Make it easy for your customers to find you

I recently had a very frustrating experience with a great little cafe. This cafe had several stellar reviews on Google and Yelp. They had a beautifully designed and easy to navigate website. They had an incredible word of mouth reputation from several friends. But….

After several minutes on their website and clicking from page to page I could not find a phone number or the business hours. This cafe was a couple hours away from home so I didn’t want to just drive all that way and find out they were “closed on Sundays.” So I kept digging. I eventually found the hours buried at the bottom of a pretty generic “About us” page.

Turns out the cafe lived up to their reputation. The food was great and the service matched it. They were able to seat my wife and me almost immediately and the bill was very reasonable for the level of food and service we received. But we almost didn’t go. There was plenty of competition within a 100 yards of this cafe. Other cafe’s and coffee shops would have been just as easy to get to. However, I’m quite sure they would not have compared so I’m glad we persevered.

As a body shop owner or manager you know there is massive competition out there. It is in your best interest to make it as easy as possible for potential customers to find you and do business with you. Here’s some ways you can do just that…

1. Put your phone number and email on every page of your website.

2. Put a google map with your location and driving directions from the surrounding neighborhoods (including any local, visible and well known landmarks) on your website.

3. Put your hours of operation on every page with instructions on what to do after hours like where the key drop is, where to have tow companies drop tow-ins off or even an online estimate form.

4. Build out your social profiles with contact info and hours of operation on sites like Google Places and Yelp and then encourage your customers to give you reviews there as well.

Making it easy for people to spend dollars with you just makes sense. Remove any barriers and create as many on-ramps to potential customers as you can.

WOM’s 5 T’s: Tools (3/5)

Again drawing on Andy Senovitz’s seminal book Word of Mouth Marketing we move on to the tools that can help messages spread. The big idea here is making it easy for people to share your message/ideas. You want them to be able to spread the word for you in a way that is simple, fast and far reaching. Andy contends that the internet is our biggest ally in this pursuit. Here’s some tools I regularly use that seem completely underutilized in the body shop business currently. That might change in the near future. Probably will. For now though using some simple internet tools can be a huge competitive advantage.  Here’s my top 3.

1. Tell a friend buttons. I had the privilege of meeting the founder/CEO of Social Twist at a recent conference. He was a gracias, Indian-American man who introduced himself to me at one of the breaks between sessions. In a very friendly way he asked about my business and told me about his. I was struck by 2 things: his humility and the awesomeness of what his company offered. I signed up the next day for the trial version of his product and I’m quickly trying to get it on every page of my website currently. What they offer is a simple button that can be easily posted on any/all pages of your website where people with the click of “tell a friend” button can share the contents of that page or blog post with their friends.  The trial version is free. The upgrades are not pricey though and allow you to customize the buttons with your logo. There is no reason that a button like that should not be on every page of our websites.

2. Email signature: Every time you write an email there should be a some reminder that you want people to tell other people about what differentiates your shop and what you offer. At a minimum all your contact info including name of shop, email address, physical address, email, phone number, fax number and website should be automatically added to every email. I use G-mail for my shop and in the settings you can tell it to add this info as a signature to every email. Beyond the basics though consider adding a link to something specific that might make people interested in forwarding the email. This could be a special offer, a coupon, or an educational blog post about car repair that might be helpful to others.

3. Blogging (a.k.a. educational marketing): Marketing at its best is simply educating prospects about how you meet specific. needs they have. Blogging is a great way to educate people. I’ve written some posts specifically related to auto body repair along these lines that you might find helpful. I try to deliver content that is valuable to those who take the time to read as well as position myself as an expert so that when people have a need for a collision shop I am at the forefront of their mind.

* Bonus round: Create a high quality monthly newsletter. This one take a lot of time which is why i didn’t include it in my top 3. But really if you’re taking the time to blog these can be the basis of a great newsletter. I would suggest developing a couple dozen posts that can be polished into 500-1000 word articles first. These can then be the core writing of a great newsletter along with any special offers and interesting updates about your shop. There are some great email marketing tools out there. I’ve used Constant Contact and found it pretty user-friendly. (note: They currently have a free 60 day trial.)

WOM’s 5 T’s: Topics (2/5)

Part 2: Topics

Once we’ve discovered who is willing to talk about our business (and better yet, who already IS talking about our business) the next thing we need is to give them things to talk about. In this section Andy shares that people talk about the unusual and the unexpected. We can craft killer mission statements and press releases and mantras and tag lines… but people rarely if ever talk about them or pass them along. At Center City Collision our tag-line/mantra is: “Expert collision repair by people who care.” Now, I’m trying to imagine a scenario where someone might actually work that into a dinner conversation with friends. I wonder how often that will happen? (clue: NEVER!) What people will talk about over dinner is “Did you know those guys at Center City Collision delivered my car to me? Yeah, they realized how hard it was going to be for me to get there with my husband being out of town and having to load the 3 kids up in car seats and transferring everything…. so they offered to just bring me the car!!” Exceptional, unexpected, out of the ordinary customer service gets people’s attention and gets them talking. Our tag-line is about how much we care. Our caring actions day in and day out is what will get people talking though.

What is buzz-worthy about your shop?

What makes it different and better than the shop down the road?

What about your business would get people talking about it over dinner with friends?

* Zappos is known for its exceptional customer service. Check out this short article. This is why people talk about Zappos all the time.

Local biz meet social media

John Jantsch founder of Duct Tape Marketing believes that “local” is going to be all the rage in 2010. I hope he’s right. Small, local businesses have been the backbone of the USAmerican economy from the get go. Check out this article of John’s and start riding the social media wave to benefit your small, local biz.

5 Ways to Grow your Local Business Using Social Media

WOM’s 5 T’s: Talkers (1/5)

Andy Sernovitz wrote the book on Word of Mouth Marketing. This is a book that should be in the hands of every body shop owner. It is no secret that word of mouth is the primary way people find a shop. After an accident there can be so much confusion and uncertainty as to what to do people naturally start asking their friends, family, insurance agents, and mechanics, “Do you know where I can get my car fixed?” You want those folks in the next breath to mention your shop’s name and how and why they “know, like and trust you.” (John Jantsch definition of marketing)

In his book Andy talks about the 5 T’s of word of mouth marketing.

1. Talkers

2. Topics

3. Tools

4. Taking part

5. Tracking

This post is the first in a 5 part series where I intend to take these five big ideas and look at them through the lens of our industry, see how they might apply directly to us and then consider how to turn these ideas into practices/ habits that will drive growth in our shops. So, we begin with “talkers.”

Who are the people that are willing to talk about your shop? customers, vendors, friends, family, mechanics, dealerships, insurance agents, people from your networking groups (you are in some of these right?). Andy makes the key point in this chapter that often it is new customers. New customers are still in the honeymoon phase of having discovered a shop they can trust. Their accident and how you took care of them is fresh in their minds. What do you imagine they will be talking a lot about in the weeks right after their accident? Yep, their accident! How it happened, why it happened, how stupid people are on the road, why they got cited but shouldn’t have, how lucky they feel to be alive… accidents are often a major life event for people and something they typically like to talk about.

People are likely talking online about your shop as well. Have you ever googled your name or shop’s name? How about done a Twitter search? It can be very informative. I recently had a bad customer service experience at a major electronic’s store and I put out a Twitter about it. I also have Twitter set up to update my Facebook status. Within minutes I had several comments of people telling me their bad customer service experiences at the same place! … and not one that came to the rescue of the store.

Applications:

1. Get new customers talking. We developed a very simple questionnaire for our customers that gets emailed the day a car leaves our shop. When I say simple I really mean it. It is one question. It is the only question that really matters to us and it is a question that will reveal any problems or issues that people might have with us or the job we did. “If someone you cared about were in an accident and needed our services would you recommend us to them?” That’s it. We give them 4 options to respond with the first being “Yes, without hesitation.” If they select that we then do 2 things: 1. we send them one more email as a follow up that explains clearly that we appreciate their trust in us and also explain how important referrals are to our business and some suggestions on how to make a good referral for us in the event a loved one needed us and 2. we send them in the mail a bag of goodies that are useful things for them and imprinted with our logo along with some extra business cards they can give out if they choose.

2. Listen online. Google your name and company name but then take it a step further and set up a “Google alert” that will automatically send you an update every time your name/business is mentioned online. Ditto for Twitter. Search for your name/company and then save the search and check back in at least weekly to see what is being said. Most importantly when you find out who is willing to talk about you, notice them, respond to them, and help them say good things.

Of course there’s a lot more in Andy’s book but this is enough to get started on. Go get the book if you want to dig in more. I highly recommend it.

Next: Topics

Be remarkable.

If you have a marketing idea that you want to try there is an acid test to see if it is worth your time: Simply put, ask yourself, “Is this is remarkable?” Or put another way:”Will people naturally talk about this and spread this for me?” If the answer is not a definitive “YES!” then you need to go back to the drawing board… sorry for the bad news. You will thank me later for saving you time and money.

Here’s a good blog post on this idea from our friends (and word of mouth mentors) over at GasPedal.com

Body shop SWAG!

Urbandictionary.com defines Swag thusly: “Promotional merchandise for a band, record label, or other entity in the music business, usually distributed at concerts. May include t-shirts, stickers, promo CDs, posters, etc. Often free, but not necessarily; a t-shirt or record purchased at a concert might still be considered swag, especially if it is a design or release that is not readily available in the mass market. Many independent record labels throw in a handful of free swag when they ship out mail-order packages (stickers, sampler CDs, etc). The chief difference between swag and regular merchandise is that its purpose is not to make a profit, but to promote the band/label, and reward its supporters by giving them something cool and unique.”

What is swag and what does it have to do with body shops? Here comes captain obvious: 1. We’re not in the music business 2. So what? Who makes the rules anyway? 3. Body shops can and should have swag  4. Go get some if you don’t already & 5. Give it away, generously and with abandon.

Why? Quite simply because you want your customers to a. remember you and b. refer you… so help them remember you and make it easy for them to refer you.

Put your name, your logo, your website, and phone number on it and give it away… to freinds, family, customers, or even strangers.

Here’s my top 5 picks for body shop swag:

1. Ice Scrapers: you want your customer to remember you when the weather is bad. For climates where it rains more than snows consider umbrellas. if you live in the Southwest desert region and it neither rains nor snows then consider getting ice scrapers anyway and make it joke, “In case it ever snows we want you to be ready…”

2. Key chains: don’t get the cheap, plastic ones either! Get the metal caribiner, clip on kind.

3. T-shirts: My dad has been in the industry almost 40 years and sometimes I think he built his whole business model on free t-shirts. He has been giving them away from the beginning and people love them. His are pretty generic but you can have fun with it. I did a run of shirts that said “I got this T-shirt by accident” and it had 2 skid marks across the front of it and our website in small letters below the skid marks. I bet you can do even better than that!

4. Reusable enviro-friendly shopping bags: Great for organizing customers junk in their trunks when working on rear end hits or all the odds and ends when you’re trying to detail the interior. Bonus tip: combine this with a campaign highlighting water-bourne paint products for double the enviro-Swag value at no extra cost <insert cheesy smile here>

5. Tire Pressure Guages: This is something people can throw in their glove box and it might actually come in handy. We tell people that good tire pressure (and low wear and tear of course) and visibility (ice scrapers again) are 2 of the most important factors in preventing accidents. Then we give them tools to that end.

A couple places to get good swag that I have used consistently: Collision Services and Print Globe * (ask for John B. Fast. Thorough. And not pushy.)

*Not paid to advertise. Just speaking from personal experience here.

An easy way to get testimonials

Written testimonials are a powerful tool in the word of mouth marketers tool kit. Having someone else describe and promote your shop generates trust faster than any other means. Having a customer’s positive experience with your shop in writing also means you can use it in several different ways including your shop’s web and print marketing materials (among others).  Here’s an easy way to get good testimonials that I stumbled on almost by accident.

If you’ve been on Facebook for any length of time you have probably seen the ads on the right hand side. One day I noticed an ad that said something like “Small business contest. Your chance to win $5000.” I clicked on it and realized it was being sponsored by Intuit, makers of Quickbooks software which we use in our shop. The contest was called “Love a local business.” What it asked for was for people to describe why they love a local business in 250 words or less. Each testimonial entered the business for one chance to win from a drawing so the more testimonials, the more chances of winning. So I entered our shop in the contest and then asked my Facebook friends who have had work done at my shop if they would also enter us for a chance to win. I did this by simply posting a link to the contest on my Facebook page. After a couple testimonials rolled in I realized that even more valuable than winning the $1000 second place or $5000 first place prize were the actual testimonials that I could use in my marketing materials. So I reposted the link but this time said that if our shop won, I would donate the money to charity, one that many of my friends knew and cared about already. This generated even more testimonials and free publicity and it was all on a website that linked back to my website and ultimately increased our ranking with search engines as well.

After entering this contest I realized there are literally dozens (probably even hundreds if you dig a little) of contests out there like this online. Taking a few minutes to enter a contest might not be your shop’s lottery ticket. If nothing else though its an easy way to generate several testimonials quickly with little effort or time.

Free resource on social media

John Jantsch is among the elite jedi’s of small business marketing. I can heartily recommend him. I have learned much from his website, blog, free resources, paid resources, podcasts, twitter feed… you get the idea.

Here’s a free resource he offers that is a primer on social media: Let’s Talk: Social Media for Small Business

I’m currently taking his weekly training called Social Media Pro. I’m still in the first module but so far > 5 stars.

SEO assignment #1

SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” So this post assumes you have a website and you (or someone) can update it fairly easily. If you don’t, you need to get one. Fast. It does not have to be perfect. It will always be a work in progress but the sooner you get it the better. For starters you want to own your name, brand and identity online as more and more people are using online search. The yellow pages are dead. More importantly you want to get indexed and found by the major search engines as soon as possible so that when people search for “auto body repair” or “body shop” or “collision repair” and then put your zip code or city location behind it your shop’s website pops up as close to the top of the search listing as possible.

Now there are services out there that will do all this for you for anywhere from $79 to several thousand dollars per month. I would hold off on that as you should be able to make good progress with the free advice I offer you on this site… save your money until you’ve invested a little time and effort getting to know the SEO game. Then if you decide to pay at some you’ll know where the money is going and how to measure the return on your investment.

So here’s the first thing you need to do: make sure your site is loaded with key words that people searching for a body shop will be looking for and your city name and zip code. What are the search terms they are looking for? Typically it will be “auto body repair Denver” or “Louisville body shops” or “collision repair 45211.”

Now here’s your (4 part) SEO assignment to get started ranking better today:

1.) Go to Google.com and type in the words “auto body repair” followed by the name of your city and/or zip code and see what comes up. If you are not on the first page, there is work to do.

2.) Make sure your site is loaded with key words like auto body repair, body shop, collision center and all the things you actual do (body work, frame, paint, detailing etc) throughout the site. Note: when I built my first website my home page was a letter to prospective customers that outlined why they could trust my shop and how much our customers meant to us and all kinds of great touchy feely things. The problem was the search engines weren’t finding us because I wasn’t actually telling them what we did. I was assuming my potential customers and the search engines knew what we were all about. Wrong. USE KEY WORDS.

3.) Make sure that every page has your name, address, city, and zip code on it and lace the pages with these items as well. I recommend pharses like “We are north Seattle’s preferred auto body and collision center” or “Expert auto body and collision repair in Kalamazoo, MI”

4.) Now, wait. It takes time for the sites to index this new information. After heeding the advice above and loading your site up with appropriate keywords you need to wait… and moniter… and wait… and moniter. Perform the searches for your key words and locations and see if over the next several weeks you start to rise in the rankings. Keep in mind this is only a starting point and we’re going to give you kinds of other things to do in future posts that will help your rankings soar. It’s going to take time but there will be a return on the investment.