Car Count Daily
Hi shop owners. Thank you very much for joining me on this edition of Car Count Daily. My name is Ron Ipach, but you can call me Captain Car Count, because that’s all I’ve done for the past 20 years, is help thousands of auto repair shop owners, just like you, to get and then keep all the top-quality customers their shops can handle.
Stay In Contact With Auto Repair Prospective Customers
You’ve probably heard me mention on previous episodes how I come up with ideas for these Car Count Daily videos. Essentially, it’s part of my real life. I observe, I talk with people, I have experiences that I draw on. I look at them in marketing eyes. I’m a marketing maniac, so I look at everything through marketing. Today’s no exception.
Let me roll back the clock a few weeks ago. We just recently moved into some brand new offices here. I wanted to get brand new office furniture, new start, new office, new office furniture, so looking at probably plunking down five figures, six figures for, not six figures, wow, that’d be crazy, five figures for some new office furniture.
I stopped in the local office supply furniture place. When I walked in there, this young lady greeted me. She was actually eating lunch at the time, so she put away her lunch to come work with me. She spent about an hour with me, and she was very informative. She did a great job in showing me what I needed to consider, and all these different price ranges of furniture. At the end of this entire hour, I was thrilled with the information she gave me, great gal, and she was very knowledgeable. At the very end, she handed me a brochure, and she handed me her business card, and she said, “Bye-bye.”
She did not get my information. She got my name. She knew my name was Ron and that’s all. She didn’t get the name of my company, she didn’t get my address, she didn’t get my phone number, no contact information whatsoever. A potential $10,000-plus purchase, and she didn’t bother to get my contact information. Look, I’m a hot prospect. I’m going to be spending money in the very, very near future, so she should’ve got my information. She should’ve gotten information so she could stay in contact with me, so when I was ready to purchase, I was going to purchase through her. She knows nothing about me now. I can buy anywhere, and she’s never going to be able to control the purchase. Yes, she did a great job. And yes, I might go back and visit her, but that’s a might.
But if she stayed in contact with me and said, “Hey, Ron, we got a special coming up,” or “We’ve got a Memorial Day, or Fourth of July, or Labor Day special, or something coming up,” or maybe, “We just received in this reconditioned furniture that might be good for you,” that’s a way to get me back into her store to make the purchase. But nope, she didn’t get any information from me.
How does this apply to you? Every day, the phone is ringing, and ringing, and ringing in your shop. I certainly hope so. When that phone rings, never ever let somebody get off the phone without getting their contact information. People don’t call our repair shops just for the heck of it. They have a problem they need a solution for. They have a question. They’ve got something that they need that’s going to require your expertise or your actual service.
Capture their contact information. Then you can go and reach out to them. If you don’t get the appointment today, at least you have some information that you can contact them tomorrow, or the next day, or the week after, or send them an email, or send them a text. Stay in contact with even the prospective people, because they came to you for one reason or another, and it wasn’t just because they were bored out of their mind. I don’t know anybody that would go and call auto repair shops just for the hell of it. They are a prospective customer, and unless you gather their contact information so you can contact them later, you’ve lost the opportunity to make a sale.
When that phone rings, before you hang up, make sure you get their contact information, and get it into your database, because they’re not working with an auto repair shop now. That’s the reason why they called you. Whether you get this sale, at least you get a chance to get the next sale. Gather all the contact information whenever you can.
Stephen Powell says
Great Job, good Point, Contact info ! , ask for the sale !
Stephen Powell
Ron Ipach says
Simple, huh?