Having thousands of Facebook followers is nice, but Trula Womack, director of marketing and brand excellence at Indy Tire Centers Inc. dba Best-One of Indy, says the tire dealership wanted to find a new way to try to turn those followers into customers.
Best-One of Indy has created a VIP group for its Facebook fans. Users can sign up for the group from the business’ Facebook page and when they do, they immediately receive a $25 gift card. Group members are then automatically signed up to receive monthly emails that feature a variety of promotions.
Those emails also offer customers the opportunity to win local prizes. Womack can segment the list into geographic markets and offer tickets to community events based on where the customer lives, so a customer in Lafayette, Ind., sees promotions for activities close to home, and so does a customer in Indianapolis.
“We really just want to be able to engage people in their life outside of just tires,” Womack said.
Another important goal is to turn that somewhat anonymous Facebook follower into a real contact, with an email address or telephone number that can go into the business’ database. Some of those followers might already be Best-One of Indy customers, but others likely aren’t.
“We want to be able to keep getting their attention and then hopefully turning them into an in-store customer,” says Womack.
Once that customer walks in the door, the team at the front counter can check to see if they’re an existing customer in the point-of-sale system.
“As soon as we can get you in the door the first time, we’ll capture your (phone) number, if we don’t already have it, and get your VIN and then you’ll be signed up to get our service reminders,” she says. “We’re trying to keep everyone engaged online to then bring them in the store to be able to keep them (connected) throughout the year (and) engaged with us on different touch points besides just at the counter.”
Plus, Womack says the tire dealership wants “to be more proactive in educating people on what their car needs before they need it,” and before there’s a light on the dashboard.
That might mean sending a text message reminding a customer that his or her vehicle is approaching x-number of miles and due for an oil change.
That same message will include the all-important call to action: “Do you want to schedule that today?”
She’s also trying to use some of the lessons learned on social media to make Best-One of Indy’s emails more successful.
“Our engagement goes up on a post when we are giving away things,” whether it’s gift cards or tickets to watch the local minor league baseball team. So, she wondered, “How can we keep this going?” Now the VIP group will be the only way to access those freebies.
Fan Friday fuels reviews
And while the dealership's social media channels might be designed to engage with customers, Best-One of Indy is also using those platforms to celebrate the good work of its employees.
But that work began internally first. Womack says the company wanted its employees to give their fellow team members shout outs and kudos for a job well done. Every Friday she used the company’s internal messaging platform to showcase a review that mentioned an employee or store. Then she posted that same review to the Best-One of Indy social platforms.
There, the heralded employee’s spouse or another relative usually cheered them on and eventually other customers added their own kudos for that same employee or store in the comments section.
It’s grown into a program Best-One of Indy calls “Fan Friday.”
But it’s also been a catalyst to collecting more reviews. If a customer visits a store today, he or she will receive a text reminder tomorrow saying “We hope you had a wonderful experience. Would you please share your feedback?”
“Fan Friday” began with around 4,000 reviews in the bank.
Womack said Best-One of Indy now has more than 14,000 reviews and an overall Google rating of 4.8 on a five-star scale.
“Our goal of course is five. You know we’re always on the pursuit of perfection. We know we’ll probably never get there, but we’re constantly trying to come up with new ways to bump that number higher and higher.”
