Your Online Brand Equity Matters

In today’s digital age, with millions of people receiving their information from social media sites, the perception of your brand online is a significant asset to your business. It is how the majority of your customers will come to find and create an image of you. Consumers seek to engage with businesses more actively – seeking a conversation rather than being told what to buy.

In the Harvard Business Review article “How to Build a Brand on the Web? Ask Unilever” by John Deighton and Leora Kornfeild, they discuss how Dove added $1.2 billion to its brand value over three years by understanding how to handle their online reputation. “The locus of control in the marketplace shifts from marketer to consumer, and success is built on a model of co-created meaning.” Clearly, a business’s online brand can paint a picture of a customer’s attitude of how to create a better image.

So how can you monitor your online brand in the auto repair industry? Simple. Reputation Manager is a set of tools that specifically helps you find, analyze, and understand what people are saying about your brand online. With text analytics, web surveys, and a metrics dashboard, Reputation Manager is your resource to help you keep on top of what people are saying about your business so that you can have the important conversations that really matter.

Once you have a grasp of your online brand reputation, own the perception! Start with consistency of your offline and online brand. Once the two are connected, any moves you make will take impact across the spectrum of your customer base. For example, $183 billion – or 34% – of Apple’s overall $623 billion value is ascribed to the intangible contribution of “brand” to its valuation. By taking the time to align online brand with offline brand, a business quickly takes advantage of opportunities arising from either realm leading to growth and sustained profitability.

Email Marketing: Turn Scanning Into Reading

Believe it or not, people still read marketing emails these days – they-just-read'em-a-lot-faster. More like ‘scanning’ than reading. They look for the highlights, the TEXT that stands out (even by putting text in parenthesis). There you go – three examples for you just in the previous sentence. 

Okay, enough with the gimmicks. The point is that if you’re writing an email message to your customers or prospects, always consider that the reader is scanning your message, not ‘reading it’ – at first. 

If you’re able to get your key points across to the scanner in a clean, crisp way, they’re more inclined to read the rest of what’s in your email. Which is exactly what you want them to do.

So, for your scanning pleasure, here’s a few gold doubloons pulled from our treasure chest of best practices in email marketing:

1. Put your offer or most important point in the email subject line. And again in the first paragraph.
2. Break up the copy for easy scanning. Keep paragraphs short – 2 or 3 sentences at most. 
3. Use bullet points, numbered lists, dashes to break up the text into easy scanning bits.
4. Go easy on making copy bold, in italic or use of exclamation points – less is more effective.
5. Spell-check-spell-check-psell-check. It matters! This is a reflection of your shop’s professionalism.  And I meant to do that.
6. Always have a ‘Call to Action’ somewhere in your email, even if it’s simply ‘Give us a call with any questions’. Make this stand out, so the scanner knows what you want them to do!

Here’s my Call to Action for you, dear scanner:  Step back and take a quick scan of this blog.  Pretty easy on the eyes, isn’t it?  There are a lot more tips in this white paper. 


 

Help Change the Future of our Industry

One of the issues plaguing the repair industry today is the fact that the average age within the industry is 40 years old, and younger generations just aren’t entering the industry in great enough numbers to balance it out.

With that in mind, the Collision Repair Education Foundation (CREF) has been working hard this year to put together an initiative to get more graduating collision students into the industry. As such, they have decided that any industry business that makes a tax-deductible donation to CREF by December 31, 2013 and joins the Industry Leadership Circle, will have the opportunity to work with CREF to have their entry-level employment opportunities distributed to CREF’s national database of collision school programs.

As such, if you’re looking for a great way to get your current and upcoming employment opportunities out to a national database, and ensure you’re getting quality, qualified applicants, make sure to take advantage of this unique opportunity. It’s a great way to not only help support schools and students across the country, but it’s a great way to find the employees you’re looking for.

If you’re interested in joining the Collision Repair Education Foundation’s Industry Leadership Circle donor recognition program, contact Director of Development, Brandon Eckenrode at 847-463-5244. Industry businesses can learn more information about the organization and make a donation online by visiting www.CollisionEducationFoundation.org.

Customer loyalty and your bottom line

Everybody wants loyal customers.  Repeat business, peer recommendations and glowing online reviews are just a few ways happy, loyal customers can have a positive effect on your bottom line. Few businesses can maintain long-term success by consistently underwhelming their customers with subpar experience or service. You need to get them to ‘happy’, so that loyalty will follow.

Okay, so how do you inspire loyalty with your customer base?  And how do you even measure and monitor what customers are saying about their experience with your shop?

There’s three little words that, while not very romantic sounding for your loved ones, will go a long way in gauging customer loyalty:  the ‘Net Promoter Score’ (NPS).

The Net Promoter Score was developed by Fred Reichheld of Bain & Company.  It’s based on a single question:  “How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or family member?”

Using a 0-10 scale on customer surveys, customers are identified as Promoters (9 and 10), Passives (7 and 8), or Detractors (0 to 6). The score is calculated by subtracting the negative responses (detractors) from the positive ones (promoters).  The higher your shops’ NPS score, the more “promoters” you have. 

Can you increase customer loyalty?

A few years back our group did an analysis of AutocheX phone survey respondents.  We identified four drivers of customer loyalty in the collision repair sector:

1. Being kept informed
2. On-time delivery
3. Shop service
4. Shop quality 

Our analysis revealed that ‘being kept informed’ had the largest correlation to whether or not a customer was willing to refer the shop to a friend or family member.  This very simple, incredibly valuable concept can often be overlooked in the repair process.  Customers who felt they were kept informed throughout the repair had Net Promoter Scores dramatically higher than those who were not kept informed (79.6 percent vs. -14.8 percent).  So if you’re looking for a simple solution to flip this problem into a benefit for your shop, keeping customers informed is your key to building loyal customers and turning them into your shop’s brand promoters.

This research, coupled with feedback from our shop customers, led us to develop our new product: Reputation Manager.  Reputation Manager is a suite of products that provides users the tools to manage their online brand, gain business insight from customer survey data and keep customers informed during a repair via email or text messages.

At Mitchell we take customer satisfaction seriously.  When you have a spare moment, take a look at Reputation Manager’s tools to monitor and benchmark customer satisfaction through traditional surveying as well as social media mining.  

Attend Trade Shows? Why?

Exhibitions and trade shows – maybe they’re not as popular as they once were, but the shows that are still thriving give customers the opportunity to interact with companies they buy from.  Attending trade shows is all about visibility – to give face-to-face feedback with your vendors, build relationships, chat with competitors, and discover the latest and greatest of what is being offered in the industry.

So why do you go to trade shows?  To see the latest and greatest? Check in on current products? See what the competition is up to?  Network with peers?  Most likely it’s combination of all of these.
 
As a marketing professional, I’ve attended entertainment, furniture, real estate, automotive, you-name-it industry trade shows.  Each has their unique flair.  Regardless of the industry, my all-time favorite activity is seeing so many new products.  I mean, how fun is it to say you were able to see a movie trailer before anyone else? Or see an aftermarket part in a store months after you first tested it at a trade show?

At Mitchell we understand the excitement in seeing new up-and-coming products.  We’ve worked hard this year to put together a lineup of our latest and greatest products that will help enhance your business.  To see a preview (kind of like seeing that new movie trailer before anyone else), here’s what we’ll be featuring this week at NACE:

1. RepairCenter ToolStore – Add-ons from industry partners for Parts, Paint, and Rental that will help make your shop more efficient.
2. Reputation Manager – Conduct customer satisfaction surveys via web and phone, and monitor social media to keep up-to-date on your shop's reputation – so you can draw in more business from great online referrals.
3. RepairCenter Hub – Bring all of your communication and collaboration needs into one location for faster turnarounds, more understanding, and less waiting.
4. Mitchell Estimating – The system you’ve relied on for years, one that continues to meet the needs of your estimating requirements.
5. Mitchell Tablet Solutions – This is truly our latest and greatest estimating system that is fully housed within a tablet. We’ll even have a damaged door that you can write an instant estimate on!

So while trade shows are not as vast and popular as they once were, the products themselves keep on improving, progressing and impressing.  If you get a chance, take a tour of what we’re offering at this year’s main trade show event.  We hope to see you at NACE!

Do You Know What People Are Saying About You?

This blog article has been written by Brian Doyle, product manager for RepairCenter Reputation Manager.

As the internet continues to evolve, so has the way information and opinions are shared. Social media has gone from a buzzword to a widespread form of influential communication.  As consumers pay more and more attention to what others are saying online, opportunities are created for businesses to market their brand, but new risks also appear. Social media and online communities are new channels which businesses need to monitor closely and frequently to protect their brand. This begs the question: are businesses going online to create false buzz or reviews to either bolster their reputation or deflate the competition’s?

In a recent blog article in Harvard Business Review, the interesting dynamic of online reputation management is addressed. The two experts interviewed for this article were Michael Luca, Professor at Harvard Business School, and Georgios Zervas, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Boston University of School of Management. Together, their findings show that businesses are likely to post fake reviews when they are new in their business cycle, face intense competition, or have had a recent surge of bad reviews.

So why would auto body shops even care about online reviews? Previous research in this field has revealed that an increase of just a single star on a review site can lead to more than a 5% increase in sales. This is a huge economic incentive for independent businesses to actively manage their online reputation, or at the very least, monitor it for any negative reviews or comments.

Here at Mitchell, we are continuously evolving our products to provide our clients with new ways to keep track of what people are saying about their business online. For example, we recently released Reputation Manager, which is a suite of products that provides users the tools to manage their online brand, gain business insight from customer survey data and keep customers informed during a repair.

Social media monitoring is important for every kind of business out there, including auto body repair shops, and the tools to help you monitor are out there. Make sure you do your research to see what works best for you, and what can help you increase your business potential.

Tips to improve your Mitchell Estimating Performance

This blog article has been written by Ken Clapp, Mitchell’s product manager for Mitchell Estimating.

I’m confident most of you reading this blog have at one time or another installed Mitchell Estimating in your repair shop. Did you know that when we install Mitchell Estimating for you, there are a few things we specifically look for that ultimately improve the performance of Mitchell Estimating on your computer?

To make sure you all know what these key items are, I have listed them below so that all of you can perform a few simple system checks that will significantly improve your Mitchell Estimating performance.

1. For network installs, add the mapped drive to the local intranet list in Internet Explorer, enabling you to avoid the security warning every time you launch Mitchell Estimating.
2. Make sure all PCs are using a gigabit Ethernet connection and are configured properly.
3. Run the basic PC performance checks (CPU speed, RAM, disk free space, and fragmentation). Disk defrag is important on Windows XP machines because it does not run automatically, and if you hard drive is fragmented; it will slow down your computer if not run frequently. If you are using a Windows 7 computer, Defrag is set to run automatically and is not a concern. If you’re not sure how to defrag your computer, instructions can be found here.
4. Check your anti-virus instructions and ensure the following exclusions are in place (both the folder and file). In addition, make sure any modifications are acceptable with your security policies before modifying your anti-virus settings.

a.       For Windows XP or Windows 2003 Server:  (not intended as a complete list)

M:\Mitchell;

C:\Mitchell;

C:\Windows\mitchell.ini;

C:\Program Files\Mitchell;

C:\Windows\System32\Spool

b.      For Windows 7 Professional or Windows 2008 Server: (not intended as a complete list)

M:\Mitchell;

C:\Mitchell;

C:\ProgramData\Mitchell;

C:\Program Files (x86)\Mitchell;

C:\Windows\System32\Spool 

(M: = mapped drive for multi-user versions of UltraMate.)

c.       Please also add the following file extension exclusions for UltraMate:

k00; k01; k02; k03; k04; k05; k06; k07; k08; k09; k10; k11; k12; k13; k14; k15; k16; key; dat; dbd; d00; d01; d02; d03; d04; d05; d06; d07; d08; d09; d10; d11; d12; d13; d14; d15; d16

We’re constantly working on improving your experience with Mitchell Estimating, and are always looking for ways to make your job easier. I hope that these simple tips can enhance your current performance, and please keep checking back for more tips.

Reduce Your Paint Cycle Time!

This blog article comes to you from Mitchell’s product manager for RepairCenter ToolStore, James Ho.

In the collision repair industry, cycle time is a leading key performance indicator (KPI) for both body shops and insurance carriers. Though there isn’t a standard measure of cycle time, most people consider “keys to keys” (customer drop-off to return of vehicle) as the definition of a cycle. Reducing cycle time on a job has many obvious benefits: insurance companies want to control their rental car and loss of use expense, while shops want to get jobs done as quickly as possible so they can work on more cars and have satisfied customers. 

Many factors contribute to the cycle time on a job and a successful shop is able to tackle most, if not all of these factors. One of the most important and time consuming parts of a collision repair is the paint process. This is the step where the shop will paint new parts and repaint fixed parts going back onto the damaged vehicle. In some cases, the entire vehicle is brought into the paint booth for a repaint! The paint process consumes a significant amount time, and it is also where shops have the flexibility to manage the process to maximize efficiency and reduce cycle time.

One major inefficiency that many shops experience in the painting process is getting the vehicle’s information to determine the right color and quantity of paint to mix. Traditionally, the painter would need to search in the shop’s management system for the specific repair order, dig through to find the vehicle’s color, and how many panels are being painted. The painter would then have to manually input this information into their Paint Mixer and then track the job cost back into their management system. In any given week, this could waste 5+ hours of a painter’s time which could have otherwise been spent on actually painting. 

Mitchell has worked with each of the major paint providers to develop custom paint interface add-ons that integrate Mitchell’s shop management software RepairCenter™ with all the paint mixers. Shops using RepairCenter save their painters a lot of hassle and wasted time by seamlessly connecting the shop’s Paint Mixer to RepairCenter and allowing job information to flow between the two systems. Painters can automatically pull in vehicle information into their paint mixer without leaving the paint booth and push job cost data back into their RepairCenter. This connection removes the need to manually transfer information between the two systems and allows painters to focus on what they do best: painting.

These paint interfaces require little or no investment as most of them are free. They do require for the shop to be using RepairCenter, of course. Over the course of a year, the time savings from having an efficient paint workflow could mean more jobs completed and more revenue…and who doesn’t like that?

Is your shop prepared to repair hybrid and electric vehicles?

This blog article comes to you from Mitchell’s product manager for RepairCenter TechAdvisor, Sharon Wong.

It is no surprise that over the past few years, there has been a surge of sales for hybrid and electric vehicles. The “going green” movement has caused these gas-efficient vehicles to become increasingly popular, with models such as the Toyota Prius, Ford Fusion, and Tesla Model S being great examples of prominent vehicles that happen to be hybrids. 

According to Green Car Congress, the Toyota Prius was the top-selling model in California in the first half of 2013, as well as being part of the Top 10 best-selling vehicles in the nation. Additionally, according to the Los Angeles Times, through the first quarter of this year, sales of hybrids rose 19% over the same period a year ago.

 

There is no doubt that advancing hybrid technologies will continue to occur, and that the number of hybrid vehicles will continue to grow at an exponential rate. More hybrid vehicles on the road also equates to  more potential accidents and repairs, so being prepared and educated on these types of repairs is crucial to maintaining and increasing revenue for your shop. 

While hybrid and electric vehicles provide many benefits to the car owner such as increased gas mileage, the new technologies in these vehicles make repairs more complex. In many circumstances, your technicians may not have come across these types of vehicles before. There are numerous rules of conduct and protective measures that must be followed in order to prevent injury or harm to the technician. 

According to Al Thomas, department head of Collision Repair at Pennsylvania College of Technology, high voltage batteries (300 volts or more) can kill a technician who has not disarmed the high voltage system properly. Furthermore, regenerative breaking systems can produce enough electricity to injure the technician pushing the disabled vehicle around the shop. 

The most fail-proof way to ensure that your technicians are following the proper repair procedures is to invest in a standardized repair information database. Mitchell’s RepairCenter TechAdvisor has a wide range of coverage for current hybrid models, and provides step-by-step procedures in dealing with repairs. The Mitchell Electric/Hybrid Safety Quick Reference Guide also provides real-life pictures accompanied with numbered techniques and caution notes in order to make repairs as simple and efficient as possible for technicians. 

Don’t be fearful of electric and hybrid vehicles. Invest in this information to ensure that you are following the proper guidelines to do them yourself, keeping repairs in-house while increasing revenue for your shop.