We’ve been in the auto industry for some time now and one of the general rules of business is that your shop won’t succeed without customer referrals. The most successful shops have nailed the customer referral process and as a result see a significant increase in revenue and a decrease in marketing spend.
Just like a car needs clean oil to keep it running smoothly, and for a long time, your auto shop needs to be actively working to generate more customers to keep your business healthy.
So why are customer referrals so powerful? Well, what's better than YOU telling people how great you are? Your CUSTOMERS telling others for you!
If you’re a person (which we’re assuming you all are if you’re reading this…) you know that when a friend or family member refers you somewhere or recommends a product or service, you typically check that option out first or even select it without question.
The same applies to your business and referrals. People trust a referral from their friends or family when it comes to choosing the best auto shop. Word-of-mouth marketing is incredibly powerful since customers rely heavily on the recommendations and reviews of others before choosing where to take their vehicles. It’s true. Check out these stats from Bright Local:
- 97% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses in 2017, with 12% looking for a loyal business online every day
- 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
- Positive reviews make 73% of consumers trust a local business more
- Consumers read an average of reviews before trusting a business
Do you have a customer referral program in place? Here are 2 quick tips to significantly boost word-of-mouth marketing to get more customer referrals stat:
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Make them love your shop. Always focus on creating the ultimate customer experience to get that stellar customer referral that turns into another, and another, and another…
How do you do it? Provide exceptional customer experiences that make you stand out from your competitors. Always provide honest, transparent repair work and be friendly and helpful and patient. When you better your relationships with existing customers you increase overall customer loyalty which can better those chances of a solid customer referral for your shop. -
Ask for a customer referral! Never feel shy or hesitate to ask for a customer referral from your happy customers, especially from those long-time loyal customers. There’s no shame in trying to actively grow your business through your existing network. If they’ve been trusting you for their regular auto maintenance or repairs, chances are that they’re already singing your praises.
Pro Tip: Make this step even easier by providing them with a few business cards or referral cards.
Want to take your customer referral game to the next level? A top-notch automated customer referral program with BAYiQ can not only increase customer referrals, it can eliminate a ton of the work and headache that goes into getting those referrals.
Stepping Up Your Customer Referral Game with BAYiQ
We’ve made the customer referral easy for you with BAYiQ’s Customer Referral Program! Our referral program is easy to set up, completely automated and integrates with most point-of-sale softwares
This feature is offered within the BAYiQ platform, and gives your customers multiple ways to express their appreciation for your service while allowing you to reward your customers for their help. All that is needed to activate the program is for the reward to be set inside the Rewards Platform. Once this is done, the customer has the ability to email a referral link to their friends and family as well as create a post on Twitter and Facebook.
See the screenshot below for a peek at this feature within our platform.
The referrals are tracked all the way from the email being sent to the signup for the rewards program and into the transaction. If a referred customer completes the signup and a transaction in the store then the referrer will receive the referral reward.
For a more detailed explanation of this feature, schedule a demo here!