THE CORNERSTONE OF ANY CUSTOMER SATISFACTION STRATEGY IS TO EDUCATE YOUR CUSTOMERS FIRST
When you’re marketing to customers, you’re trying to sell them your products or services. But when you’re educating customers, you’re helping them understand the benefits of your products and services.
Customers can find information anywhere these days, but when it comes from you, you are able to build a relationship from the ground up. As a result, you will increase the customer’s trust and loyalty in your dealership.
Unfortunately, one of the biggest mistakes most dealers make today is failing to educate their stakeholders about the unique advantages of the products and services that are being offered. This leaves customers to explore their own answers and solutions —and one of them might not be yours.
Based on my extensive experience, customer knowledge builds satisfaction. Educated customers are easier to motivate, embrace and keep satisfied. Satisfied customers are more loyal to the dealership because they are fully aware what values and benefits they are getting in exchange of their money.
Education begins at the dealership. We need to know about all of the automotive technological innovations which have changed the landscape of the automobile industry. Those “dreamed-about features” from the past have now become “desired features” for our customers.
In fact, we have countless new safety, comfort, convenient, economical, emissions and infotainment features in today’s new vehicles which are made of high-tech sophisticated parts, material, systems and components.
To understand and embrace such revolutionary innovations, a salesperson must go through continuous updates and upgrade training and coaching.
At Brimell, we enjoy the full support of Toyota University on continued sales and service training programs, such as advanced technical training, and Learn and Drive new product workshop/seminars.
Due to rapid innovations emerging in the automotive industry, most customers are not fully aware of the new safety features in today’s vehicles. And to overcome such challenges and situations we have many programs designed to educate our customers. The most popular of which is Brimell’s VIP One-on-One service.
The service initiates when new customers take the delivery of their vehicle, and we educate them about the vehicle’s new advanced features and technologies. These personalized deliveries can happen at the dealership and even customers’ homes or offices at their convenience.
Most customers come back to learn more by attending a free followup short and concise seminar called “Know Your Toyota,” after testing their vehicles.
VISUAL AND VIRTUAL AUTOMOTIVE AIDS
You probably have heard the old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” In our case, “A Brimell Display Centre is worth a millions words.”
We have created a one-of-a-kind custom hand-crafted touch and feel visual aid or “Product Features Display Centre” in our customer waiting lounge. These three separate display boards are mounted with Toyota new and used parts, such as tires, brakes, filters, sensors and oil samples, along with aftermarket parts for comparative quality and condition study purposes.
Our display is highly appreciated and rated five stars by our customers as the best self-learning visual aid coaching centre, with easy-to-understand explanations of the benefits of preventive maintenance. Such types of customer education helps consumers make informed and wise decisions on why and when parts are due for service or replacement, and to justify the value and return on their investment based on features and benefits of our Toyota products and services.
THE BENEFITS OF EDUCATING YOUR CLIENT
It is becoming a trend for businesses to look for ways to educate their customers about their products and services through e-learning programs. Getting to know what your product does is only one outcome of offering your customers a tailored instructional program through an e-learning platform to educate your existing or potential customers about your new product or service.
At Brimell we have a program called “Virtual Vehicle,” a simplified animations web-based program that allows our customers the ability to learn why a service or repair is necessary or recommended, what customers might be experiencing because of the issue, and how our service technician can fix the problem.
This program is used mainly by our service advisors to educate customers about the technical function of parts, and why our preventive maintenance recommendations are necessary to keep their vehicles on the road worry-free.
Our service advisors also take a short snapshot of defective parts, like worn out brake pads/rotors, send images or videos to a customer’s smartphone for their review, and then get their online approval in real time.
Recently, I had a customer who had the front wheels of his vehicle balanced without knowing how it was done to get the vehicle driving smoothly again.
I reviewed the customer’s service history and found that the vehicle was brought in after hitting a pothole.
We balanced the wheel to rectify the situation. Based on the customer’s level of knowledge, I advised him of the process involved. I broke down the technology so he could relate to it easily.
To illustrate the outcome of a wheel balance, I asked the customer to untie his shoelaces and then try to walk straight without wobbling, but the customer lost balance.
I then explained tires and wheels are just like the shoes of your vehicle. When they are out of balance because of external impact or excessive wear, they cause wobbling.
After balancing the tires with the computerized machine, just like re-tying shoelaces, tires and wheels hold tight and run smoothly to improve the ride and the tires’ useful life. The customer appreciated the simple analogy and understood the need for this service.
MAKING ASSUMPTIONS
Marketing is an essential element of your business success, but there’s a big difference between marketing to your customer and
educating them. Promoting or advertising your OEM’s products does not necessarily mean you are educating your customers.
Today, customers want context. They want to know more about the product as it exists in the real world. They want to know which problems that product will solve, and what experts in the field think of its merits.
A lot of dealerships believe they’re educating their consumers because they’re elaborating upon the features, advantages, and benefits of their products and services. What’s relevant to the customers, however, isn’t what the dealership values about its own product. It’s what the product can do to solve a problem for customers.
When dealerships assume that their customers already have the information they need and are simply making a choice between brands, they shift from a learning-focused mindset to a competitive one. The smart customer will opt to buy from the dealership that has educated them on the issue and presented them with multiple solutions. That dealership’s selflessness has built trust — and its ability to teach them has bought customer loyalty in the future.
All it takes is ongoing communication with customers, focusing on their needs and educating them with valuable solutions. These are the vital ingredients of customer satisfaction.
