Salem Boys Auto Uses Latest High-Tech Loyalty Building To Boost Customer Retention

Salem Boys Auto in Tempe, Arizona, like so many other shops across the country, is grappling to keep a grip on the repair shrinkage epidemic that has overrun the auto repair industry since the mid-1980s, and that has deepened within the last four to five years. In the past 20 years the industry has experienced a huge shift in repair orders. For the first 80 years cars broke down at a rate of about 200 repairs annually for every 300 cars. Today from a 300-car sample, an average of only 50 repairs are performed, a 75 percent reduction in repair orders. But the industry has not shrunk from the 200,000 repair shops of 20 years ago, resulting in a huge reduction in available auto repair work per shop. The old business model of fixing cars no longer works, yet 70 percent to 80 percent of the industry is still relying on customers coming in because of necessitated car breakdowns. This is particularly evident with independent shops, but some are tackling the problem head on and winning at it. Like Salem Boys, who have successfully counteracted the diminishing repair business by adopting a preventive maintenance service model instead, backed up by the industry's most sophisticated new high-tech tools in predictive data mining and variable-data digital printing - namely, the eAutoWiz system.

Salem Boys Auto is a high-profile shop in the Phoenix market. It is a family-owned independent shop, opened in 1988, that processes 10,000 cars a year, with a customer base exceeding 25,000 and a total customer fleet of 40,000 vehicles. The shop, which has won numerous awards for its design and environmental functionality, maintains a staff of 25, with as many as 14 technicians, servicing 35 to 45 appointments daily within the shops' 20 bays.

Mark Salem, owner of the shop, is himself an ASE Master Technician. But he also maintains a high exposure level, both in the industry and with consumers, as the spokesman for NASCAR's Performance's Consumer Crew appearing regularly on the NASCAR Performance Network, through his weekly Phoenix-market TV show, Car Tips with Mark Salem, and the nationally syndicated NASCAR Performance with Mark Salem. Mark also hosts a Saturday morning weekly radio show, Under the Hood, also in the metro Phoenix area.

You would think that with a shop of this size - a large shop, as far as independents go - and with all this media exposure, that Salem Boys would be immune from the shrinking repair market. Factually, Salem Boys has felt the repair business pinch like other independents, particularly within the last five years, accounting for as much as a 30 percent reduction in repair work orders. Certainly, if it is happening to this degree with Salem Boys, the problem is likely more acute with smaller, less high-profile shops.

"I think most everybody has felt the pinch," says Salem. "The newer cars are made better necessitating fewer repairs. Zero percent financing has got everybody buying new cars, which are, of course, under warranty. All of these issues are having a negative effect on the independent shop market. I am sure there are some shops out there that are up from last year, but I think the overwhelming majority of us have had single-digit drops in repair orders every year since 2001, when the auto makers first came out with zero percent financing."

"As a solution we moved our focus away from straight repairs, and put more emphasis onto preventive maintenance, as well as other services relating to performance and accessories. At the same time, we implemented a program to talk with our customers about preventive maintenance issues relative to their specific vehicles. Although we participate in mass communication through radio and television here in the Phoenix area, we have found through experience that this is not enough. What we implemented was a program called eAutoWiz, which provides a level of customer personalization where we have the vehicle's detailed maintenance history sitting in front of us as we talk to customers. It also allows us to implement personalized preventive maintenance updates, which we send to our customers, outlining vehicle-specific details for up to ten different recurring maintenance items relating to their vehicle."

"The results have been impressive," Salem continues. "eAutoWiz just puts everything into perspective for the customer, and makes it easy to handle the customer. It shows what their car needs today and what it will need in the future, so they can budget appropriately. I found that consumers gravitate to it, it is easy for them to understand. It allows them the opportunity to make their own decisions beforehand on what items they want performed now. They just bring in the report that was mailed to them and show us what they want done, they will frequently circle or check-off the items. We found this to be a very low-pressure and informative way to have our customers come in and get their preventive maintenance work done."

Built into the eAutoWiz system is a sophisticated level of high-tech "personalization" and vehicle-service profiling that has not before been available to the auto service industry. The program brings advanced data-mining, predictive-service algorithms and the latest in digital variable-printing capabilities to auto shops. Strictly state-of-the-art, Buck Rogers-type technology, but set up so any regular shop with a PC can use it, and most importantly it is extremely user friendly for shop guys who know next to nothing about computers. The system creates ultra-personalized, ultra-detailed point-of-sale-reports and full-color, individualized customer service reminder post cards.

eAutoWiz enables shops to predict maintenance needs, and automate the sending of personalized direct mail to their customers, with data messages, vibrant color photos, special offers, and highly detailed and accurate vehicle-specific preventive maintenance recommendations. Shop service writers can use eAutoWiz to print, at the point-of-sale, ultra-accurate, predictive, vehicle assessment reports for each individual customer's vehicle, guiding and validating preventive-service sales.

"Imagine providing fleet-management-style aging of each and every recurring service item previously done to a customer's auto," Salem says. "How many miles since that particular auto's last oil change, the last belt check, transmission service, brake check, and scores of other service potentials. Ten recurring maintenance services can be tracked by the shop. And then tracking them by actual life-mileage averages for each service component specific to each individual vehicle. Not ‘assumed daily mileage averages' currently the norm. eAutoWiz calculates each individual auto's daily mileage and ages services performed at the shop, based on odometer readings when services were last rendered."

"We have organized our entire fleet of vehicles according to their last visit, so we actually have an idea of what the attrition rate is, how many vehicles are not returning for business. Plus an analysis of every single service that was provided in the past for every customer. We quantify that to show which customers are never having their brakes done, for example, or never having certain services done at our shop, even though we have considered those customers as loyal. But they are loyal, they keep coming back with a broken car, right? But the key point is do they come to Salem Boys for their preventive maintenance? So this is a big issue - we have been seeing this customer for seven years and we have never done a brake job. With this new eAutoWiz system, we have been able to identify those customers, selectively target them, and bring them back to our shop for those services."

Salem Boys also performs analyses that show precisely what every customer's vehicle needs, maintenance-wise, based on usage. They know how much each customer's vehicle is typically driven, and based on when the last visit was and how many days have elapsed since, they know pretty much what their odometer reading is at any given time. Based on that odometer reading and ageing all of the services that were performed in the past, they know what services currently need to be provided.

"This type of system is fleet preventative-service management, which for the first time in the automotive service industry is available to the family owned vehicle through shops that provide this capability," says Jorge Antico, President of eAutoClub, developers of eAutoWiz. The family owned vehicle has always been out of the fleet management loop. The burden of maintaining the vehicle has been up to the owner of the car, or ill-equipped shops that do not have this automated capability of preventive-maintenance management."

"Take a look at how your typical shop handles an oil change, for example. The mechanic will look at your odometer, pull out a little sticker, add 3,000 miles to your odometer reading and put it onto your door jamb, or your windshield, and then tell you to come back when you get to that mileage. That has been the state-of-the-art with fleet management in auto shops."

"If mechanics were really doing a thorough job of preventive maintenance, they would do the same with tire rotations, look at the odometer reading, add 6,000 miles, and put that on another sticker," continues Antico. "As we go through the transmission flush, the coolant flush, the power steering belts, and all of these different maintenance services that would need to be tracked, we would have many different stickers on our windshield or door jamb, and every one of them would have a different date or mileage for follow-up service. The reason why fleet management has not been provided by the shop mechanic is because he did not have the tools to do it. eAutoWiz, for the first time, gives the independent shop owner the ability to manage all preventive maintenance services for his entire customer-base fleet."

Antico himself is an ex-repair shop owner in Santa Monica, California, who some years ago integrated advanced data mining techniques and variable-data digital printing to deliver to the auto service business advanced customer-retention marketing and service assessment tools. After beta testing the program for a couple of years, his company emerged with a standardized program that works with 100% predictability.

Salem Boys also uses the natural language logic functions that are an integral part of the eAutoWiz system, which recognizes common key words like "hose", "filter", etc. It has a sophisticated mechanical dictionary that sorts out all of the word combinations for every part, piece of equipment and service activity. This makes it real easy for shop owners and their employees to use, and for customers to understand.

eAutoWiz was designed to install automatically upon first use, and is compatible with most Windows® PC auto shop management systems including DMS systems such as Reynolds & Reynolds, ADP, Unix, and old DOS systems. eAutoWiz optional web-application requires that shops have a DSL or cable connection to the Internet, other aspects of the program do not.

Industry estimates show that it costs repair shops 25 times more to get a new customer than to keep an existing one. Yet, most shops' advertising and marketing budgets are spent exclusively on looking for new customers. Too many shops wait for their customer's autos to break down, and play the odds that customers will come back to their shop again, but do very little to effectively sway them back for repeat preventive maintenance service. This business model of the ‘80s and ‘90s is no longer working. If you are waiting for repairs to return, they won't. Shops need to maximize the preventive maintenance business they can capture from their existing customers. Utilizing predictive data mining and variable-data printing provides the most efficient and cost-effective method possible. Doing this right can kick up response rates and ticket orders from 30 percent to 100 percent for the independent shop.

For more information on eAutoWiz contact Sergio Viramontes at (877) 328-8625 ext.3; Fax (310) 394-3919; Email info@eautoclub.com; 15237 Sunset Blvd, Suite 55, Pacific Palisades, California 90272; or visit their website at www.eautoclub.com.

To contact Salem Boys Auto, please call Mark Salem; Phone (480) 598-1234; email mark@salemboysauto.com; 1025 West Warner, Tempe, Arizona 85284; www.salemboysauto.com.