RobMax

Charging for parts or items that the customer can see is much different than charging for supplies the customer can't see or understand the need for. RyanGMW has got the right idea. I don't see any problem in charging for wheel weights as they are something the customer can see and understand why they are needed. Explain all you want but shops need to understand that customers don't talk your language or understand what you do. You can waste a lot of time explaining invoices and people will nod their head and still walk away feeling gouged. I tell shop owners all the time to take their "tech" hat off and put their "customer" hat on - especially when thinking about marketing and advertising. That old story of walk a mile in my shoes to understand me...

After 10+ years of monitoring auto shop reviews add-on fees are in the top three of customer complaints. No matter how you justify generic, unspecific fees I feel they are bad business practice. Your customers may not be complaining to your face about your add-on fees, but these fees cause what I call customer relationship "rot". Add-on fees are little annoyances that most customers won't question but they accumulate over time and silently undermine customer trust and loyalty. This makes your customers more prone to customer defection. And customer loss is a HUGE cost to your business! Every shop has service failures. And the day something big goes wrong customers will have less forgiveness if they are already annoyed. The customer blows their cool and you are left wondering why they stormed out over some mistake you apologize for and make right... A classic case of death by a thousand small cuts. Every business should do everything they can to create a positive customer experience and relationship. Get rid of every friction point and possible annoyance in the customer's experience. That is what keeps customers coming back. One of the most dangerous mindsets in business is arrogance. You think you may be impervious to customer loss but all you need is a competitor to move in on you and customers who are not completely loyal will quickly be tempted to go elsewhere... Still not convinced add-on fees are bad? Have you ever gone into a restaurant and had them automatically add a mandatory 20% tip to the bill. Not sure about you but it just irritates me and makes me reluctant to return. Service fees may not seem like a big deal but they can be a very real threat to your reputation. And that can be far more damaging to your bottom line than what is mistakenly called a loss of profit due to shop supplies. A couple negative reviews about you being a price gouger and over-charging can significantly increase your advertising cost. The first thing prospective new customers do after seeing your advertisement is inspect your online reputation. What they find there has a HUGE impact on your advertising response rate and your cost per new customer. And that increased advertising cost will amount to far more than the relatively small amount represented by shop supplies (I feel shop supplies should be part of general labor rate, incorporated into specific job labor rates, or separately billed. If it is something used on every job of that type then add it to the canned job package that almost all shop management software has, e.g. include the price for 1/2 can of brake cleaner, etc). Every business should do everything they can to protect their reputation. Add-on fees are one of those silent business killers. Still not convinced add-on fees are bad? Think that because your customers aren't complaining about add-on fees they aren't annoyed by them? In 2009 I wrote a blog post about the pros and cons of using add on environmental fees (a new practice back then). It is still the highest traffic page on my blog by a WIDE margin! I finally had to turn off and remove the comments since it quickly produced 25 PAGES!!! of people complaining about add-on fees. Your customers may not be complaining to your face but I am sure they dislike the fees. And that underlying dissatisfaction will hurt your business. Hope this helps, Doug

I have always been puzzled by shops that use discount marketing and then complain about type of customer it attracts... If you advertise $19 oil change and then get frustrated by not being able to sell other services you should be reevaluating your marketing. How you present yourself is what is attracting those people. By careful when selecting advertising. Marketing sales people will always push discount advertising since it is easy to sell, easy to create, and, unfortunately, what many small business owners default to. Good marketing takes thought, planning, and careful selection. One shop owner I know calls auto repair bargain hunters and coupon clippers "snake bite" customers: unpredictable, never satisfied, always looking to get something for nothing or rip you off, and will bite you if given the slightest chance. Always more trouble than you ever imagined. You are better off washing the windows than dealing with these customers. Avoid them at all costs. And always be nice to them and politely decline to do work for them. Many are so vengeful they will post negative online reviews complaining about "high prices" or rude treatment in retaliation and that will only damage your reputation... and scare away the good customers! You should have a policy and train employees on how to deal with customers you don't want. Have pre-written scripts helps any employee that is on the phone or answering emails. Shop owners need to clearly state what they do and who/what customers they want to attract. That's called "branding". When you have defined the type of customer they want you can figure out how best to attract those customers. It's not easy but is what it takes to make your business grow (or survive).

At the risk of high-jacking this topic I'll comment on this. But employee pay and shop rates are definitely related. As long as your customers are willing to pay top prices... in some towns/cities there are not enough of those customers to support a first class 'white glove' shop. I have seen first class shops fail because there weren't enough customers who wanted, or could afford, that level of service and pricing. To charge top dollar you have to pay top dollar wages to provide that high quality of service. Any business who charges more than their competitors for same level of service will fail quite quickly. Supply and demand again. Like everything else shop prices are controlled by supply and demand. For a business to succeed there has to be an unmet need. If there is nothing but low cost shops who have lots of unhappy customers there might be room for a shop offering higher level of service at a higher price. The key indicator is "unhappy" customers. If customers are happy they won't be motivated to pay more... Also, there needs to enough of those motivated, unhappy customers to support a shop. Check out the online reviews of your competitors. You can gain a great deal of insight into what they are doing well, and more importantly what they are doing poorly. Most areas don't need another shop. They need a shop that will provide what the customer wants, and are not finding... In some local economies people simply don't have the income to afford auto repair. In many cases at any price (think back to 2008). Food and shelter are first priority so it is unfair to criticize people who find themselves without. I always cringe when I hear business owners calling their customers cheap. "Cheap" is when you have the money, but won't spend it to better yourself. I have met lots of shop owners who are "cheap"... ;-) A good book to help understand employee needs and motivation is "Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow" by Chip Conley. Also very good for understanding customers! Second, there has always been "back yard" mechanics. Just a fact of life if local bylaws don't restrict it. Similar to lack of technician licensing requirements. Often the root cause of backyard mechanics are shops who don't, or can't, pay their techs enough. Techs realize they can make more working in their driveway... sometimes it is out of necessity to supplement their income. Remember family comes first and if your employees feel insecure or aren't making enough they WILL leave or look for another source of income. Can also lead to employee theft. And techs who are working 18 hours a day (a full day at your shop plus working at home) can't perform well at your shop when they are exhausted... Often shop owner's are not aware of what the current market prices are for both their shop rates and employee pay. If you are too busy working on cars and not managing your business your sharp competitors will always have the edge over you...

I'll confirm most of what Danny at Autoshop Solutions says. The problem is business owners who don't have experience with websites, usually those who have started a new business, expect "instant" return on their website spend. They also don't realize the amount of time and cost it takes to generate the quality website content now required to achieve good organic search position. Especially if shop is in big city or has lots of aggressive online competition. Google has hinted for many years that they suppress search position of new website/domain for a period of time. They place a 'handicap' on new domain names/websites that is rolled back in 6 month steps taking 24 months to gain full ranking position. They do that to prevent spammers from throwing up multiple junk websites targeting specific keywords (remember the micro-website SEO craze years ago). The delayed ranking is frustrating for legitimate businesses but just what we have to work with. And as Danny said there is no way to buy your way to good ranking on new website. Money can help somewhat but not to the degree owners expect. Sad thing is that by the time the newbie business owner jumps to another website provider/SEO the results are just starting to get some traction... and new provider takes the credit for all the hard work of first developer... also if the new provider copies all the work of previous developer and then they can put more effort into SEO which further helps search position (and their false bragging). In the end the business ends up spending more than if they had remained with their first website provider and had more patience (or spent the money required to get what they wanted in first place). There is a website provider (mentioned elsewhere in this thread) that is notorious for doing this and preying on inexperienced or uninformed shop owners. SEO is just another form of advertising that requires regular work (cost). And a lot more initially with a new website. Any website provider that says SEO is "included" is not being honest with you. Those days are long gone... It takes effort and patience. SEO is a long term play. The return is tremendously better than any other form of advertising, IF customers are actively looking for your services, BUT you must have the patience for SEO to work. Most advertising is a one shot deal. Websites and SEO have on average about 5 year life. So when prorated over that time period the value is very good. But sadly most shop owners can't see that value. PPC also depends to a certain degree on time online and quality of business online presence. And in my experience any PPC budget below $1,500/month really isn't going to produce much when you look at the cost of quality auto repair keywords in major cities. Also, quality PPC managers can't do an adequate job for less than $1,500 a month. Just think about what you charge per hour and then do the numbers on how much time they have to spend managing your account... to say nothing of the overhead cost of training to keep up with rapid rate of change with Internet marketing. Just try managing your own Adwords account for a while so you can appreciate what it takes to do a good job... So for a pro to do PPC your spending $3,000/month just on PPC. The alternative is minimal/low quality management and just pour more money into the ad spend (shotgun approach). Google will gladly take all the money you throw at them!

Yelp is VERY regional in how it works. Tends to be used by a younger, urban crowd. University and College towns usually have greater number of active users. If that is your market, both location and demographic, then it MIGHT work. IF it works it can be good producer. And you don't need a paid listing or paid ads. A well optimized free listing can work almost as well as paid listing. Like any online advertising it only works IF people are actively looking for your services/products in your area. I know a couple shops in medium sized, eastern university towns that get a solid 30 - 60 paying customers per month from a free listing. Also many other shops, with free and paid listings, that get zero leads... Remember, Yelp sales people will sell you advertising even if there is no active users in your area. That is their job... It is your responsibility to judge if their regional demographics match your business, and what their "readership" is in your area. Ask for detailed user numbers. And don't let sales people quote you 'raw' traffic numbers which are meaningless and worthless. I've always had a problem when print newspapers are required to publish their readership statistics for ad buyers, but no comparable requirement for online advertisers. Buyer beware. Best thing to do is look at Yelp listings in your city/town and see if any other businesses (in any industry) are getting any reviews, or are buying paid advertising. That is a good indicator of how active Yelp users are in that town. If there are no active users in general there is no value spending your time or money on it. If there is activity in other industries, then create a quality free listing as a test. If the free listing gets some quality leads, then try spending some on paid ads. Not before squeezing the most from a free listing. Yelp rumors are largely a myth from the past. It might have been happening in isolated cases, but Yelp has clamped down on their rogue sales people. Biggest problem is the scam artists who try to extort businesses for free services or discounts with threat of bad review. A real problem in restaurant and hotel businesses.

Ignoring the outright price shoppers, price enquiries indicate a lack of information about your business. People ask price because they don't know what makes you different from your competitors. If people are phoning strictly for price it usually indicates a big problem with your marketing. They can't find the info they need so they ask for a price to base their decision on. However, refusing to give estimates and pricing just slams the door in their face. Customers want four pieces of information about your business: service level or quality (how you treat them), workmanship (quality of work performed), guarantee (if they have a problem are you going to remedy it without a big hassle), and lastly price. Customers use a combination of this info to decide if they want to do business with you. How you define those elements of your business dictates the “type” customers you attract. For the customer "type" you want, the first three are more important than price. As someone else said here, price is just the default question. They use it when they don't have any other information to judge you on. If potential customers don't have any other information about you, price is the easiest (only) way for them to compare you with other shops. And people are sick of sales pitches that try to justify pricing. It just makes them more suspicious and untrusting. They want clear, understandable information to base their buying decision on. And that information must be available long BEFORE they phone you. Selling them at the point of them asking price is too late to be successful. Your claims must be supported by other customers for it to have any worth. People that don't know you have NO reason to believe anything you say. That is why online public reviews are so important! Public reviews can't be manipulated by you (main reason reviews services like Demandforce are viewed with a high degree of scepticism by consumers). The typical quick phone pitch about how good you are and the “trust us” that everyone pitches just doesn't work. Right or wrong the average consumer perception of ALL businesses, not just auto repair, is that they can't be trusted. You need to be transparent and give people the info they want. Your website is the only way to do that effectively and economically. And then you need to support that information with independent customer reviews. If you do it right they will only phone to make an appointment. I don't think there are any of you on this forum that don't have a website. But the question is how many of you can honestly say a person who doesn't know you could clearly find out: 1) the service level you provide; 2) the standard of workmanship they can expect to get; 3) your warranty policy (what will you do IF there is a problem); and 4) your general pricing level (not specific services, just where on the pricing spectrum you sit). Most auto repair shop websites have the same tired old claims that say nothing about you and have no support or evidence for your claims. When you don't have a Competitive Advantage (VALUE you provide over and above your competition), or don't communicate those customer benefits, they will resort to the price question. People are fearful of being sold one thing and getting something different. Sometimes this happens on purpose, mostly it happens due to confusion between what is communicated by the shop and what the customer expects. I see too many shops that are afraid to state where on the service and price spectrum they stand. They are afraid of turning away a potential customer and end up not attracting anyone or making everyone dissatisfied. Trying to be everything to everyone will not work! You need to make it clear if you are a concours white glove service level shop, or a deep discount, dirty, ramshackle shop that survives on Groupon bottom feeders. There is a market for both... but you can't service the whole spectrum. Unmet customer expectations, both high and low, are the greatest cause of unhappy customers and poor reviews. And with online reviews giving consumers a powerful way to voice their displeasure there is a world of hurt awaiting you if you get it wrong... Another common problem is the mismatch between what is advertised and what is provided. Everyday I see auto repair ads for discounted services and in the same ad they talk about their high end shop, certified technicians, and quality parts. Anyone with a brain will see the mismatch. No wonder ad response rates for most auto shop advertisements are so low. The price shopper comes for the deal, feels pressured with the inevitable up-sell, never returns, and the shop owner gets frustrated with the “cheap” customers they are attracting. And your "good" customers are turned off by the image created by loss leader pricing and feeling gouged when they get charged more than the advertised specials... Define the market you want, promote that to the right people, and they will respond. Too many businesses expect customers to do things the way the business wants. This is the slippery slope to eventual business failure. Consumers have changed greatly, and quickly, in just a few years. Consumer access to information has exploded and fighting their wants and expectations is bad for your business. I am not saying this change is good. It just is. Resisting change is the road to failure. Communicate your position. If it isn't working then what you are offering is in the wrong marketplace. No intent to offend. Just presenting how I see it. Hope this helps. Doug

The commedian Ron White has a great skit on his experience with a wheel falling off after having new tires installed on his van. Here is a link to short Youtube video and article about service failures and what companies should do if it does happen... http://robertmaxim.com/auto-repair-marketing/731-social-networking-is-forever.htm

Interesting that none of them use modern responsive design for mobile. Some sites use separate single page mobile "site" but this is getting to be a very dated method. Also really limits the info about your company available for mobile users. Modern fast cell networks and much faster mobile units makes striped down mobile only websites largely obsolete now. Most sites "look" good at first glance but many lack quality content that truely differentiates them from their competition. Be interesting to see analytics for how these sites actually work at converting prospects into paying customers. Try http://www.responsinator.com to check how websites look on different sized mobile units (everything from small cell phone to large format tablets).

Joe, Business differentiation would not be something my marketing performance system would do. Differentiation is a totally separate process. Differentiation is part of the branding of a business and is used in marketing to make a business standout from their competition. A shop needs to differentiate itself before creating an ad (you need to know who you are before you can effectively tell someone else about yourself). A marketing performance system such as I am proposing measures what happens after an ad is published. It would not “make” the ad. Although differentiating a business from the competition has a huge positive impact on advertisement response rate, it is part of the "creative" aspect of the ad. There are three basic components to advertisement delivery: Creative and Production (design and making of ad); Delivery (placing ad in front of people – ad mailers, direct mail, print ads, online ads, radio, TV, etc.) Measurement & Analysis (who, where, and why of ad response) I am developing a marketing performance system that focuses on how people interact with and connect to your advertisement (#3). You are correct that cookie cutter approach does not work if you want to differentiate your business (and have effective advertising). But my mother used to say “You can't have your cake, and eat it too”. Too many shop owners want the economy and lack of effort that comes with “cookie cutter” marketing, but want the better results of personalized (custom) advertisements. Sorry. Just doesn't work that way. And shops should be glad advertising is not easy. Huh? If it was everyone would do it and there would be no advantage for businesses who do make the effort. So what can shops do? They need to clearly differentiate themselves by telling the story of who and what they are – basically what makes them special. Humans are story tellers. It is a deep emotional need. We use stories to judge and make decisions. This is one of the reasons why online reviews are so powerful. They are little stories that fit together and build a picture of who you are, what you do, how you act, and, most importantly, how you will likely act in the future. That is trust building in action. There is no way good marketing can be produced without intimate knowledge of how a business operates. Either the management is actively involved in the creative process of marketing, or they have to pay someone to learn about your company (a slow, very expensive process) and then do the necessary ad creative work. And any marketing company that says they can create marketing materials with just a 15 minute phone conversation is just using boiler plate advertising where they simply change the name, address, and phone number. And the results speak for themselves... What separates you from the shop down the block is your story (differentiate). Only the shop owner/manager can tell that story in a way that NEW customers will believe. And trust is the number one deciding factor in whether or not a prospect becomes a paying customer. Ads drive people to your website, you tell your story on your website, and your story is supported and verified by other people's stories in online reviews about you. At that point they will pick up the phone and call you with a much greater confidence in your shop (trust in what you say you will do). Your correct again. Advertising IS an expense IF it doesn't work. Marketing must attract PROFITABLE customers or it is an outright waste that sucks up your profit. There is an old joke that only 50% of advertising works. The trouble is you don't know which half to quit doing... Getting advertising to work is not easy. The number of variables of what and where to do it are huge and unique to every business. There is no set fool-proof criteria any business can use or else “everyone” would just do it and there would be no advantage. This comes full circle back to the marketing performance information gap that shop owners suffer from (and paralysis them from doing any advertising) and I intend to help with. If you don't know the who, where, and why for your advertising results you will not have the confidence in spending on advertising. The real problem is WHICH advertising is not working for YOU, and not advertising as a whole. There is a very good reason billions of dollars are spent on advertising every year – get it to work and you have a profitable business. Unless you are very lucky, shotgun advertising without good feedback and evaluation it won't provide adequate ROI to make it worth the effort. Continuing to spend blindly on advertising will only result in eventual business failure. I'll answer this in another reply thread... after I make another cup of coffee...

Thanks for your thoughts Jeff! From what I have seen manual advertising tracking may work for a small, hands-on shop owner who has the time and knowledge to do everything. But manual tracking is not really practical for a busy shop. Usually it starts with good intention but gets forgotten about very quickly. If I am not mistaken Mitchell only tracks what is manually entered through keyboard. Someone must collect the advertising response data from customers, who may not remember which and where they saw your ad, or unwilling to provide info, then they must decide (know) what data to enter or not, and then they have to manually type all this data into Mitchell. Just not practical on a daily basis from what I have seen. To get complete and accurate info you need a system that will automatically collect the data from ANY marketing, store in database, organize and tabulate the data, present it in a usable (understandable) way, and, most importantly, suggest reasons for the numbers and actions to fix it. This is what a marketing performance system can do for you. And a successful measurement system must be simple to use. The major problem with manual tracking is that it just another sink hole of precious time during your busy day. Most employees (shop owners) won't be bothered when they have more pressing needs for their time. Same thing with entering into data a spreadsheet. If the resulting data is not consistent and accurate the results can't be trusted... and the whole tracking process becomes a low priority and quickly forgotten. And don't forget that all that work (employee or owner) has a labor cost which further adds to expense side of income statement. Manual tracking also makes it difficult to identify which ad is working (or not working!). If you have multiple ads on any one distribution platform (e.g. ad mail postcard, newspaper, online ads, etc.) there is no way to accurately identify which ad campaign brought the customer in. Imagine doing multiple Google Adword ads and not being able to see which ads people were clicking on. A guessing game and huge waste of marketingdollars! Sure you could require people to bring in a coupon but many people don't like to do this, or just honestly forget to do so. And response rate falls off quickly when people are forced to clip and bring in coupons. You end up giving them the discount anyways and you never truly know what advertisement brought them in. Also, you have to pay your employees to collect, verify, document which coupon is connected to a specific new customer and then tabulate all this data. When people are lined up to get their car at closing time all that extra work often gets forgotten about... and the data collected is then inaccurate and not worth the overall effort. The most serious problem with manual tracking is that once all this data is collected most shop owners don't know what it means. Just like your financial income statement/balance sheet if you don't know what the resulting numbers mean the report ends up stuffed in a filing cabinet and you are back to flying by the seat of your pants. That is when uncertainty causes most small business people to become fearful of wasting money on advertising. Just like a financial accountant, a marketing performance analysis will tell you what is working, what is not working, and what should be done to correct or improve your advertising results. Then you can test: change the ad, check the results, and repeat until it works. This is the only way to truly know what advertising works and get maximum return on your marketing spend. This is what shifts marketing from an “expense” to the profit maker it should be.

So true. Too many shops want to focus on "what" they do and "tools/skills" they have (too much a technician and not enough businessman). Average vehicle owner doesn't know about, or care about, that stuff. Shop owners need to think like a customer: I have a problem, how are you going to help me (what benefit do you offer me); You are an auto repair shop so you should have tools and skills to fix them (duh!). I want to know about people who work there and how you treat people. Studies have shown that consumers are more concerned with accountability than friendliness of service provider... (trust factor). They will put up with a lot IF they get value and feeling of trust; I don't trust you no matter what YOU say. Are your claims supported by what OTHER people say about you (online, public reviews)? If your reviews are seen as biased (moderated or controlled by business owner) you loose credibility. This is why open Google reviews are more often seen as more trustworthy than Yelp, Demandforce, etc reviews. Tell YOUR story, show your personal side, and then back it up with public verification (reviews). Competitors can't replicate YOU and how you act. This is your strongest way to differentiate your business from the other guys. Make sure it is focal point of your website and all marketing.

This post is a follow up on “Can Anyone Truly Measure Advertising” post started by Joe Marconi, October 23, 2007 I am working on a marketing tool and looking for some feedback. Basically seeking suggestions and a “want” list for a tool that measures and shows what advertising actually works (and how to squeeze maximum return from your marketing dollars). Your feedback or thoughts much appreciated. One of the most difficult parts of any marketing is finding out what advertisement works. There is an old joke that only 50% of advertising works – the tough part is figuring out WHICH 50% is working... and then stop doing the stuff that doesn't work! There is an endless variety of marketing options but finding what works in your local area and for your individual business is a big challenge. If you are spending on marketing without measuring the results (shotgun approach) you ARE wasting a LOT of money (and risk being discouraged from essential marketing). While measuring marketing success is not impossible, it can be a huge sink hole of your time and money. The fear of wasting marketing dollars, and the cost of finding what works, are the biggest reason small business owners are reluctant to spend on advertising. I have been thinking about building an easy to use online service that will clearly answer the 50% question (along with providing two other big benefits). The way I envision this solution is there are three things it needs to do for you: provide quick and accurate measurement of a specific advertisement's effectiveness (response and source); provide no-cost or “free” marketing by enabling people to share your offer with all their friends (amplify ad reach); automatically build a mailing list for direct, targeting re-marketing to people who have shown interest in your services. Why Bother? There is a need. Yes, there are numerous marketing systems available now (Dukky, Hubspot, Salesforce, Infusionsoft, etc.) but they are aimed at high-end of market and require a huge investment of effort and $$$. These services are not interested in the little guy (small business). I feel there is a need for a simple to use tool that provides key information and marketing assistance in a way that doesn't require a PhD to understand, or selling your soul to afford. Simple to setup campaigns. Data presented in easy to visualize graphical dashboard. Your Thoughts? What I would appreciate from you is some feedback. Specifically I am looking for comments on what information or features you would like in a marketing tool? P.S. This is not a pipe dream... I have 35+ years as an auto repair tech, shop owner, technical educator, web developer, and online marketing professional. I understand the auto repair industry, marketing, and web development. A unique combination of skills and experience that not too many people have. So please don't think your comments will be a waste of time... ;-)

An old thread but worth while adding some information that might help someone. Manual tracking is very error prone and inaccurate. Customers forget where they noticed you and employees forget to ask when busy. Try to automate as much as possible to get the best data. One way to track new internet customers is with phone tracking numbers. They are very reasonable for the extremely accurate data they provide. Use a different local number for each website or online ad people can contact you from. Only caution is to not use a hard (text number) tracking number on your main website. The tracking number should be in an image that hides your actual phone number in text. This way 'people' see and dial the tracking number and search engines only "see" your true phone number which matches your NAP (business name, address, and phone) and citation for SEO. You should also use a unique email address on your main website Contact Us form. This way you can count number of emails enquires your website generates. Do not place this email visibly on your website or use it anywhere else. This way every time you get an email at this address you know it came from your website. You can also do the same for your website appointment form and estimate request form. Basically every method people have of contacting from the internet should have a unique source number or email so you can track what is working and what is not. Website analytics only tells you about traffic and website use patterns. This is good for SEO purposes but does not tell you what is making the phone ring or where customers are coming from (what advertizing is working). Hope this helps, Doug