A Clinging Reminder
(Continued)
“Transparency disappears,” he said, “and in this industry, you don’t want to disappear.”
In addition to bright colors, the name and address of his shop, and the standard three-month/3,000-mile interval recommendation, Oil Change Express uses something that competitors may not have thought about. Lee said a barcode that can be scanned upon a customer’s arrival makes everyone’s job easier.
“(Without it) you have to start from scratch,” he said, adding that many customers don’t remember their license plate numbers. With a barcode system, customers don’t have to remember anything and employees don’t have to waste time inputting information that can be scanned in a matter of seconds.
Dan Gleisner with Super-Lube in Waunakee, Wisconsin, has a different opinion on static stickers. He uses them mainly as a type of advertising.
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"Yeah they work, because (customers) yell if you don't put them on."
Matt Gaffey
Z Best Fast Lube |
“Well, the main reason is to have my name in their window,” Gleisner said. “Customers don’t go by the date and mileage anymore. Ninety percent of customers will just look in the window to see where they last went to get their oil changed.”
He said the stickers’ primary purpose at his shop is to let customers see that they went to him last and will hopefully return for their next oil change. He doesn’t think the stickers serve their purpose as a reminder, but they do a good job of getting customers in the door and into the shop.
While the stickers used at Gleisner’s shop still have the standard three-month/3,000-mile intervals handwritten on them, the name of the company occupies about 60 percent of the space on the sticker.
Gleisner said his competitors also use a sticker reminder system, but he’s still seeing about a 60 percent customer return rate, something he considers high since his shop just moved to a new location about a year ago.
They may be low-tech (at least the ones not printed with bar codes), but according to the operators with whom we spoke static stickers still do a good job at reminding customers to come back to their shops. And when it comes to customer returns, do what works best for your shop. As the old adage goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
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