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Page 1 of 2 Holidays can be a difficult time for the body shop business. Happy shoppers are focusing on spending their money for sweaters, ties, toys and other gifts - not auto body repairs. Unfortunately for many of them, more than 20 percent of fender-benders and banged-up bumpers occur in shopping area parking lots.
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Many of these previously happy shoppers may emerge from their shopping spree to find their personal chariot inflicted with enough nasty damage to spoil their holiday high. Sadly, many of them will opt to wait until after the holidays to get the damage fixed (if at all). So what can you do to get your share of repair dollars during this distracted season, so you can beat your holiday blues? Believe it or not, this can be a time when your customers will really appreciate a little attention from you. And they may reciprocate by bringing you some business. Holiday greetings plus I've found that many shops only mail to their prior customers once a year (if that). The holiday greeting card is a simple way to let prior customers know you're still there - and still interested in getting their business. Almost certainly you have received solicitations from companies seeking to sell you holiday cards with your company name and greeting printed on them. Generally these cards have a message like, "We Appreciate Your Business." This is all well and good, but not likely to motivate anyone to come in for a repair unless they already planned to do so. You need more if you want to get any kind of return for your mailing. You could enclose a coupon for $50 or $100 toward their (or their family's) next repair over $500 or $1,000. This might motivate someone desperate for a cheaper repair, but not likely to create any mass rush into your shop. You could offer a free paintless dent repair check-up (less than 10% of those check-ups turn out to be appropriate for a PDR, so you have a chance to upsell a standard repair and refinish). You could also offer a holiday car wash or detail. But unless you want to tie up your detail department with a bunch of freebies, you'll need to make the offer conditional on some kind of profitable transaction for the shop. The problem is most shops just focus on collision repair. If most of your prior customers haven't had a recent accident, what could you offer to sell them that would get them to come in?
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