In the last article on this subject, I discussed how some of the outside influences on your business can hinder you. I also pointed out that it is not always bad management that is bringing you down.
However, there could be some internal changes that can be made to also improve the viability of your location. It is a point that I have to make that you should already know: Your customer is changing. What we used to see in loyalty from certain generations is being eclipsed by the newer drivers—and what you will find is that the way that you used to do things is not what is going to drive them to you.
I have kids in two of the newer generation subsets. One of these kids is about to be driving, so I can quiz him on cars. Guess what? He does not know much of anything now. He will learn soon, because his first job will be in one of my locations learning all about them. When many of us started out (yes, I am aging myself), we knew how to pump gas, check fluid levels, understand what lights on the dashboards mean, and—amazingly—how to change a tire. This is not likely to be the case with the newer generations.
These drivers are instant gratification drivers with shorter attention spans. These are not my words but are taken from other generalizations in comparable stories. They play video games, have high-speed internet, and anything they want to know can be found with their thumbs on a tiny handheld phone. (Admit it, your 6-year-old can whiz through them faster than you!) So, how do we attract them to our locations?
Remember the above characterizations—they can have anything in an instant. Where some drivers cared about the extra touches like vacuuming, air fresheners, and more, these newer drivers are all about speed and multipurpose. They believe that they have a hundred things to do and are losing daylight if they must sit around for a 30-minute service.
So, speed of service is key. Can you do it faster than your competitors? The current model for Take 5 and Valvoline is this stay in the car service. They do not offer the full array of services that an Express or a Jiffy Lube would (though they are starting to offer the stay-in-the-car service), so it does have its pluses and minuses. Do you have the team in place to provide such a service? Do your procedures even allow you this option? Look at how you are currently operating and tweak it. Can I do this in a slightly different order and drop my time by five minutes? Or can I give options for services that you used to do automatically for that customer on the go? One example would be to set up an express service lane that boils down to just the basic oil change.
So, we know we must be fast. However, remember that these customers are experts in multitasking. This is where you are at the advantage Express and Jiffy Lube! They want to go to one place and get everything done at one time. They are on the go, and making multiple stops to take care of maintenance is not on their list of priorities. For you to take advantage of this, look at offering a few services.
It may be an upfront cost for machines, but being able to offer tire services is a huge thing. This is especially true if you are also in a state inspection state, as that is almost always an automatic sale, but it is not that advanced that you need to go. If you are not offering fluid exchanges or batteries, these could be add-ons that help you generate a few more dollars a day.
Implementing new services or speed may come with a little adjustment for your teams and your long-time customers, but there are benefits for them as well. You would be offering a quicker service and more options than you did in the past.
You will generate a lot of word-of-mouth advertising when these customers remark on this with others: “Hey, I thought you were going to be an hour getting work done.”
How many times has someone heard that? It would be great to hear someone say, “Oh man, they are so much faster than they used to be. You should go check them out now!” In. Out. On their way!
