How to Ask for Customer Feedback – a Go-To Guide for Auto Shops

Provided and written by BirdEye

 

 

Reviews and surveys are a great way to drive your auto repair shop or auto body shop’s growth (no pun intended). By collecting this customer feedback, you can increase credibility with your customers, get discovered more in search results, and get the information that you need to improve operations. Let’s talk about why customer feedback is so beneficial and how you can get started collecting it.

Why your auto shop should collect customer feedback

There’s a reason why we recommend that auto shops make an effort to collect both reviews and surveys. By themselves, reviews have a few benefits for auto shops. Here are a few.

Increased credibility- Every customer who goes to an auto shop is afraid of one thing: the possibility of getting ripped off. Reviews from satisfied customers help prospects overcome hesitation and show that you always have their best interest in mind.

Local SEO- The more reviews you have, the better your chances of ranking higher in relevant search queries, and the better your chances of getting discovered by potential customers. According to Moz, reviews are the third most important ranking factor for the Google search algorithm. If your business doesn’t have many reviews, it’s going to be very difficult for your shop to rank higher than other local auto repair shops.

Get feedback- Occasionally, you will get some negative reviews. But that isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes, a bad review might alert you to issues in your customer experience and help you improve your operations in the long-term.

But reviews become even more effective when they’re paired with customer surveys. When you notice customers complaining about a certain issue in reviews, you can then use a customer survey to collect more in-depth feedback on the issue. This gives your team the information it needs to make adjustments and deliver a great customer experience (which should lead to happier customers and great reviews in the future).

How to ask for feedback effectively

Not sure how to get started with collecting customer feedback? Here are three steps that you can take.

• Send requests to customers via text/email- Most customers just don’t have the motivation to give feedback in their own time. Between their kids and their jobs, they have a lot of other things on their minds. The trick is to make the process easy for them. Simply send a review or survey request through text and/or email. These requests should link directly to a survey form or a review site like Google and Facebook. That way, all the customer has to do is click a link to leave feedback.
• Keep your message short and sweet- Asking for customer feedback does not need to be overly complicated. Customers don’t want to have to read long messages, so make sure that it’s to-the-point. Say something like “Thanks for visiting (Business Name)! Please take a moment to leave feedback on your visit.”
• Be timely- Customers are more likely to leave reviews and fill out surveys when your shop is still fresh in their minds. We found that auto shops typically see the best results when they send requests to customers on the same day they pick up the car. If too much time passes, there’s a good chance that the customer will no longer have a clear memory of the transaction and may not be willing to leave feedback.

How to deal with negative feedback

Unfortunately, they’re always going to be angry customers in the auto shop business. Some of them might be customers who are upset when their car can’t be repaired. Some of them might just be chronic complainers. Either way, a good response can help you deal with the problem in a constructive way. Here are a few tips for responding to negative feedback.

• Take a deep breath- It’s easy to take negative feedback personally, especially when your team spends so much time trying to delight every customer. But it’s important that an emotional response doesn’t help anybody. Take a deep breath and remember to stay polite.
• Be timely- Aim to respond to negative feedback within a 24-hour period. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to change your customer’s mind about your shop. If too much time passes, you may not be able to change their initial negative impression.
• Address the problem- Get to the root of the problem that the customer mentioned in their feedback. Show you are taking steps to resolve the issue and that your team takes every complaint seriously.
• Recognize that not every situation can be fixed- If you follow the steps above, you will find that many of your angry customers may change their mind about your business. Of course, there will always be a few who are impossible to deal with. Still, if this feedback was posted on a public site like Google and Facebook, just responding will show prospects that you are committed to serving all of your customers.

In conclusion

Collecting feedback is a great way to ensure that your auto shop is getting discovered on search, displaying social proof to customers, and getting the information you need to improve operations. While sending customer surveys and implementing an online reputation management strategy might take some work, it pays real dividends.

 

About BirdEye

BirdEye is the most comprehensive customer experience platform. More than 60,000 businesses

of all sizes use BirdEye every day to be found online through reviews, be chosen by customers with text messaging interactions, and be the best business with survey and insights tools.

For more information, visit www.birdeye.com.