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Owner Loyalty: Get In The Game
Posted on Feb 14, 2012 - 09:16 PM
Every time I turn around I am offered a Rewards Card. Everywhere I go – the grocery, the pharmacy, the car wash, the sporting goods store, the hotel, the airlines, the coffee shop and even the hardware store – everywhere. I bet you get the same offers to join rewards clubs that I do – so it makes me wonder – why is it that car dealers are so slow to catch up and get into this obviously important game of customer retention. I mean, independent repair shops and auto parts stores have even jumped in the game– and if that isn’t enough to make us jump, how about the fact that we have always had a retention problem and we know it – so we really should have been the front runners on this stuff– but we weren’t and we aren’t.
So, today it seems that almost every other business gets it. Except for car dealers, they all understand the need to keep their customers away from the competition and they know that they have to do something more than just be nice to get the job done. If you want to really grow their business you have to deliver awesome customer service, give customers what they want and invest in a loyalty club of some kind designed to give customers extra reasons to never go anywhere else.
Why loyalty clubs? If you do any research into loyalty clubs (and I have) you will quickly see why they have become so popular. In every single case, people that join a company’s club visit more often, spend more per visit and are much less likely to defect to the competition – in other words they are just more loyal because they have a special, personal connection with the store – they feel appreciated, feel like they get special treatment and they get rewarded in some way.
So here are the hard questions that will hopefully make you think about your future for a minute. What are you doing to keep up or to move ahead of other businesses? What are you doing to give your customers real reasons to only do business with you? What are you doing to fight the competition? Do you have a simple loyalty club like everyone else does and are you willing to invest a little to get a lot in the future?
Often times when I talk to dealers about rewards they say that they don’t want to invest anything to entice new car buyers back in their store because they don’t make any money on them during the first couple of years anyway – so it just doesn’t make sense to spend much if anything. They say – now get this – that they don’t make any money until year 3 or 4 – so why spend money now trying to get them in. My response is almost always kind of a smirk followed with, “Here is a news flash, Dorothy – you can’t get customers to visit a 2nd, 3rd or 4th time – if you don’t get them in the 1st time.”
Hey, I know you don’t make a lot during the first few years – but you are getting them to come to your store instead of somewhere else – and that has to be worth something! And every time they visit your store, they might need another car, or they might refer a friend that needs a car or service or they might just decide to buy some additional services when you suggest them – you never know. But if they are at some other store – you don’t even have a chance, right?
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