Sometimes, the smallest things can make the biggest difference.
If you get all of your service technicians on board with it, the tip we’re going to share with you today can dramatically increase the amount of return business that comes back to your auto shop. It’s the kind of subtle-yet-powerful thing that transforms a first-time customer into a lifetime customer.
Curious yet?
Let’s learn more about this smart way to enhance customer service and get people bringing their vehicles back to you over and over:
A Simple, But Very Important Question to Answer: What Comes Next?
The crux of this tip is, basically, to answer a question for your customers—even if they haven’t asked (and it’s likely that most won’t). What comes next?
At the end of a service appointment, before you wrap things up and send the customer on their way, take a minute or two to let them know what the next maintenance tasks are most likely to be for their vehicle.
So, for example, let’s say a customer has been in for a routine maintenance task (like changing their oil). Most timing belts last last for about 100,000 miles. The example customer’s vehicle has 90,000 miles on it. This is the perfect opportunity to let them know that in then next 10,000 miles or so, they’re probably going to need the timing belt replaced. Let them know the cost of this routine maintenance task, why it’s so important, and that you’ll be there for them when the belt needs to be replaced.
That’s a simple example, of course. Any number of maintenance tasks could apply here, ranging from oil changes and tire replacements to more critical maintenance tasks or repairs.
Customers really appreciate this kind of proactive information that gives them a “heads up” of sorts. Knowing in advance the maintenance services or repairs that they’re likely to need gives them the time to budget accordingly, make time in their schedule, and so on. Furthermore, if you don’t tell them that these things are coming up, they may wonder why you didn’t—after all, aren’t you supposed to be the expert here? Why wouldn’t you tell them about this expense or inconvenience?
As you can see, it goes both ways. There’s no downside and a whole lot of upside to telling your customers what to expect in the future. If you already do this and it sounds rudimentary, congratulations—you’d be surprised at how many shops don’t do this. If that sounds familiar, the best time to start is now.
Are Your Service Advisors Using This Powerful BG Tool Yet?
Have you heard of the BG SmartVMA software?
This app is a “Virtual Maintenance Advisor” with truly intelligent capabilities—it makes offering completely customized, customer and vehicle-specific service recommendations a very easy process for service technicians.
Here’s how it works: the service tech enters the make, model, mileage, inspection information, and the known history of the vehicle into the BG SmartVMA app. The app then recommends BG services and products that the vehicle will benefit from. Since the service tech will have a complete top-down view of the vehicle’s needs, it becomes even easier for them to let the customer know what it might need in the future.
Speaking of inspections, the app can even give service tech an instant guide on how to perform a multi-point inspection on the vehicle they’re working with. With so many different kinds of vehicles out there, this can be an invaluable refresher for many techs, helping them uncover new opportunities for maintenance services to offer to the customer.
Learn more about this game-changing tool in our post Why Automotive Shops Need to Upgrade to BG SmartVMA to Keep Up With the Competition.
More Ethical Sales Tips for Professionals in the Automotive Service Industry
Before we wrap things up, we thought we’d mention just one more tool that can help you communicate better and build additional trust with your customers.
The BG TruVideo app is an innovative software tool that allows you to record a video during a vehicle inspection and send it to the customer directly over text or email. It sounds simple, but the app is quite robust—you can even tell if the customer has watched the video. Being able to actually show a customer what you’ve discovered is a great way to remove doubt, increase overall communication, and build trust. If desired, these videos could be used to show the customer areas of their vehicle that will need maintenance in the future.
We hope that you’ve found these tips for service technicians informative—stay tuned for more!
