I have to give a quick shout out to the folks at Beaverton Auto Body & Paint for going above and beyond on their customer service, and post-sale support marketing.
I recently visited the business to replace the side view mirror on my car after it was knocked off in an accident (someone opened their door as I was passing while driving down a one-way street).
First, let’s get to the customer service – though it may be more related to business model, but the lines are fuzzy. I obtained three quotes for the work. Beaverton Auto had a comparable quote with an auto body and collision repair company whose radio commercials you have no doubt heard. I initially decided to go with that other company because I thought it had a better waiting room area and I would be waiting while the work was being done.
Some quick background: The cost was about $110 for both. I was calling Friday to schedule the work on Monday morning.
The problem arose when the un-named business called me back asking for a deposit to get the work done. This was Friday afternoon. Did I mention the cost and the date for getting the work done? All this requirement did was create an inconvenience for me the customer. I understand asking for a deposit if the work was several hundred or thousands of dollars, or required that they sit on parts for some time before getting to the work.
Instead of calling this business back to provide a deposit, I called Beaverton Auto Body & Paint and quickly had the appointment scheduled.
Lesson for your business – remove unnecessary barriers for the customers.
I went into Beaverton Auto and had the work successfully completed (I was surprised how much I missed that driver’s side view mirror). And that would likely have been the end of my relationship with Beaverton Auto except …
A couple of days later, I received a Thank You card from them. It had a handwritten note inside, “We know you have many choices out there. We sincerely appreciate your business.”
Included in the card was two-inch square card printed on one side with a “Like Us” request on Facebook and on the other side with a “Follow Us” on Twitter. Both sides also included a QR code that when scanned went to those respective pages. It also included the URLs to each page, too.
Lesson for your business – the cost of keeping customers is cheaper than acquiring new customers. The statistics are something like 75 percent of your business revenues likely come from repeat customers or referrals from those customers.
So take the time to send a thank you card, a post on your preferred social media platform, or a phone call and follow up with your customers. Thank them for their business. Ask if anything could be improved. Ask if they need any additional help.
At the same time, ask they will become a fan or follower on your social platforms. And make it easy for them to do so – the QR code was a nice touch. One area Beaverton Auto could have done better is rather than have me follow their Twitter stream (what am I really going to get there?) perhaps they should have sent me to Yelp or some other review site, where I could have written a positive review about my experience.
I also really like how Beaverton Auto blended online and offline marketing. Your online marketing efforts can be brought offline, too. You can easily create cards similar to those from Beaverton Auto. You can add a QR code to your print advertising. In fact, we could create a marketing video about your business, make a QR code for it and then add that code to printed marketing materials. Imagine how cool it would have been if I scanned the code and watched a simple Thank You video from Kim and Jeff Drake, owners of Beaverton Auto Body & Paint.