May 2019

MAY 2019 AFTERMARKET 11 www.aftermarketonline.net shopping, you may think that people have enough experience of buying things online that turn out to be poorly manufactured garbage that is in no way up to the task it has supposedly been designed for. Would you trust a phone case from China that lasted a week with your life? Of course not, by the same token, why would anyone trust a brake pad that came from goodness knows where? Education There a take-away from this situation, and it is this; there is an argument for education here. Teach the customer that allowing you to do your job is the best way forward. The customer is right up to a point, then you take over. Doing this one customer at a time might take a while though. There is an argument for building on the Say NO to customer supplied parts (UK) momentum. Perhaps an industry-wide push to remind the consumer why they should put their trust in professional garages is in order. If you put the various marketing heads across the aftermarket together, they could put something pretty strong together, I am sure. With the proper education, the customers might understand what went on in the workshop, and you would have an easier time of it. They would appreciate the investment that went into the business in terms of having the right equipment and access to the right parts. They might also get their heads around the training and knowledge acquisition that is constantly going on so you can stay ahead and stay in business. Of course, there will always be some who just can’t take it in, and maybe you don’t want them as customers That might be a discussion for another day though. Let’s get back to the issue at hand. Namely, what about the You know what you are capable of. It comes down to having the confidence to believe in what you are doing, and the service you are offering. We know that is why you opened up in the first place. Go back to that impulse and you will be able to free yourself from the tyranny of ‘the customer is always right’ and be able to give them the excellent service you are capable of, and that if they are loyal to you, they deserve. www.aftermarketonline.net sovereignty within your own business? It starts with the marketing. If you present a professional appearance, and operate in a professional fashion, you will hopefully attract the kind of customers who will trust your judgement, and will be willing to cede a little sovereignty over their precious vehicle until you have fixed it for them. Once you have these customers, take back control of the exchange, in the nicest, most professional and positive way possible of course. This means training your front of house staff to deal with customers in the right way. Once they are in, make sure the information gleaned from the customer is helpful, and keep them updated. This means they will be satisfied and will not be thinking they need to take back control back from you. In the end, it is all about making sure you are the one in charge of the exchange. This is where you should always be in this situation. As we said, this is what you are in business for, and why you are good at what you do. There is plenty of training available out there, as we often tell you. Getting front-of-house right is a big thing, and it is worth putting the money into. In the end though, people have had enough of experts. The independent garage sector is a highly competitive market where customer trust is key ”