Have you ever had trouble with a product and tried to call customer service? The phone only rings one time and the line is picked up – unfortunately, it’s a robot. It presents a list of options, and none of them quite fit your problem, so you pick a number, and it gives you another menu. None of those fit either, so you press 0 to speak to a customer service representative. After 10 minutes of bad hold music, someone picks up, asks you a few questions, and tells you that you’ve called the wrong department.
What you’ve experienced is a company using technology to solve a problem (more customer calls than they can answer) that can’t be solved with technology. Technology can help solve this problem when used properly, but technology can’t solve the problem by itself.
Many of the big dealership and franchise service centers try to do the same thing. They invest tens of millions of dollars into technology to solve problems. They buy televisions to advertise products in their waiting rooms, but don’t train their service writers on how to sell them. They develop technician training videos but nobody watches them. They use phone trees to reduce the time their employees spend routing calls, but don’t test the system to ensure that customers really get where they need to go.
Unfortunately, in the auto repair business, technology can’t fix much by itself. That’s great for technicians and service writers, because it means their skills will be in demand for some time to come. But if you’re trying to increase your close rate without increasing costs, technology alone isn’t going to fix your problem. And if you’re hoping to reduce service costs without reducing service quality, the same holds true.
The good news is that independent repair shops are perfectly positioned to capitalize on this corporate deficiency. So why give up the advantage? When customers call, don’t let a robot pick up the call – let a human answer it. If you’re advertising anything in your shop, make sure that your customer-facing employees can impress the customer with their knowledge about that product. And if the customer does have a problem with their service, address it with a human touch.
That’s not to say that technology isn’t a part of the equation – we happen to be big fans of lead-generating websites. But while technology is great at helping your shop find new customers, it’s ultimately your customer service that’s going to help close the sale. So if you’ve got employees that believe that human interaction is more important to customer satisfaction than new technology, you can tell them that this technology company agrees with them. In fact, we practice it ourselves; our websites deliver results, but it’s our customer service that separates us from our competitors.
To learn how Repair Shop Websites can bring more business to your shop, call us at 866-665-1605 or email us at Team_RSW@RepairShopWebsites.com.