Digitally Minded Customers Drive Demand for Quick Lube Discounts

Today’s customer is a digital one—and for those who don’t have a designated quick lube provider, it’s especially important to have an online presence that gets your foot in the door first. With the online landscape evolving and growing, shops are always experimenting with innovative ways to achieve just that.

Oilstop, which operates over 30 locations across the West Coast, has identified a major area where customers are beginning—and ending—their search for oil change providers: online coupon services like Groupon.

Jeff Lee, director of marketing at Oilstop, shared insight into why Groupon has been beneficial for the company, and why a presence in the online coupon landscape is a growing advantage for quick lubes.

Discounting With Intent

One of the biggest benefits of Groupon has been the fact it’s where many customers will begin their search for a new quick lube provider. The company has been seeing an increasing number of clients who come in who have found the brand through Groupon deals.

“If you look at keyword usage, instead of typing in ‘oil change near me,’ we're seeing more of ‘Groupon oil change,’ or ‘oil change coupon,’” explains Lee. “And it speaks to a shift in the marketplace—becoming more discount driven.”

With that said, Oilstop is careful in deciding where to activate discounts, identifying areas where they can still achieve an adequate return while also providing the customer premium service. Rather than simply trying to drive down prices, the company closely observes data—such as what kind of activations a coupon receives and how it affects the company’s net ticket overall—and reacts promptly.

This is something any shop dabbling in coupon offers should be careful of. With prices so visible, it can be easy to participate in a race to the lowest number. If left unchecked, it can quickly turn into unhealthy discounting and marketing tactics.

“We like to compete there when it's the right move. But as soon as that discount becomes too steep, or outside where we like to operate, I think we have to be willing to say this isn't the right opportunity this time,” says Lee.

A Group Effort

Collaboration is part of the relationship between businesses like Oilstop and Groupon. Representatives with Groupon provide market and competitive insight, such as where certain offers might be more appealing, what a competitor might be running in a certain region, what oil changes are going for, and other customer demographic data. While Oilstop retains control over what coupons it puts out and how they’re marketed, Groupon is involved to help support businesses using its platform.

“We do like to work closely with Groupon. They're there to help us, but we're steering the ship in terms of the wording that goes with each offer, the percentage that we set, all that comes from our team,” says Lee. 

Groupon also enforces parameters for user redemption—that is, ensuring there are limits on how many times a coupon can be redeemed within a set timeframe. However, with Groupon taking a commission, and potentially including its own independent discounts, it is essential to lay out concrete plans for any potential discount with Groupon before moving forward.

Best Practices for Handling Discounts

As with any new feature being rolled out at a business, it’s been crucial to keep the staff at each of Oilstop’s stores in the loop on how coupons should be handled, especially as their involvement is a key part of ensuring the coupon service works as intended. 

While managers can focus on the data side of things, having employees on the same page will help provide an on-the-ground customer experience view, as they’re able to observe real customer behavior around discount program. If employees notice something going wrong, such as a customer trying to use an invalid coupon, they can share that info with their managers, and that helps better inform the business’ coupon system.

It’s no coincidence that one action sticks out among every factor that goes into online coupons: planning. Customers gained from Groupon are more likely to be price-conscious. So, before a business takes on discounting strategies, there should be a plan for how to draw that customer in from being a one-time coupon user to becoming a loyal, returning client. 

In addition to planning on how to convert customers, there should also be room within the business for potential associated ticket growth. Employees should be ready to handle these changes, and equipped with what they need to handle a whole new pool of customers.

“We have to be very specific with how we roll out the program to source and how the team can support it, because there's a lot of a lot of work that needs to be done on their side in order to make sure that transaction happens as expected,” adds Lee.