Bringing back lost customers ?

My customer's get a follow up email ~3 days after they are in.  4 months later they start receiving email reminders.  They will continue to receive them every 2 months for 3 years unless they come in or tell me to stop.  Having said that, this yields very little return.  There was a post on this site a while back that talked about how studies showed that reminders in the automotive repair business are not effective anymore.  This has been my experience as well.  We do get a few responses but not many.  At times I send out several hundred and it is not uncommon to get no response.  

The one thing I do not do with my reminders that might make them more effective is to offer a discount, incentive, or something of value.  I have always tried to get customers to see us as professional just like their doctors, dentist, lawyer, and accountant.  None of mine send me coupons, so it seems counterproductive for us to so.  I don't like the discounting game, don't want to be in the race to the bottom, and don't want to attract the discount shoppers.  I will continue to send out the reminders because there is no cost involved, it keeps us in contact with customers and on their minds, and it does yield an appointment from time to time,  But I would never see it as an effective way to recover lost customers.

Scott  

1 hour ago, ScottSpec said:

My customer's get a follow up email ~3 days after they are in.  4 months later they start receiving email reminders.  They will continue to receive them every 2 months for 3 years unless they come in or tell me to stop.  Having said that, this yields very little return.  There was a post on this site a while back that talked about how studies showed that reminders in the automotive repair business are not effective anymore.  This has been my experience as well.  We do get a few responses but not many.  At times I send out several hundred and it is not uncommon to get no response.  

The one thing I do not do with my reminders that might make them more effective is to offer a discount, incentive, or something of value.  I have always tried to get customers to see us as professional just like their doctors, dentist, lawyer, and accountant.  None of mine send me coupons, so it seems counterproductive for us to so.  I don't like the discounting game, don't want to be in the race to the bottom, and don't want to attract the discount shoppers.  I will continue to send out the reminders because there is no cost involved, it keeps us in contact with customers and on their minds, and it does yield an appointment from time to time,  But I would never see it as an effective way to recover lost customers.

Scott  

 

      

I like your view of the discounts and I agree. I sent out an email blast to every single customer for a steeply discounted oil change to get people into my new location. I got several appointment within a few hours but the ones that came were interested only in the oil change which is a loss for us.

We try to think why we haven't seen someone in a while. What did we do wrong? If they deserved firing I forget about them. If they fired me I'll call and try and make things ok. Mostly I try to be more subtle. We are in a small town. if joe smith comes in every 3 months for something and it's been 4 months I'll usually ask someone who knows him about him. Oh hi Mrs. Anderson how's mr smith doing. That's usually enough to get him outta the Walmart quick lane and onto my lift. 

1 hour ago, alfredauto said:

We try to think why we haven't seen someone in a while. What did we do wrong? If they deserved firing I forget about them. If they fired me I'll call and try and make things ok. Mostly I try to be more subtle. We are in a small town. if joe smith comes in every 3 months for something and it's been 4 months I'll usually ask someone who knows him about him. Oh hi Mrs. Anderson how's mr smith doing. That's usually enough to get him outta the Walmart quick lane and onto my lift. 

Nice! That is one thing we havne't done well at: calling customers that we havent seen. I think customers will appreciate a phone call every once in a while. Either that or be extremely annoyed lol. hopefully its the former

The only benefit I can think of resulting from being old is I still use the telephone. It's hard to delete without opening and forget when there's a real human. 🤓