How Sussessful Are Automotive Collision Repair Shops

New Study Reveals How Consumers Choose an Car Body Store

February 28th, 2022 by

Running an auto trunk repair shop is a very competitive business and the hardest part of marketing a shop is often getting customers to walk through the door to talk with y'all. Why? Because more and more than customers are doing their enquiry online.

Internet and social media have a big impact on how auto body customers choose a store. Hence, we surveyed over 300 customers who got their car repaired inside the last half-dozen months. At Fix Auto United states, we wanted to learn more near how automobile trunk customers brand those decisions. What they practice online when looking for an machine trunk store and why they practice information technology.

Tools and technologies aren't the only things changing in the auto body industry – so are our customers and how they select a shop after they become into an accident. This white paper discusses six of the about significant findings from the survey and how they can help an auto body business organisation abound. We believe that the more we know virtually our customers, the more nosotros can exercise a improve job of meeting their needs.

1. How Customers Notice Your Business

Almost people don't think about auto body repair until they need it. That's why 1 of the biggest marketing challenges with body shops is getting people to think of your business first when the time comes. Our survey indicated three main ways people notice body shops.

Word of mouth.

About half (49%) of the customers nosotros surveyed plant their body store via word of mouth. In other words, a friend, colleague, or someone they trust recommended the store. The key signal here is that people don't recommend a business organization unless they have a great experience with it. If your store isn't getting referrals, information technology could exist worth digging into the overall client experience your shop delivers.

A great client experience starts with quality repair work. But, that'south only one aspect of a client's full experience with your shop. Customers also consider how they were treated past anybody they came in contact with at your concern. Was your staff friendly and personable? Did you answer all their questions in a timely manner that they understood? Was your store clean and professional? Did you complete the repairs when you said you would?

Keep in mind that people are more probable to call up a bad experience than a good one. If something goes wrong, take responsibility for information technology and strive to make information technology right on behalf of your customers. Likewise, take a look at how you measure customer satisfaction. Are you automating feedback methods? Are you paying attending to your Yelp or Google reviews? Are yous doing anything offline? When it comes to marketing, feedback – whether skilful or bad – is the breakfast of champions.

Cyberspace search.

Almost 1 in 5 (21%) of survey participants found their body store through an internet search. This brings up two primal points, starting with the online presence of your trunk store. Where do you evidence up on the major search engines? Co-ordinate to various studies, the commencement position on Google gets well-nigh 33% of available traffic. At least 75% of clicks go to the first folio of search results. If you're non at least on the first page, the odds of people visiting your site aren't adept. Organic (unpaid) search techniques can help improve your search ranking, simply you may want to consider paid ads to go the highest ranking and quicker results.

The 2nd point has to do with trust. If people are searching the cyberspace for an auto body shop they probably don't have a recommendation, or they're performing their own research. This means you need to build trust with them via your spider web site. To build trust, post content that provides real value to site visitors and positions you as an good in your field. Customer-focused content can include blogs, articles, while papers, pictures, and videos. Every piece should include a call to action to motivate readers to contact your shop, but the content should help people feel they tin trust you to provide quality repairs on their car.

Insurer referrals.

18% of survey respondents constitute their body shop through an insurance referral. Insurance companies only recommend shops they know and trust, then if you're not getting many of these referrals, evaluate your relationship with local insurance companies to see how you tin improve them. Are you engaging the insurance community in meaningful conversation? Are you lot responsive to their needs too equally the needs of your vehicle owner customers? Are yous consistently delivering the superlative-quality work that insurance companies are looking for?

two. The Importance of Making a Good Kickoff Impression

Selecting a body shop is an important conclusion, so one might call up that people would consider several different shops before making a decision. Somewhat surprisingly, our survey showed the opposite. 41% of respondents just considered ii trunk shops earlier making a decision, while 31% only considered one. 23% considered three total shops. This reinforces the importance of getting in front of customers right away and how much people trust give-and-take of mouth recommendations.

Our survey results advise that if you don't brand the customer'southward "brusk list," you won't get the business because they're not going to look anywhere else; or at least it's a lot tougher. That's why your business needs to show up loftier in the search engine rankings, have a web site that builds trust, and have a strong social media presence. When you become one of the two or three shops nether consideration, making a strong showtime impression with the customer can frequently make the deviation.

When someone simply considers 1 trunk shop earlier making a decision, chances are they were recommended to the store by a trusted friend – another reason why shops need to focus on giving customers an experience so good they will tell others almost information technology.

3. Why Customers Choose an Automobile Trunk Shop

Customers evaluate many criteria when choosing an motorcar body shop, including location, reviews, pricing, reputation, services offered, and more than. In our survey, 25% identified estimated pricing as the nearly important gene in their decision. This suggests that giving a bad estimating experience will bulldoze one out of 4 potential customers to a competitor.

What causes a bad estimating experience? In many cases, it'south a lack of advice, an indifferent mental attitude, or both. In our survey, nine percent of participants said they didn't receive an estimate of repair costs, while 10% said the store failed to clearly communicate the repair costs. To deliver a satisfactory estimating experience:

Provide a thorough, accurate, and written gauge

• List all repairs that are needed and why
• Welcome customer questions and reply them promptly
• Make sure customers fully empathise the approximate before proceeding with the repairs

The 2nd most frequent decision factor was proximity to the customer (17%). This was followed by reviews and testimonials (15%) and your brand reputation (14%). To motivate customers to choose your business, make information technology piece of cake to detect your shop on your website and unlike platforms such as Google and Yelp. Encourage customers to review your store on Yelp, Facebook, and other review spider web sites. Besides, focus your marketing on the expanse around your shop, especially if you lot are in a large city. If y'all struggle to get client reviews, you may want to consider using a customer interaction service provider.

Finally, make certain your web site is optimized for apply on mobile devices, so people can access it when searching on their phones or tablets.

4. Why Great Reviews Outweigh Proximity

As previously noted, proximity of the shop slightly edged positive reviews and testimonials equally the second almost important decision criterion. However, 62% of respondents also said they would travel further to a unlike torso store if it had great online reviews. This supports the need to have a strong online presence while delivering a great customer experience.

Never underestimate the importance of client service, as it is the foundation for a memorable customer experience. Coach anybody on your staff how to give great service, including your repair technicians. They may non take much interaction with customers, but it only takes one bad interaction to create a negative opinion of your store.

To create a positive experience, treat customers like you lot would want to be treated.

Greet customers with a smile as soon as they come up into your reception area. If you're busy with a client, welcome the new customer and permit them know you lot volition be with them soon.

Answer the telephone within a couple of rings. When you can't, have a pleasant on-concur message and return the phone call as soon as possible.

Communicate from start to finish. Having their car repaired is an inconvenient and stressful procedure for most people. To put a customer's heed at ease, explicate what repairs their vehicle needs and why, how much it will cost, and how long the repairs will take. Talk to customers in a manner that's easy to understand. Use linguistic communication they know while fugitive technical terms when possible.

5. Don't Underestimate the Power of Yelp Reviews

If you call back client reviews are overrated, consider this: 34% of our survey participants said they considered Yelp reviews when deciding on an auto body shop.

We've talked about the importance of positive store reviews and testimonials. This finding points to Yelp as an area of focus.

Place a Yelp badge on your website that tells people how many Yelp reviews you lot have. Badges are available from the Yelp web site and will automatically link to your Yelp folio. Put a "Find u.s. on Yelp" sign in your place of business. You can make your ain using Yelps brand assets or request one by via this form.

Calculation a link to the business listing in your email signature provides a subtle way to encourage Yelp reviews. Be certain to remind people to "Check us out on Yelp." Share your 'People Love Us on Yelp' recipient status. If you receive a Yelp letter of commendation, display it in a prominent place in your shop so customers can easily run across it.

Share your Yelp reviews on Facebook and Twitter to increase the number of people who meet them.  (This requires logging into your Yelp business owner business relationship and clicking the "Reviews" tab.) Yous tin too share Yelp reviews in your marketing materials as long every bit you follow the guidelines:

• Only use Yelp's recommended reviews
• Don't make whatever changes to the review
• Get permission from the review and provide attribution
• Cite Yelp every bit the source using one of their branded logos

It takes some time to manage Yelp reviews, but the payoff can be well worth it.

6. Have a Strong Facebook Profile

Many social media marketing experts recommend building a stiff Yelp profile to concenter customers. For machine body shops, our survey results suggest otherwise.

59% of respondents said they never looked at any of the social media profiles of trunk shops. However, of those who did wait up a profile (4 out of 10), 31% did it on Facebook. Of all the social platforms available today, Facebook is the one where you should have an optimized profile with skilful reviews. Hither'south why:

More than 600 1000000 Facebook users visit business pages every 24-hour interval. Facebook highlights maps and directions at the top of local business pages, making information technology like shooting fish in a barrel for people to find your shop. Search results are more robust and complete than with the major search engines. To ensure your shop is found on Facebook:

• Complete your profile
• Verify that location and contract information is accurate
• Add business organization categories that farther describe your business concern
• Activate the Facebook call-to-click and engagement scheduling buttons

A good Facebook contour can attract local searchers in your area while positioning your shop as a legitimate and trustworthy business.

seven. Getting More Visitors to Your Site

If you're not getting enough hits on your spider web site or social media profile, it may be fourth dimension to rethink your social media marketing strategy. Which platforms are you currently using? How much endeavour are you putting into generating referrals and client reviews? Does your web site provide value to visitors? Do y'all work hard to create a stiff first impression with prospective customers? Are you using local search tools, to augment your SEO standing on the major search engines? Using the correct social media tools with precision and focus can bulldoze more customers to your store and keep your auto torso business healthy and growing.

At that place's one more than marketing tool nosotros oasis't talked most, and that's the advantage of being role of a national network of auto body shops. Fix Auto United states of america Franchise Partners savor a nationally recognized brand supported by a sophisticated marketing and advertising engine, amidst many other benefits Visit our web site to larn more about our exciting franchise opportunities.

Source: https://www.fixautousa.com/blog/new-study-reveals-how-consumers-choose-an-auto-body-shop/

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