You can’t rely on only your current customer base to support your auto shop forever. Repeat after me: customer acquisition.
There’s nothing better than a new customer, right? But customer acquisition doesn’t just happen.
As an auto shop owner, customer acquisition should always be your focus. We’re talkin’ laser focus. That’s not to say that customer retention isn’t key, but in order to retain customers, you’ve got to get them in the first place! To say that customer acquisition is valuable to your business’ success is putting it lightly. It’s crucial. Vital. Critical. Your key to grow and prosper. You get the picture. Check out this statistic from The Balance:
“It costs five times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain a current one.”
Because customer acquisition can be so costly, you must approach your strategy with a solid plan in place. Some of the ways to effectively acquire new customers include:
- Targeted and powerful mailers
- Online marketing through social media channels - where you know your audience is!
- Acquiring and sharing reviews of other happy customers - social proof like this can be key to driving new business
The kick a** customer experience
One of the most powerful ways to increase customer acquisition is to focus on more than just the service or product—focus on the entire customer experience. Special things start to happen when you get the customer on your side. Are they greeted appropriately, helped quickly, are their questions addressed, do you follow up with them after their service...you get the picture! There are lots of points of contact, and all of these can create a positive - or negative - experience. If you nail this experience your customers turn into fans, your fans become advocates and from there they willingly spread the good word about your shop, doing more for your auto shop than any magazine ad ever could.
“The easiest and most powerful way to increase customer loyalty is really very simple. Make your customers happy.” ― Kevin Stirtz
It’s simple. To increase customer acquisition, make your customers happy.
The easiest way to grow your customer base is to keep the existing customers and get them to refer. As mentioned, a happy customer is often a referring customer. They will tell friends, family, neighbors - and as a result, you’ll see more customers. Want to keep those customers? The best (and proven) way to keep them coming back is through a loyalty program. Take a good and long hard look at each of your customers and what they want and need. Then, reward them with a loyalty program. A loyalty program reaps some serious benefits for you: you can improve customer retention which will in turn help boost customer acquisition.
The good news is that launching and maintaining a loyalty program doesn’t have to take a village.
How do we know? Because our customers are telling us! We’ve created a platform that works FOR you - auto repair and tire shop owners - and helps eliminate much of the grunt work that typically goes into maintaining a program like this. .
And we don’t just do rewards and loyalty programs for auto and tire shops. BAYiQ is a cloud-based data, marketing, and rewards platform that facilitates the creation of loyal customers for life. BAYiQ offers a powerful, highly scalable, enterprise-level marketing suite that combines all critical marketing functions into one powerful automated platform. We provide first to market real-time promotion management and analytics to Program Marketing Directors, suppliers and manufacturers. And we integrate with the POS systems you’re already using!
That means more time for you to do what you do best while we do what we do best.
Have you wised up?
Times have changed and customers have wised up. They know that they have many choices when it comes to just about any product or service - and they expect nothing but the best experience for this reason. Rewarding them with a loyalty program makes them feel special. Important. A VIP. And who doesn’t like feeling that way? It helps foster strong customer relationships. A loyal customer not only means an increase in sales for you, but will also prove to be a great word of mouth tool in your customer acquisition arsenal.
At the end of the day, we’re all searching for ways to improve the bottom line and improve customer acquisition. By utilizing a loyalty program, you’ll build and strengthen your customer base to keep growing your business!
Get Results That Directly Impact Your Customer Acquisition
Loyalty programs are positively impacting business across all industries, and the BAYiQ results are showing the same for auto and tire shops. Download the Case Study Infographic to see the crazy stats and real results of loyalty programs.
References: https://welcomematservices.com/need-a-strong-customer-acquisition-strategy-here-are-5-things-local-business-owners-do-to-improve-customer-traffic/, https://www.automotiveworld.com/analysis/big-datas-role-customer-acquisition-retention/, https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/31990/7-Customer-Loyalty-Programs-That-Actually-Add-Value.aspx,