Our Business Torque article this month is from Mat Wylie where he highlights the importance of building your business’s reputation both online and off – well worth a read.
It set me to thinking around a number of recent personal experiences dealing with businesses within the vehicle repair sector.
I had cause to visit three different businesses over a few weeks for work on my car and the experiences were vastly different. Whilst there was nothing inherently wrong with any of them it does show how some small touches can change the customer’s perception.
Now maybe it’s a bit of an unfair comparison as one was a reasonably sized franchise dealership who deal with two brands – Kia and Suzuki. I had to visit the dealership twice – first for a diagnosis and second for the repair. For the diagnosis I chose to wait as it was only about an hour. They had a very comfortable waiting area including a desk area if you wanted to work plus free wi-fi, both of which I used. The reception was efficient and after the diagnosis the service manager came and got me, took me to a table and explained very well and without any mansplaining the results and next steps (I was pretty sure I knew the problem as it had happened previously.) They then called a few days later when the part arrived and booked the vehicle in – offering a loan car before I even asked. Both times the car was booked for specific times during the day – not “drop it off at 9am and we will call when ready”. All very efficient and painless.
The next encounter was replacing a pair of tyres, quotes obtained from a couple of calls and car booked in at a large tyre franchise. Facilities were definitely not as good – a couple of chairs, no Wi-Fi so difficult to work and any customer interactions seemed mainly designed to upsell rather than inform – nothing really wrong but at the same time it did not leave a great impression.
The third was a visit to VTNZ for a WOF and to renew my drivers licence – neither of which are pleasant experiences usually, however the staff were very friendly and professional and the wait not too long (one advantage of having escaped Auckland!) so a better than expected result.
So three rather different experiences – how would your customers perceive their visit to your business?
