How To Sell More Tires

How To Dominate The Tire Business At Your Dealership

Tires are the gateway to brake service, maintenance, and trust. Once you lose your customers to the aftermarket, they’re pretty much gone for good, no matter how much you spend on your “lost soul” campaigns. There’s a reason they left, and they’re not coming back.

75% of maintenance customers serviced their cars where tires are sold.

78%?of maintenance customers buy tires from the first person that recommends a tire purchase.

70% of OUR customers don’t even think we are in the repair business.

Let those numbers sink in…

To take back the tire business from the aftermarket, you not only need to think like the aftermarket, but you need to do it better, because when your customers need to buy tires, your dealership is not the first place that pops into their mind.

Time is the most valuable commodity that no one has enough of and is the only thing that can’t be replaced.

Follow these steps to dominate the tire business in your market:

Call the top five tire retailers in your area and ask them the following questions:

-?If I wanted to check my alignment, do you have one of those machines that checks it without having to put the car on the lift, by just driving over it?

-?If not, what do you charge to check my alignment, and how long does that take?

-?If I needed an alignment, what would that cost?

-?How long will I be at your shop to have this check/work performed?

This will establish the baseline for what you need to overcome. Remember, it’s not the money, but what’s in it for them (time).

Customers will spend more money for a better experience and with the person that has respect for their time.

In my research, I found that none of the local tire retailers had a drive over alignment checker, and my minimum commitment to time was in excess of one hour. The rest was a total unknown. One store even told me: “no we don’t have one of those (machines), dealerships typically have those”.

It takes you minutes to do this at your dealership and show your customers that you care about their safety first and respect their time. Share with them how long this would take at an aftermarket shop, what it would cost them, and how much time they would have to spend there for what you just did for them for free along with the education on tires.

Take action:

-?Check every car’s alignment and tire condition.

-?Present every customer a color printout and education on tires, alignment, and how tire tread depth affects their safety.

This video will change the conversation from how much, to how soon.

-?Create an OP Code in your DMS for when your customer should be due for tires, assuming they don’t need them now (TiresJan23, TiresFeb23, TiresMar23 etc), and include that on their RO. This will start building your database for future tire business. You will be able to run the OP Code query every month (or time of your choosing), to pull up who’s due for tires.

-?Let your customers know you care about their safety and that you will contact them closer to when they need tires. This is a conversation you need to have with them from the very first interaction, and every interaction thereafter. 30K miles later when they need tires, they’ll be expecting this call and will be happy that you cared enough about their safety to keep an eye on this.

-?Proactively use this data to reach out to your customers when it’s relevant via phone, text, email and social media. Dentists do this brilliantly, so it shouldn’t have to be like “pulling teeth” at your store (pun intended).

-?Build an online community for your dealership and leverage your current customers to deliver that messaging. People will travel many miles for something they don’t need, imagine how far they would travel for something they do!

-?Build out the service page on your website to include educational videos and materials that relate to all the services you perform at your dealership, and what’s in it for them. That tells them that you are in the repair business!

-?Have a walk-through video on what consumers can expect when they come into your dealership for service and why YOU are the number one choice to come to for service and maintenance on their vehicle.

-?Include this in all your customer communications and messaging.

Data shows that a consumer who completes their service cycle at your dealership is 5X more likely to purchase their next car from you, even if the one they’re servicing with you now, was purchased at another dealership.

Follow the simple steps outlined above, and you will dominate the tire business in your market at your dealership!

Want to learn more on how to improve the customer experience and retention at your store, call or direct message me through the platform in which you are viewing this article or video. I have over four decades of experience in Automotive including fixed, variable and operations training.