... who reads this article, who happens to own an iPhone and/or Android phone to visit the phone's respective app market
You Can’t Hit What You Can’t See Ken Hite, Vice President at ClearMechanic As the saying goes in baseball, “You Can’t Hit What You Can’t See.” Is it any different when it comes to selling service and parts? All too many times, service facilities simply want to place a call to their customers, inform them of additional service recommendations and attempt to “verbally sell” repairs. And yet, 40% to 60% of the time, the customer declines the repair recommendation. Why? The consumer has a difficult time understanding what’s verbally being conveyed over the phone. We are visual beasts and, as visual beasts, we want see what we are going to eat. Please review the following Yelp review of a well-regarded Chevrolet dealership in the Bay Area. You will see that a single service advisor can undermine the entire service department’s reputation – and lose thousands of dollars of sales – in a just a few minutes. Yelp Review, Chevrolet dealership service center, 6/2/12 (dealership name removed)
This is a classic example of ineffective “verbal selling,” where an advisor asserts the existence of a leak but offers no validation or proof. The skeptical customer questions the advisor about the leak and eventually declines the sale. The customer then attempts to visually inspect the vehicle himself and cannot find evidence. We have no idea how sophisticated or technically savvy this car owner is, but that is beside the point. The car owner should never have been put in the position of doing the service advisor’s job. Think of the financial consequences of this service center’s decision not to capture real-time photos or videos of leaks and other vehicle defects: 1) The service center lost at least one steering rack job, and probably two (the son likely declined his steering rack job as well). That is hundreds of dollars in lost revenue. 2) The customer will likely never return to this Chevrolet dealership service department. That is thousands of dollars in lost revenue. 3) Finally, the customer posted a negative review on the most visited review site in the United States, damaging the dealer’s reputation in front of the general public. It’s plausible that dozens of other car owners will think twice about visiting this service center and, if they do visit, will hesitate before saying “yes” to additional service recommendations. It is stunning but true: investing 20 seconds to take a photo or video could have saved the service center thousands of dollars. I want everyone who reads this article, who happens to own an iPhone and/or Android phone to visit the phone’s respective app market and download “clearmechanic.” Once you’ve downloaded the ClearMechanic mobile app, you’ll be able to take real time photos and videos of additional service recommendations. You can even take this a step further and send the photos and videos directly to the consumer’s email and SMS. You can also post the content back to your web site. It looks like this: http://www.bmw24service.com/page/custom/en/Live_Repair_Orders. It’s so easy to sell additional service recommendations when you can see the repair recommendation, and the best part is that our entry-level package costs $95 per month. No set up fees and a month-to-month contract. Are you ready to swing for the fences?
