The way that consumers research, locate and engage with tire dealerships has changed significantly in recent years. In the past, business owners and managers would buy newspaper and radio ads, put up a billboard, get listed in the Yellow Pages, and wait for customers to call or show up to their shop.

As you know, the process today is much more detached. While traditional advertising and marketing are important to create awareness, they are no longer the primary sources consumers turn to when deciding which shop to choose. Online search is now king. Today’s consumers typically search for tire dealers near them, read reviews, maybe look at your website, and then call or message you directly based on what they find listed online.

The option for customers to message businesses directly is a new addition. Google recognized that more and more customers would prefer to message a business as opposed to placing a call. In fact, 90 percent of consumers want to use messaging to interact with a business – with 50% preferring to message via SMS text.

The challenge is that only 48% of businesses are capable of messaging with their customers. There are a number of reasons that businesses cite for not wanting to implement a messaging strategy with their customers including:

• Too time consuming

• Resource intensive

• Cost prohibitive

In the past, those concerns might have been valid, but that is no longer the case. In fact, messaging with your customers can actually save you time and money rather than eating up resources. Businesses using messaging tools have been able to see a 15% reduction in inbound call volume, while increasing their net promotor scores for customer satisfaction by 26%.

Setting Up Click to Message

Because business text messaging is an effective communication strategy for 2018, let’s step through the process of setting up a business with Google’s Click-to-Message feature.

Step 1: Log into your Google “My Business” page.

Step 2: Select “Messaging” in the left-side menu and add the phone number that would be used to reach your shop via text.

Step 3: Verify the number using the confirmation code sent from Google.

Step 4: Check to confirm via your Google listing that your customers can now communicate with your shop via message.

When to Message Your Customers

Because texting with your customers is such a new phenomenon, it might be difficult to know when you should text message with your customers. Customers typically will reach out to you via text message when they are experiencing what Google refers to as a “micro-moment.” A micro-moment is that moment in time during the customer journey when a person wants to know something, wants to go somewhere, or wants to buy something. It is a moment of activity based on need, curiosity or impulse.

Many times, consumers won’t want to make a call when they are having these micro-moments because calls are often seen as time-consuming and inconvenient. Businesses that give consumers the option to message the business instead will likely see an uptick in potential customers.

Other times when consumers want to engage your business via text include:

Answering Simple Questions: A lot of times customers just want to know something simple, like what your hours are or whether or not you perform a specific type of service. Having the ability to answer those questions via text will make life easier for not only your customers but your employees as well.

Making Appointments: Today’s consumers want it to be simple and easy to engage with a business. That includes making appointments. Being able to make an appointment and send appointment reminders via text adds to the convenience of working with your shop.

Confirming Repairs and Services: Being able to shoot your customer a text and a photo about a recommended repair can speed efficiency and communication with them. Often it’s easier for them to respond to a text – especially in the middle of their busy day – than it might be to break away to return a phone call to discuss.

Resolving Problems: Unfortunately, not every interaction with your customers is going to go as smoothly as you would like. Giving customers the option to reach out to report issues via text will help you significantly improve your response time and help you prevent small problems from becoming larger.

Tips for Interacting with Customers via Text

Now that your shop is all set up to take incoming texts and you are familiar with instances where customers want to text you, let’s review some tips that will help you successfully interact with your customers.

Be Responsive

Oftentimes, when consumers are conducting an online search on their mobile device, they want their questions answered immediately. If your online presence isn’t able to quickly answer their questions, they will probably move on to your competition.

One of the main reasons that online searchers want to connect with you via text is they feel like it is a faster, more efficient method of communication, but that’s only true if the business is placing an emphasis on quick response times.

To ensure this happens, shop owners and managers should make sure their team is well equipped to offer quick responses to customers. If you don’t consistently respond to messages in a timely manner, customers will know because over time Google will post typical response times on your listing.

Avoid Asking for Sensitive Information via Text

This might seem obvious, but it’s worth repeating. Businesses should never ask for sensitive information like credit cards, banking information or other sensitive details over text. While text messages seem secure, the information isn’t encrypted so the data could be vulnerable.

Do Ask for Customer Feedback

Another valuable way to utilize text messaging in your customer interactions is asking for feedback. A lot of times customers don’t want to take the time to fill out a lengthy customer satisfaction survey, but they would be willing to answer a few questions via text. That is because asking questions via text comes across as more personal and less intrusive.

One way to approach this is by asking your customers after a transaction, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely would you be to recommend us to a family or friend.” And then follow up with one or two questions about the service your business delivered. Our research has shown that approaching customer feedback this way results in significantly higher response rates than traditional customer satisfaction surveys.

Invite Reviews

Text messaging is also a good method for collecting public-facing customer feedback on your Google My Business listing. One of the biggest reasons to use text messaging to do this is many people are already signed into their Google account on their smartphone, so it’s much easier to connect them directly to your Google reviews page.

Add Your Business as a Contact

Texting with your customers will help you build stronger relationships and a more loyal customer base. To help you reinforce that loyalty, try texting them a vCard with your contact information on it. If customers have access to your phone number in their contacts, it removes one of the steps in finding you the next time they need tires or vehicle service, helping you evolve from being “just a shop” to being their shop. 

Jon Eyre is director of content with Podium. Podium helps businesses manage customer interactions by powering more online reviews, multi-location local listing management, online review reporting, messaging, customer sentiment and more. Learn more at www.podium.com.