Is Your Waiting Room Ready for Winter?
(Continued)
Step 2: Walk the walk — Remember, the thought expressed in the first customer’s verbatim comment. With that thought in mind take a few minutes to check on your facility “messaging” to see if it inspires customer confidence to handle the upcoming winter.
During a check of your facilities, consider the comment of comedian Jerry Seinfeld: “Your home is a garbage processing center where new things are purchased and slowly demoted through various stages of ‘trashification’ until you’re done.”
That process aptly describes what sometimes occurs in fast lube service centers. Equipment, waiting room furniture, customer convenience stations, etc. get slowly demoted through various stages of “trashification” until everything the customer sees communicates the same message: “We’re old, tired and worn out.” When your customer areas communicate that message, it goes without saying that the underlying message about the service you’re providing is not a good one.
That level of “trashification” may go unnoticed by you, but it doesn’t get past customers. So, what can be done to see what your facilities messaging is communicating? That takes us to Step 3…
Step 3: Talk the talk — In order to see what your customer areas are saying to your customers, I challenge you to take a simple test. Invite a female customer, or a few, to spend 10 minutes in the same areas that all of your customers do. Ask them to report on what they see, feel, smell, hear or even taste.
That’s exactly what the service center did who received the customer comments you read earlier. In that case the operator asked a number of female customers to comment on all of those things. Think carefully about your “script.” I suggest keeping it to no more than five open-ended questions that get to the messages you are trying to communicate without “leading the witness.” You’ll probably get into a dialog about some of their answers so that’s why you need to limit your script to five or fewer. Here are a few additional questions that were answered:
Q: Is there anything you notice that speaks about the quality of our work?
A: “I appreciate your professional display of civic and industry awards, AAA and BBB approvals, certification certificates for your staff, and comments from other customers.”
Q: What would you change about the waiting area?
A: “Would you please update the informational DVD you play. It’s been the same one for my last three services, and I can quote from memory the process for flushing and refilling my transmission fluid!”
As you know, customers are willing to tell you what they see and they’ll be honest. Like the comments from this customer, I suspect that in at least a few instances you’ll hear what you’re doing right but you will also likely receive some feedback about how your messaging has reached the “trashification” stage and needs to be replaced or updated. Your willingness to respond to their honesty will pay off in a service center and point of purchase materials that send the messages you want to communicate.
As you listen to their answers make sure you hear your intended messaging being echoed. If the customers aren’t telling you about trust/confidence and winter services it’s time for a few changes.
Ultimately, an organized approach to facility enhancements and point-of purchase marketing opportunities, especially for months when customers are spending more time inside your service center, begins and ends with a specific messaging plan. I suggest that you would be wise to base that plan on the input provided by the most valuable marketing consultants of all, your own customers.
DAN KAUS is workshops brand manager for BP Lubricants USA, Inc. He may be reached at daniel.kaus@bp.com. To learn more about Castrol products and programs in general please call 888.CASTROL or visit: www.castrol.com/installers
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