It’s more important now than ever to keep your loyal customers returning to your shop. Keeping current customers coming back is much easier and costs significantly less than acquiring new customers.
By choosing the right marketing channels, you can scale these efforts and get a great return, but it is critical to utilize the best strategy and tools for your auto repair shop. If you’re unsure what you should be looking for in a marketing software for your shop, here’s what to look for:
It Must Be Tailored to Automotive Repair
There are plenty of marketing platforms and services out there, but most are not specifically focused on the automotive repair industry and are lacking key features to make your shop’s marketing efforts successful. To see the best results it’s critical to select a platform built for the industry with a team to help you that understands your business.
How BayIQ Can Help
BayIQ’s marketing and loyalty rewards platform was build by industry professionals who know exactly what features you need to increase car count and average repair order. BayIQ is focused solely on the automotive industry to provide features including:
- Declined service reminders
- Scheduled maintenance reminders based on manufacturer recommendations
- Rewards program based on dollars spent, but excluding low-margin line items depending on your shop’s settings
- Integrated with your point-of-sale shop management system
It Must Assist in Cultivating Reviews
While paid ads and a social media presence is important, reviews are vital to any shop. In fact, 9 out of 10 customers believe that online reviews are as reliable as personal recommendations. That’s why incorporating an online review system in your marketing plan can really make the difference.
How BayIQ Can Help
While it might seem difficult to get more reviews, BayIQ makes it easy by automating the process. Their online review feature improves your shop’s online reputation and engages your customers by doing the following:
- Automatically sends review invitations to customers after service
- Syncs reviews with Facebook and Google
- Notifies your shop of new reviews
- Includes a dashboard to easily view and respond to all of your reviews
It Must Offer a Built-In Loyalty Program
Efforts toward customer retention are crucial for the continued success of any business, whatever the size. In fact, it’s 5 to 25 times more costly to find new customers than to keep existing ones. That’s why loyalty programs are an excellent strategy for the health of your auto repair shop. Loyalty rewards programs help incentivize customers to return to your shop, increasing your visit frequency and average repair order.
How BayIQ Can Help
BayIQ’s marketing software includes a built-in loyalty rewards program that will transform your customer retention with the following features:
- Customers earn rewards points for dollars spent in your shop
- Increase return visits by offering special bonuses and promotions
- Stay top-of-mind with targeted messages and reminders
- Provide customers with an online portal to track points and service history
It Must Have Text and Email Outreach
Text and email marketing is one of the most effective ways to directly reach your customers. With SMS open rates at 98% and the average email marketing ROI at 122%, these channels are a no brainer as they almost guarantee your message will be received.
How BayIQ Can Help
BayIQ can automate your email and text message marketing depending on your shop’s settings. Targeted email blasts help compliment the automatic service reminders and promotions updates your customers already receive when your shop uses BayIQ. Customers can determine their preferred method of outreach- text message or email and can change this any time. Different types of emails and text messages can be turned on or off depending on what is best for your shop. Some of these examples include:
- Transaction receipts with rewards points balances
- Declined service reminders after a shop-defined amount of time
- Scheduled maintenance and service reminders
- Monthly updates and promotions
- Search and build lists for a custom email blast
