Why you need to run your garage to suit the “connected customer”

CarVue's Alex Knight reveals how garage owners can manage their business out of hours

Why you need to run your garage to suit the “connected customer”
Image: Bigstock.

The demands of running a modern workshop finds many garage owners working way beyond the confines of the traditional 9-5 hours of business, juggling many balls to keep their workshops busy, profitable and retaining happy customers.

It’s a fact that today’s service customer will want to contact you out of hours.

For many busy motorists, the evening is the time when they sort out affairs with their cars, researching and buying, and from any device.

A Google survey found that 70 per cent of shoppers were proactively researching servicing and parts on their mobile phones while at home.

Today’s service customer calls the shots; they’re more demanding than ever and use the internet to rapidly research, browse and buy goods for all areas of their busy lives, including their car servicing needs.

Again according to Google research, 73 per cent of drivers they surveyed are starting their journey by researching online and going on to book car repair work either online or offline, with 79 per cent of those making a purchase within one week of research.

Convenience

While the internet has shrunk the world, the consumer increasingly values convenience to fit into their busy lives, meaning the local community and businesses around them stand to profit.

Give customers a way of communicating for booking out of hours, and they will use it.

And even better, if you can engage with them out of hours they may well end up going with you because you’ve responded so fast.

All you need is a laptop, tablet or mobile and you could be engaging with your customers’ emails, tweets and more from the comfort of your sofa.

Workshop diary

Even better, with today’s cloud applications running in your web browser, you can have your workshop diary right in front of you.

You can capture new contact information, check availability, work required and parts and book in a customer simply in minutes.

Best of all, the information is stored securely for you to access again so you have it all in front of you when you speak to the customer again, not stored in a note book, on a post-it, scrap of paper or hard to find spreadsheet.

For further information about CarVue, click ‘more details’ below.

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