“Tyre hotel” boosts sales and customer retention for Nottingham independent

Reader email: how garage owners, Simon Coxon and Debra Hargreaves adopted a European concept to drive sales

“Tyre hotel” boosts sales and customer retention for Nottingham independent
The "tyre hotel" at Your Tyres and Auto Care.

Simon has worked with tyres for most of his career with national workshop brands but, after being made redundant, he decided to open up Your Tyres and Autocare in 2008, his business partner Debra Hargreaves writes.

Together we have more than 50 years’ experience in this trade and we’ve always been a big believers in winter tyres.

Simon was given the opportunity to visit the Vredestein factory in Amsterdam, where he was able to see how the tyres are made and he even got to test drive vehicles in all weathers, on all tyres.

Needless to say he became an even stronger believer in winter tyres and it was on his return that we decided to open our tyre hotel.

Admittedly, we stole the idea from Europe where some countries have a legal requirement for cars to be fitted with winter tyres from October 31 until March 30.

Out-of-season tyre storage

Back here, our tyre hotel means the majority of our customers can store out-of-season tyres at our garage.

There are those that drive all year round on winter tyres but, we’d always advise that during very hot weather the stopping distance is much longer and that’s where the hotel comes in.

It’s basically a storage unit out the back of the garage, kitted out with tyre racking.

Stored tyres are logged with the customer’s name and registration.

Storage itself is free-of-charge because, for us, it ensures customer retention – we just charge for the tyre change.

Our customers think it’s a great idea because it solves a problem for them as they don’t have to find somewhere to store a second set of tyres.

It’s boosted sales and provided us with a captive customer base.

Why don’t more independents open a tyre hotel?

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