News | May 17, 2007

CRM Solution: Firestone Complete Auto Care And Tires Plus Tap Mindshare Technologies To Give Customers "The Experience You Want"

Mindshare Technologies, provider of real-time customer feedback solutions, recently announced that Firestone Complete Auto Care and Tires Plus have selected Mindshare Technologies to help measure customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

Mindshare's automated, interactive Voice of the Customer solution enables its retail clients to more fully understand the customer experience and identify strong and weak performing areas by store, on a daily basis, from the critical customer perspective. This is accomplished through real-time, web-based reporting that provides critical metrics such as store rankings, trends, and goal performance - all on demand 24/7. Additionally, the reporting includes actual customer voice or text comments plus customer call back tracking. These powerful features greatly enhance customer retention.

"Mindshare's automated customer feedback solution has enabled us to more fully understand what we are doing well and where our improvement opportunities lie, by store, daily. Every store manager will have real-time insight into actual customer perception and experience," said Larry Perdue, Director, Consumer and Government Relations for BFS Retail & Commercial Operations, parent company to Firestone Complete Auto Care and Tires Plus. "With the ability to continually monitor the customer service heartbeat, we can more effectively meet our customers' needs and strengthen our relationships."

Utilizing Mindshare, retailers are committed to delivering quality customer service. The solution allows stores to monitor the customer experience in an unobtrusive manner, improving on traditional customer survey methods such as comment cards, outbound telephone surveys, paper surveys and exit interviews, to phone-standard interactive voice response surveys (IVR) and web-based surveys. The Mindshare system is unobtrusive because the customer elects to take the automated survey by toll free phone number or web and receives a store discount incentive for doing so.

"The real-time data we're providing Firestone Complete Auto Care and Tires Plus locations has dramatically improved, and will continue to improve, their customer relations," said Richard Hanks, president and chairman of Mindshare Technologies. "Mindshare's comprehensive and flexible technology combined with its powerful, yet easy-to-use reporting engine, gives its clients unique insight into customer satisfaction, retention, and employee efficiency on a daily basis."

About Mindshare Technologies:
Mindshare Technologies provides management tools that capture customers' perceptions on a daily basis and immediately transforms them into actionable customer intelligence. Shortly after their service experience, customers respond to a short survey using their touch-tone telephone or web interface.

Reports are updated immediately for client management to incorporate customer insights directly into their operations. The company's customers range from an eight-unit fine-dining restaurant chain to multi-thousand unit service franchise organizations to call centers of every size. For more information, call (800) 634-5407 or visit www.mshare.net.

About BFS Retail & Commercial Operations, LLC (BFRC):
BFS Retail & Commercial Operations, LLC (BFRC) is headquartered in Bloomingdale, Ill., and operates the largest number of company-owned automotive retail generalist stores in the world-more than 2,200 consumer and commercial vehicle service and tire locations across the United States and Canada-including Firestone Complete Auto CareT, TiresPlusT, ExpertTire, Wheel Works, and GCR Tire Centers store locations. Credit First National Association and Firestone Complete Fleet Care operations are also part of BFRC. BFRC is a member of the Bridgestone Americas family of companies.

SOURCE: Mindshare Technologies