I recently read about some McKinsey & Company research about the “customer experience,” specifically how consumers today want to feel in control of their interactions with your company.
“The more empowered, engaged and updated they are in the course of the journey, the less likely they are to assign blame to the company when things go wrong,” McKinsey found.
One interesting example: A home repair company knew from its customer satisfaction surveys that customers cared most about the time it took for a repair worker to get to the home and fix the problem. But when the company ran a pilot test, it found customer satisfaction scores went up when the customer was offered options for scheduling—even if each option offered meant the customer would wait longer than the company’s average wait time.
It was that feeling of control the customer had in being able to schedule the work themselves that makes the difference.
That got me to thinking about how many shops these days are complaining that they don’t have enough work right now. Yet how many of those shops have failed to give customers the opportunity to choose and book an appointment time themselves online?
Let’s look at how five shops I randomly chose are doing with this.
Many shops fail to activate the scheduling feature for their Google business account.
Shop No. 1: This shop in Portland, OR, has a nice website, including some customer testimonials and clear information on the shop’s location and hours. Can I schedule an appointment? No. There’s not even a “request an appointment” button on the site, just a “contact” tab that essentially only enables the customer to email the shop.
Shop No. 2: Next, I did a Google search for shops in Kansas. In the initial list of 20 shops that came up, just seven had the “Schedule” button turned on next to their shop information. I clicked on one of those, and it took me right to the shop’s CarWise page, and offered me multiple appointment times over the next three days. I went to the company’s website, learned they have three locations, and found buttons to request an estimate or schedule an appointment at any of the three.
Shop No. 3: Unlike the three-shop company in Kansas, this shop in Florida—which also allowed me to schedule through their Google listing—touts automaker certifications on their website. But I could only request an appointment through their website, not actually book one. And if I had found the shop through the automaker’s certified shop locator, this shop wasn’t among the ones on that locator that let me book an appointment right from the OEM site. That’s one of the most common oversights I see related to customer appointment options.
Shop No. 4: This shop offers an example of another common problem I see. Often when I click on a shop’s “book appointment” button, it shows no available appointments. From the Nissan certified shop locator, I clicked on a Virginia shop that had the “book appointment” feature turned on at the Nissan site. That opened the shop’s Carwise page, which showed no available appointments the rest of the week. The shop doesn’t have something set-up correctly.
Shop No. 5: A Goggle search for “body shops near me” brought up another list of shops, including a location of a mid-sized MSO in the industry. When I went to that particular location’s microsite and clicked on “Book an Appointment,” however, the link was broken.
Overall, none of the shops had the “book appointment” turned on and functioning correctly in all the places they should.
And here’s why you need to make sure no matter how a customer finds your shop online, they have the option—and the control—to book their own appointment with your shop. The fact is it’s quite likely that when they have an accident, your shop isn’t open. Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that in one recent year, 25% of accidents occurred on a Saturday or Sunday, and nearly half (48%) of all accident took place between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m.
This Nissan certified shop had a “book appointment” button on the Nissan shop locator page, but it linked to the shop’s CarWise page, which showed no available appointments.
One of the biggest reasons for that is the increase in gig workers, like those driving for DoorDash or Uber Eats. Data I've seen suggests that more than one-third of consumers today actually are working part-time or full-time as a gig worker. That increases the amount of people driving after hours.
If they’re choosing a shop during off-hours, they don’t want to have to wait to contact you the next day or whenever the shop is open next to schedule an appointment. They want to do it right then.
Often when I talk to shops about why they aren’t giving potential customers the ability to book an appointment through one or more of these means, they’ll tell me something they don’t like about how the system works at one site or another. But if that’s the case, have a conversation with someone about that system, to see if you’re overlooking settings or capabilities that will mesh better with your scheduling system. Don’t just overlook a key way customers may want to schedule with your shop.
Shops in every region of the country are telling me how little work they have scheduled, that their next opening is that day or the next day. If that’s true at your shop, spend some time making sure you’re giving every potential customer, no matter how they find your shop online, the ability to book the appointment they want.
