It’s Your Business
- Subject: Winning and keeping customers’ confidence
- Essential Reading: Shop Owner, Center Manager
- Author: Terry Greenhut, Transmission Digest Business Editor
The way we sound, look and act along with the way we keep our shops goes a long way toward gaining or losing the trust of our customers. If we present a clean and professional image our customers will be more comfortable and believe that they are going to get a better job, often lowering their resistance to price, making it easier to get the amount we really need.
In a time when all businesses are struggling for survival and competitors are lowering prices in a misguided effort to compete, every bit of professionalism you can show will help you maintain your pricing structure despite their tactics. Show that you care. Take the time to listen and explain. Keep yourself and the shop presentable, but don’t go so far over the top as to make customers think the place is too ritzy for them.
A great example is the high-end European dealership where I had leased a new car some years ago. After I brought it in for its first service I was scared to bring it for any more. The shop was too antiseptic, for one thing. It was too white, too bright, and it smelled like a hospital. I didn’t want to sit on any of the white leather chairs in the waiting area, thinking that maybe I wasn’t good enough to be there and that I might get the furniture dirty.
The service adviser who greeted me was one of the most-intimidating people I had ever met, even more so than my drill sergeant in basic training. He wore a heavily starched white shirt with a dark-blue necktie and a gray blazer with the manufacturer’s logo emblazoned on the breast pocket. You could cut yourself on the creases of his pants, and his shoes were shined to a mirror finish. He had a thick accent with a voice that gave commands instead of asking questions or offering explanations. He seemed to enjoy threatening customers with the loss of their factory warranties if they did not go along with his service recommendations.
“You will allow me to service your transmission or you will lose your warranty!” Very comforting; it really made me want to run right into the showroom and order another car for my wife.
Although the dealership went through all the right preliminary motions like installing floor mats, seat covers and steering-wheel covers, and even though it had all the high-tech equipment, I was far less than impressed with its overly regimented way of doing things. I just never felt comfortable. I felt as though I wasn’t supposed to ask any questions – just pull out a credit card at the end to pay for whatever they said I needed.
By the time I left I was pretty sure they had intimidated me into buying services that I still don’t think I needed, but the worst of it was that they never fixed the two warranty items I brought it in for in the first place: a slip on the 1-2 shift and an intermittent miss in the engine. The fact is that they never did fix either problem. I lived with them both ’til the end of the lease, even though I gave them several opportunities to make it right. I eventually gave up as so many customers do, swearing to never again go to a place like that or buy that make or type of vehicle.
To this day I still wonder whose car those worn-to-the-metal brake pads he showed me came from. My car had only 15,000 highway miles on it. Those pads looked as if they had 50,000 New York City miles on them. I couldn’t prove they weren’t mine, so there I was buying a set of way-overpriced brake pads. Funny, though; if the pads were that worn, why didn’t he try to sell me rotors, too? We know, don’t we?
The ideal experience for customers to have is one that gives them the “warm-and-fuzzies,” that feeling that they came to the right place, were treated well and became part of the family. If you truly care about your customers it won’t be hard to follow through, to give them that same great experience each time, and you must.
You are only as good as the last time you dealt with your customer. You are judged on that experience far more than any other. Although you may believe that familiarity makes it all right for you to drop certain formalities – and it might as for how you say a person’s name, whether it was Mr. Johnson at first and now it’s Bob because he told you to call him that – all the other basics and amenities of the service experience have to be at least as good as the time before or customers will start thinking of going elsewhere.
Sweating the small stuff may be more important than the big. It’s one thing to say, “Yeah, we’ll tear out this wall and make the waiting room twice the size, modernize it and make it really comfortable.” It’s another to make sure that it and the bathroom are always clean and that the coffee station is maintained. With one of the worst smells in the world being burnt coffee, which happens whenever a pot is left on too long, it’s great that there are now systems that make individual on-demand cups, in any flavor you want, without any mess at all. Cleanup amounts to no more than wiping off the counter.
What kind of impression do customers get from an overflowing trash basket, a dirty floor or no paper towels or toilet paper in the restroom? Simply, it means that you don’t care enough. One good tactic is when you first open the door in the morning, take a sniff. If it doesn’t smell good, especially if you keep a cat or dog around, some serious cleaning needs to be done.
Customers want to see that you care too much if anything, that you will go out of your way to make sure that they are comfortable with the surroundings and satisfied with the experience, that you will do whatever it takes if that means staying late or coming in early to accommodate them or throwing in a free oil change when you’ve inconvenienced them. They want to know that you care, that you aren’t just another one who wants to take their money.
There should be a visible distinction between you and everyone else, something people can point to or identify with. I saw some great signage on a shop the other day. It was three-dimensional arched lettering over the bay doors indicating the type of work they perform. The letters were in bright yellow and stood out about six inches from the wall. You could see them from a couple of blocks away. If nothing else the signs attracted your eye and led you in.
I’m a firm believer in service advisers wearing a uniform or, at the very least, a collared polo shirt with the company’s logo. A color that doesn’t readily show dirt would be best. The shirt needs to have at least short sleeves. The no-sleeve, tattoo-displaying biker look just doesn’t work for mom and the kiddies in the minivan. It’s not your basic trust builder. Even though that service adviser might be the most-honest, trustworthy fellow, who treats customers like solid gold, many of them will never give him the opportunity to show what he can do for them. They will judge him on the way he’s dressed.
Before customers ever see the service adviser or the shop they hear a voice on the telephone. That voice sets the stage and must evoke enough trust for the caller to believe it’s safe to pay a visit to the shop. It has to sound lively and eager to help. It must be firm in leading the caller to make a service appointment, but kind in its concern for the caller’s situation. It has to sound knowledgeable and inviting. It can’t be short with the caller or start throwing around “take it or leave it” prices based on the caller’s or anyone else’s diagnosis. It has to have the promise in it that if the caller comes in something good might happen.
Getting and keeping a customer’s trust is an ongoing process. You can’t ever let your guard down or get too familiar. Make certain they know you are giving them good value for their money. If they can’t see it on their own, show and tell them. It’s important that they know you are taking the best possible care of them, and always remember: If you can’t get and keep their trust, you can’t expect to get the prices or the repeat business you need.
Terry Greenhut, Transmission Digest Business Editor. Visit www.TerryGreenhut.com.
