR Brand

It applies if you’re analyzing your brand or if you are establishing a brand for your dealership. Two important items absolutely must be addressed and checked off if you plan to have an efficient and established brand.

THE MESSAGE MUST BE CONSISTENT

Whatever you choose as your brand, it must permeate every facet of your business. It must be consistent throughout the sales department, the service department, the collision repair shop, and even your detail department.

Choose a message that is simple and effective:

• “Where customers come first”
• “The home of ...”
• “Ordinary people serving you extraordinarily well”

Okay, so those are pretty mundane and horrible. Whatever the message is, make it catchy and memorable. Use your slogan on every ad space you buy and integrate it into your dealership’s culture. It’s your long-term mission, and it’s summed up in a single phrase.  

THE MESSAGE MUST BE TRUE

Your message can’t contradict the customer’s experience. You can’t say you’re the only factory-authorized dealer in your city if it’s not true. You shouldn’t brand yourself as the ‘best’ of anything that can be statistically proven otherwise. And if you claim to excel in a specific area or offer a service that’s unique to your store, you better work hard to make your branding honest.

Your brand needs to be relatable, like “the only purple dealership on the strip” or “home of the free air filter”. And if you can establish your branding as timeless and evergreen, consistently and honestly, it will serve you well and pay you back with interest.

In the United States alone, more than a million online searches happen EVERY MONTH related to car repairs. That isn’t taking into consideration body shops or parts-related searches – just car repairs. Those searches are active customers, or should I say, potential customers, who need to find a repair shop for their vehicle.

So, take a few of the most active keywords and see for yourself:

• Brake service
• Radiator repair
• Car repair shops near me
• Tire sales

When you plug one of those topics into your browser, what do you see? Unless you’re the exception to the rule, you’re going to be looking at a laundry list of independent repair shops. It might be specialty shops, even ones you trust for your sublets, like a radiator repair facility in your city. It could be the discount tire shop on the corner, targeting the winter tire customer.

Whatever you see in the number one Google search position is going to capture one in three customers, according to a 2013 study by Google. All other search results are fighting for the remaining two-thirds. It just makes sense that the further down the list you look, the fewer clicks the search result is going to get.

Elbow Your Way in Front of Your Competition

If you truly believe that your OEM dealership is the best place to service your brand (and you should), you’ve got to get yourself to the front of the line. Top-ranked organic search results have the appearance of authority in the search subject. If your dealership occupies that position, YOU are going to get that top third of customers clicking on your site.

What Your Competition Has Been Doing for Years

Mom and Pop shops have known since time began that they’re not the best in service and repairs on any brand. With the message of convenience and a customer-centric approach, they’ve simply positioned themselves at the front of the line.

Dealerships have always been the best place to go for quality repairs. However, the competition has jumped the line because OEMs never viewed them seriously. Independent repair shops have been bold in their message, drawing in customers with the promise of fast, convenient, well-priced, and friendly service.

How to Get Your Position Back

You’re playing the long game. Right now, you’re standing in a long line, hoping your customers spot you off in the distance. Those test searches you tried earlier – did you click ‘next’ until you found your dealership in the results? I implore you to try it now, then come back here.

What position do you occupy? Are you on the third page? Fifth page? Or did you even find your dealership in the results? You need to find yourself on the first page, and it’s by targeting top searches in your area.

The content you put on your website is how that happens. Provide high-value, informative pages that draw in customers.

Compare Your Site

Indulge me with another bit of research please. Take three auto repair-related searches of your choosing and check out the top three results in each. Are the sites blow-your-mind amazing? Do they provide anything special that you don’t? Nope and nope. They simply dedicated their resources to being found by customers.

All it takes is a little bit of effort and some patience. Create a section of your service department’s page or blog that focuses on those keywords. Create one post or page per keyword to show an authoritative stance on the subject.

With time, your shop will make an appearance on the first page of search results. With enough of an effort, you’ll be the top-ranked organic search result. And the competition doesn’t see it coming.

It’s been a hot topic for a little while now, and it’s time to re-evaluate how you’re doing. Go to Google and search for “[insert your make] repairs in [your city/neighborhood name]”. If you’re searching for Chevrolet repairs in Palo Alto, I’ll tell you what you’ll find: the only dealership on the first page is in 10th place.

Online marketing for vehicle service and repairs has been dominated by the little guys. The people who understand that they need to be visible to potential customers before they can win them over. The same people who advertise faster service and walk-in visits. The same shops you thought were harmless to your dealership.

They’re the ones who your customers find first in a Google search.

Independent shops and chain stores know where their bread and butter comes from. It comes from the customers who defect from your dealership for one reason or another. When you look at it from the customer’s point of view, the micro-moment that helps them choose their oil change service center or their tire replacement facility nearly always begins with a browser search.

An Online Presence Is for Service Also

The stats vary widely depending on the source. Some places say around 70 percent of your customers service at your dealership in the first year, then drop to 50 percent after the first year. Other sources say it’s more like 27 percent continue to visit your dealership after the first 12 months are up. After that, the numbers continue to plummet. That’s because they’ve sourced your competition online.

Now, what if you were on the first page of your Google search organically? That’s bound to have an impact on your customer retention. And that comes down to an online presence for service-related searches, not just for the sales department.

Valuable Web Content

In order to improve your ranking and boost up to the first page, you need to invest some time, effort, and money – yes, money – into web content. It requires you to determine the most searched keywords in your vicinity and to create content that applies to real-life customer searches. ‘tire sale near Denver’, ‘timing belt replacement in Manhattan’, ‘engine light diagnosis in Georgia’ – all examples of keywords that could help make you relevant online.

Have blogs and FAQs posted on your service page of your dealership’s website. And, like all good advertising, have a call to action on the page. Make it simple for the customer to follow through to your service department to schedule an appointment or talk to the staff.

Create Cool Videos

Videos are still on an upward trend. They engage the audience when the video is done well and can provide the same or better information as a written article, along with a visual. You can get creative with videos for your customers. These are a couple ideas you can work from:

• Have a popular service advisor take your customers on a walk-through of the service department. Keep the monologue upbeat and the language professional. A script can help with the verbiage, but it flows better when it’s organic.
• Create how-to videos for your customers on relevant topics. Use the technician who has the most people skills to film it. You can choose topics like ‘how to replace your cabin air filter’, ‘the importance of xxxx maintenance’, and ‘why you should get a wheel alignment’. Everyone wants to see someone with expertise starring in the video.
• Like I mentioned in my previous blog, use creative video options like 360-degree videos. It’s a good way for customers to learn more about cars, car repairs, and your service department.

Immeasurable Benefits from an Online Presence

Here’s the hang-up you’re bound to have about getting visible online: you won’t notice a direct difference. The only measurable results are click-through rates on your calls to action, and that’s not likely to be hugely captivating.

If you want a true metric, it’s necessary to look long term. Measure the difference between your in-store traffic from one year to the next. Compare the sales figures in the 12 month spans before and after your website focus.

Another point to keep in mind is that you may be just stemming the flow. If you’re losing customers to the competition, if your customers are defecting, that rate may slow or stop because of your online emphasis. It could take years to turn it in the right direction

Because you stay abreast of current trends, you already know that Think With Google has conducted extensive research on the car buying experience. In the article ‘Consumers in the Micro-Moment: What it Means for Auto Brands’, there’s a statistic that jumps off the page. The average car shopper only performs TWO visits to the car dealership before their decision to buy.

Just two visits is all it takes. That’s not because they’re more decisive now than ever or that it’s an impulse buy. It’s because they’ve done nearly all their research online ahead of time, and all that’s left to do is sit in the seat and sign the contract. But you already know all of this…but what are you doing about it?

You can equip your dealership with the absolute best closers. The salespeople who just don’t take ‘NO’ for an answer and convert on every single up. And while your closing rates are going to be through the roof, they’ll sit in silence between the customer visits.

You can pay for leads. It’s not the most glamorous idea, but it’s a good way to grab some highly-motivated shoppers and turn it into a quick sale. But if you’re playing the long game, it’s not a sustainable business model.

Meet Your Customers Where They Are

You know where your customers are before they visit your dealership. They are online, taking a look at their vehicle options nearby. They’re browsing the internet for the vehicle that fits their needs, on a fact-finding mission. So, if your customers are online, that’s where you need to be as well.

A simple, well-done website is better than not having one at all, but there’s so much more to it. Your website needs to be among the first that your potential customers click on because first impressions really are lasting. If you offer something new and interesting to your website visitors, you become the one they remember most.

For a few practical applications…

Invest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Whether your dealer group has an in-house specialist or you hire a firm that does it for you, just get it done. SEO is what ranks your dealership’s pages higher on web searches, ideally at the top of page one. SEM is paid advertising, often displaying at the top of the page above the organic search results.

In more certain terms, your customers will find you faster online. That’s when the real work begins.

Provide the answers to their questions. You need to know what information your customers truly want, and that’s not always easy. Google Adwords is a great tool to determine common searches in any given area. You can infer the topics your customers want to read about, and you can gear your content to them.

Span the Media Spectrum. Now broadcast your message everywhere. You know what they want to know and you’re putting your message on your website. Go further.

Social media is great. Facebook is an excellent forum for targeted ad placement. Remarketing to your previous buyers and abandoned customers is always a good idea too. But be sure not just to advertise – give your readers valuable information.

One or two weekly blog posts shared on social media can drive traffic to your website while providing your customers with the information they want to see. A Youtube channel can make your dealership stand out with awesome videos about new models or features.

Can You Do More Than Everyone Else?

Have you thought about doing something different than the competition but just don’t know what that is? What about 360-degree videos?

360-degree videos are amazing for the car shopper. You can sit in a virtual driver’s seat and look at everything the model offers. The best part about 360-degree videos is that barely anyone is doing it. A minimal investment with a videographer who has the right equipment can set you apart in the crowded online marketplace.

Why Does this Matter to Fixed Ops?

You know that what happens in the Sales Department doesn’t stay in the Sales Department. Not only do the sales customers get handed off to the service department, but many of the techniques used in sales can improve your service or parts offerings too.

From social media and web content, keep tuned to my next post for more specific Fixed Ops-related tips. 

You’re taking time away from your busy service or parts department, all on the company dime, to attend NADA 100 in New Orleans. You’d better have some good information to debrief your management when you return! Just a handful of receipts for reimbursement won’t be enough.

Starting January 26th, NADA 100 kicks off and no time is wasted getting right to the good stuff. That’s mostly because there’s nothing but the good stuff at NADA conventions. Which sessions should you attend as a fixed ops employee or manager? Where will you mine the most information? Here are a few different tracks you can follow at NADA 100, all under the fixed ops umbrella

Service Department Personnel

“Achieve 100% Fixed Coverage Before the Next Meltdown”

Brett Coker of Coker Automotive Consultants speaks to fixed operations employees, mainly in the service department. His years of expertise in the auto industry will begin to fire your neurons, coaching you on opportunities for improvement in your department.

You’ll learn common mistakes that are made, how to increase your shop throughput, and how to compete against the independents that are taking your business. This session is valuable for parts employees as well.

“Fixed Ops Marketing in a Mobile First World’

Jeff Clark, Chief Sales Officer at DealerOn Inc, is going to take fixed operations managers into the next era of marketing. By learning new strategies to send your message out to your customer base, you can effectively increase your appointments, repair order count, and your dollars per RO.

Mobile marketing is big business industry-wide, and implementing Facebook and Google marketing in fixed ops is imperative to move ahead.

“Rethink Service: How to Capture Every Opportunity”

Robert Leary brings service employees a message on capturing missed opportunities, especially as it relates to upsells and declined services. Do you track your sales off upsells? Do you follow up on declined services to maximize sales potential? Whether you do or don’t, you’ll discover valuable techniques from Robert to increase your department’s profit.

“100 Years of Automotive Service: What’s Changed?’

Robert Atwood of NADA approaches the history of automotive service. After reviewing the industry’s past, you’ll be walked through a comparison that explores the changes in the past 100 years. By looking at trends in service hours, labor rates, technician productivity, and staffing, you’ll be better equipped to handle the changes and take a step forward into the service industry’s future.

Parts Department Personnel

“Accessories: Mine Your Hidden Gem”

Nancy Vanderbilt and Dana Grover of Automotive Aftermarket Services bring you together to discuss the hidden potential in accessories sales. Vehicle owners are spending their cash on accessorizing their vehicles, yet not at your dealership. They will open your eyes to new strategies to sell accessories, both to your customers and in-house.

Collision Repair Personnel

“Collision Department Myths vs. Collision Department Facts”

Larry Edwards of Edwards and Associates Consulting Inc. brings a message for collision repair departments at your dealership. Accident repairs are big business, yet they don’t seem to be profitable. But can they be? Larry busts myths about your collision repair shop, telling you how you can make a profit and service your customer well, even at the low rate paid by insurance companies.

“The Secrets to Body Shop Profits: The Dealer Handbook”

Scott Rome of Rome Technologies Inc. is your presenter for this session. He’s going to bring you through the foundational principles of your body shop including personnel requirements, motivational pay plans, factory-based production techniques, accurate parts management, and more. With his years of experience, you’ll no doubt glean ways to make your body shop more profitable than ever.

Every time you turn on the TV, you see a car commercial with a Rudolph nose on it. Dealers capitalize on the hunt for hot buys on Black Friday, advertising the year’s best deals. Then, once again at New Year’s, the year’s best deals are hung under the mistletoe. And it works for the sales department – why not give it a shot for the service department as well?

It’s quite possible to turn the busiest shopping season of the year into a boon for your fixed operations department. Think of all the opportunity to sell accessories, finally meeting your manufacturer’s annual target. Your parts department can strike gold simply by advertising common car care, winter gear, and typical winter repair components to your current clientele.

The service department is immensely fickler for holiday deals. Certain services are top sellers for the season, although there’s little need to drive sales for them. Winter tires and rims, wheel alignments, and cooling system flushes are hot items for your service advisors and technicians, generating increased revenue. But what if you advertised a special? Would it help?

Now, what about other neglected services or repairs? I’d venture to say that offering holiday specials on non-winter related procedures can cause permanent damage to your customer relationships. Here’s why:

You’ve Built Trust, Now You Throw It Away

 Your loyal customers – the ones who always come back faithfully – rely on your expertise, and your adherence to their actual needs. Everything in the maintenance manual, they’ll do on time and without hesitation. Then you tell them you have a special on a service that doesn’t fit into their maintenance guide, and the red flags go up.

As soon as you stepped out of line with their schedule, you lost their trust. You can’t offer a service special for maintenance or repairs without the glaringly obvious – you’re trying to take more of their money. If you wouldn’t make the recommendation at another time of the year, or if the special wasn’t in place, you WILL damage relationships with your customers.

Value Added – the Winning Holiday Term

If you’re trying to open your customers’ wallets for a final year-end drive, there’s really only one choice – you have to offer added value. If your customer doesn’t see the added benefit, if they don’t buy into your sales pitch, if they don’t trust you, it’s not worth trying.

You know it to be true that money gets tight for many during the holiday season. Very few customers are inclined to spend their funds on car service or repairs over gifts and Christmas decorations, so your work is cut out for you. Here’s what you’ll have to do:

• Make sure your service advisors can clearly explain the added benefit. They should rehearse a consistent pitch for the best success. If they can’t convey the added value, don’t unleash them on your customers. You’ll damage your customer relationships and your advisors’ confidence.
• Make sure there IS added benefit. If the upsell is a service, the result must be noticeable to your customer or you’ll lose their trust.
• Don’t give away the farm. Offer only marginal discounts if you must discount at all. The perception is this: if you can offer a service at a slashed rate during the holidays, that’s all it’s worth any other time of the year. If at all possible, provide EXTRAS to services to create your specials.

What Works for Holiday Specials?

Some items are actually great offerings during the holidays. Here are a few examples for you.

• Wheel alignments. Everyone hits potholes, ruts, and rubs the occasional curb. A wheel alignment makes for safer driving, and is arguably the best service to upsell from. Your front end technicians will love the holidays if you apply this one right.
• Wheel and tire packages. If you’re in one of the many areas that get dumped on by the fluffy white stuff, offer winter tire packages. Show good, better, and best packages, then offer upsells like wheel alignments for those who buy into it.
• Detailing packages. Play on the need for acceptance and approval from family and friends. Who doesn’t want to show up to holiday functions with a spotless car, inside and out?

At its root, specials in the service department, whether during the holidays or otherwise, should always match up with your customers’ needs. If you wouldn’t sell it without the special, don’t try it at all. Stick with value-added services.

I’ve developed quite an affinity for sushi as of late. I don’t know what it is, whether it’s the freshness of the ingredients, the crunch of the tempura, or the sticky rice. I love sushi so much that whenever my wife and I are headed for dinner, the first suggestion in my brain is sushi.

My appetite for the Japanese rolls may be strong, but my taste in sushi varieties can swiftly change from day to day. One day may be a pedestrian California Roll while the next is a Spider Roll. Nearly every sushi dinner will include a favorite, the Totally Crazy Roll (the whole roll is tempura’d and served warm with a spicy sauce – delish!)

What doesn’t change when I go for sushi is the location. I frequent the same location time and time again. I want to be clear about one thing: the restaurant is nothing special. At all. It’s a cinder-block construction building on the corner of a busy street with poor parking. Inside, there’s peeling wallpaper and the melamine on the tables is chipped. The bench seats are saggy and less than comfortable and the lighting is fluorescent, highlighting the unappealing nature of the restaurant.

But I keep coming back, and here’s why:

• The food is delicious. Naturally, that’s the main reason you go to a restaurant repeatedly, right? The seafood is always fresh, the rice is perfectly cooked, they have darling little appetizers, and the typical green tea is hot and soothing, especially on my over-full stomach.

That’s not the main reason I keep coming back, though. I’m willing to bet that there are dozens of sushi restaurants within a 10-mile radius serving sushi just as good as my restaurant, or maybe even better. The food is excellent at Magic Sushi 2, but I can’t say it wouldn’t be tastier elsewhere.

• The service is fast and friendly. I mean extremely fast. The sushi flies out of that tiny kitchen faster than you could imagine possible and it’s fresh without fail. Your cup is always full of ice water and your tea is refilled without asking. Even in their peak times, like all-you-can-eat lunch and dinner hours, you’re attentively served even while your sushi is being made. Although your wait time for lunch may be a few minutes longer, it doesn’t seem like it because the waitress is always there making sure you’re looked after.

That’s still not the full reason I keep coming back. It’s definitely a reason they are a favorite, but again, there’s probably a handful of sushi restaurants near me that have customer service nailed to the same level or better.

• I’m rewarded for returning. My little sushi haven, Magic Sushi 2, has a loyalty program! Whenever I reward myself with a sushi meal, the double down and reward me as well. It can be a free appetizer, a free drink, or a free roll, but I always receive a reward after dining at my favorite sushi spot.

This ties in with the main reason I keep coming back, but it’s not the be-all, end-all. You see, I get a text message that thanks me for coming in, and that same text message lets me know what my reward is for my next visit. It even gives me an expiry date so I know when I need to return by (although I know from past experience the expiry date is flexible.)

• They ask me to come back. It’s true. The reason I come back to the same sushi restaurant is because they ask me to. I receive follow-up text messages from Magic Sushi 2 frequently so they are always at the front of my mind. They remind me that a reward is waiting for me whenever I end up coming back. If they’re running a special or promotion, I know about it in a brief text message. And I return because they tell me they miss me.

You may be wondering what this has to do with your Fixed Ops business, but it has everything to do with it. Literally, it’s exactly what your service department needs to be doing to get your customers to come back.

As I see it, the problem with customer retention in service departments nationwide has everything to do with engaging your customer. If a simple, run-down sushi restaurant can absolutely nail customer retention simply by engaging customers in a way they want to be engaged, you can too.

Text messages are so simple. Apps are easy to use. Virtually everyone has a smartphone, so use the technology to engage your customers as non-intrusively as possible. Receiving a reminder from the car dealership that my car is due for an oil change would be amazing. Having an app notify me or receiving a text message about my services due wouldn’t interrupt my day and would be helpful to make sure my vehicle received its proper maintenance.

Emails are easy to ignore and direct mail is expensive. Use the technology that every one of your customers uses from day to day to be in contact, reminding them who you are and asking them to come back.

They’ll come back, but only if you’ve mastered the other three points.

• You need to offer an excellent product, one worth coming back for. The parts, maintenance, and repairs that you offer have to be spot-on for your request for repeat business to be acknowledged.
• Your customer service has to be a focal point. Customers won’t come back for excellent repairs if they’re treated poorly. Greet your customers quickly on their arrival, keep them informed during their visit, and always treat them like they’re the only one in the room when you talk to them.
• You don’t have to offer a rewards program, but you’ll have greater success if you do. Offer a low-cost bonus or benefit for repeat business, or a Starbucks-like star program for money off repairs or a free oil change. It can increase your loyalty as it ends up being a game to some people, trying to achieve the next level of service. Offer double points promotions or what have you.

And ask your customers to come back. It’s the shop that asks for repeat business that gets the repeat business.

Now I think it’s time for sushi…