Mechanic Advisor’s platform was developed four years ago–in those four years, the auto repair industry has rapidly advanced and changed. In order to continue to offer shop owners a best-in-class retention marketing and communication platform, the company has developed and launched Steer.
“We've created a great product,” Parker Swift, Founder and CEO of Mechanic Advisor explains. “But over the last 18 months, we've come up with a lot of services that we wanted to build into the software that requires an updated platform.”
Steer is designed specifically with customer outreach tools in mind, along with an interface that’s easier to navigate and more mobile-friendly, and with many new features to help owners succeed. Steer is launching this June and currently has shops in beta testing.
Mechanic Advisor’s current advanced customer communication options is what originally led Jay Huh, owner of Carmedix in Durham, N.C., to the software. Since then, Huh has seen some of the most successful months of business at his shop.
Boosted Customer Retention
Although it’s sometimes difficult to accurately know which strategies and software have boosted the numbers in your shop, Huh directly attributes a lot of his recent success to Mechanic Advisor’s current platform.
“Mechanic Advisor is the reason why we had a great February this year,” he says. “February was actually our worst month last year – but this year, we doubled what we did last February.” Huh utilizes all of the platform’s features–texts, emails, and postcards in his marketing campaigns –and has found the most success through text campaigns.
“Back in February we did several text campaigns,” he explains. “We sent a $20.22 full synthetic oil change text to customers with $600 ARO. This campaign was highly successful, and one of the reasons behind why we doubled our profit from the prior year.”
He had another successful campaign of giving free oil changes to those active in the military. Huh actually got the lead singer of 3 Doors Down, Brad Arnold, to make a video to announce the promotion, and then sent the video through text.
With email, Huh finds it works best when customers have their own profile page where they can view their past services and recommended repairs.
“Sometimes it just takes a simple email with a link to their profile page to remind them of recommendations from prior visits to bring them back in.” he says.
Immediate Feedback & Efficiency
Another feature that pulled Huh to the Mechanic Advisor platform is the ability to send an email questionnaire to customers directly after their service to inquire about their experience. If the customer selects “great” as a response to their service quality, they will be linked to make a Google review. If the customer has a negative experience, they are also able to write their reasoning directly on the questionnaire.
“The ability for customers to write about their experience is extremely important to us because we get feedback on why they may have had a MECHANIC ADVISOR negative experience, and then we are able to fix it,” Huh explains.
Not only does Mechanic Advisor help Huh bring in more customers, but it also works to actively make processes easier and faster in the shop. Mechanic Advisor directly integrates with Carmedix’s online scheduling, says Huh, and they are able to make an appointment online through the shop’s website using the embedded Mechanic Advisor scheduler widget–which will automatically transfer data and the appointment to their shop management system, Tekmetric.
“Employees love the software, mainly since it saves them so much time with the appointment integration,” he explains. The Carmedix team is also very excited to move to the enhanced Steer platform this summer.
Steer improves the shop’s overall marketing and communication efforts to their customers, especially when incorporated with their partnering digital services through Tekmetric, Advance Professional, CTI+WTI, MotoLogic, and MotoVisuals.
“We interviewed a lot of our shop owners who mentioned that Advance’s high quality level of service and customer care provides a great product,” Swift says. “And I think we align ourselves well with their mission in helping their shops by providing them with the best tools and parts to do their business.”
For more information on the many features of Steer, by Mechanic Advisor, visit steercrm.com.