How To Win Back Inactive Customers Without Discount Coupons

Most dealers do a great job retaining customers while customers are still under warranty.

Once that warranty expires, loyalty ratings tend to plummet as customers leave - primarily because of a perception that independent repair shops offer lower pricing and are more convenient.

During the maintenance stage of car ownership (specifically while the vehicle is under warranty) customers receive several offers and coupons from the dealer's loyalty programs.

Loyalty programs work and customers take advantage of those offers, but over 50 percent of them leave once their work is no longer covered.

Some take their business to independent shops with their business even while under warranty for things such as oil changes – mainly because of perceived price or convenience.

To win back these customers dealers continue to mail, email and use digital marketing discounted offers to attempt to win back these lost customers.

The bottom line is these offers only work for a small percentage of these lost customers. You must identify who is not persuaded by these offers and approach these people with a completely different offer. Something of much higher perceived value.

If your discount coupons didn't retain these customers and they continue to ignore them today - why do you expect the same types of offers to give you a better result now?

Why continue to make offers to people that are not motivated by that offer?

There’s a reason these customers left you in the first place! Advertising the same offers you were making to them before and after they left you isn’t going to bring them back.

When we created our Private Service Events, we knew that marketing to car owners about service was a very crowded market space. We knew we had to have a great hook in order to catch car owners’ attention.

So, we decided to take something that had high perceived value (a multi-point inspection) and provide it for free.

A free multi-point inspection was not new to the auto industry, but positioning it the way we did and pin-pointing our targeting was.

The headline and hook was…

Private Service Event – FREE multi-point inspection of your (insert make and model)

For this headline and offer to work you must target the right audience.

• Do Not target ALL inactive customers because you will never get the ROI you want.
• Identify the people who are ignoring your win back discounted coupon efforts
• Only target people who are ready to receive this offer and have a high propensity to re-engage and become a paying customer again
• Identify active customers who are currently demonstrating the same behaviors as the lost customers prior to defection. Find your active customers most likely to defect (at-risk customers).

For our clients, it completely changed the conversation they had with inactive and “at risk” customers.

The headline and offer were completely unique and different and the response and ROI has been incredible.

During the multi-point inspection you can educate and explain things about the customer's vehicle that the independent shops will not do. This gives you a strong competitive advantage over independent shops because you can demonstrate that your dealership is the expert on the customer's vehicle.

A large percentage of the inactive customers you target will be customer pay opportunities because most of these former customers are no longer under warranty.

Private Service Events appeal to former and at risk customers in a way that your discount offers do not. Not every person is motivated by the same offers. So the service event appeals to the people who ignore traditional service offers and you do not have to discount your work!

If you want a to see exactly how this Private Service Event wins back lost customers, saves at risk customers, and increases customer pay without discounting your work…

Just say...         "Yes! I want more information." and click here and schedule a quick call.

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Scott

Scott Joseph is an automotive dealer and CEO of J&L Marketing. With nearly 3 decades of automotive sales, marketing and leadership experience, he helps automotive clients grow predictable sales with his engineered proven marketing process.