How many times in a day or week do you have the opportunity to make contact with your customers? The answer is more than you think. Every time your customer visits your business physically, calls on the phone, or searches on the web, you have the ability to influence their decision making process. In this post, we’ll review five important customer touchpoints you should be focused on at your auto shop.
Website Visits
Every time a customer clicks onto your website, you have an important opportunity to impress them. These customer touchpoints are front and center any time a customer is looking for your phone number, directions to your shop, or any other quick information about your business. It’s important that your website is meeting the needs your customer has when they visit. Dig into your Google Analytics account and look at metrics like the time visitors spend on your site and which pages they visit while they’re there. If you notice that customers are leaving your site from the very first page they arrived on without taking any actions, chances are your website isn’t giving them what they’re looking for. This is definitely something you should fix.
Online Review Sites
Your customers are talking about your business – do you know what they’re saying? Review websites are important customer touchpoints that often get overlooked. If a customer had a good experience and wants to tell the world about it, this is the perfect opportunity to thank them for their support and add to the positive feeling they already have. On the flip side, if the customer is upset, you have the opportunity to tell your side of the story and offer to make things right. Even if the customer is being unreasonable or you can’t resolve their concern, other customers will see the efforts you’ve made and will appreciate your attempt at making a connection.
Other Places Around the Web
Of course, your customers are visiting many other places on the web than just your business. It’s important that your business is front and center when they’re looking for information related to the products and services you sell. This means providing content that answers common customer questions and then making that content easy to find. You might find that starting a blog is a good way to do this. Not sure what kind of posts to write? Simply think about the types of questions your customers frequently ask and answer those in blog form.
Shop Appearance
When your customers are physically in your business, this is the opportunity to let them know that yours is the only auto shop they want to do business with. Make sure your waiting room is clean, well-lit, and stocked with a few amenities to make your customers’ wait time pleasant. Keep the front desk area tidy and neat, and try your best to do the same with your shop floor. Even though customers may never visit the shop floor, the pride you take in keeping it neat will show in the rest of your business.
Customer Service
Your service advisors have lots of touchpoints with your customers in a day – make sure they’re making a good impression. When a customer calls in with a problem with their vehicle, make sure your service advisors treat them with care and concern so they know that they feel confident that their issue will be resolved. When they come in to drop off or pick up their car, make sure they’re greeted with a friendly smile and an efficient experience. Even the blow of an unexpected expensive repair can be softened with the right words from the service advisor.
Find Partners Who Will Have Your Back
This is a lot to remember – and you shouldn’t have to go it alone. You need partners you can rely on to take care of the details of your business so you can focus on what’s most important – serving your customer. We pride ourselves on this at 360 Payments. Let us take handle your payments – it’s our speciality. Give us a call at 1-855-360-0360 or drop us a line on our website. We’d love to help.
PS – Ready to level up your shop’s marketing? Check out our tips.
PPS – You work hard to keep your shop running smoothly. Learn how to maintain your work-life balance here.