This article assumes that as a body shop owner you desire to increase your work flow and are willing to pursue dealership work. More and more dealerships are outsourcing their body shop work these days and this opens up a huge opportunity for independent shops to capture lots of work. A key question we need to always be asking in our marketing efforts is "Who gets to our customers before we do?" For body shops, a dealership is one of the most obvious answers and best sources of referrals.
Here are 5 easy ways to get more referrals from dealerships:
1. Get to know the people who answer the phones. While knowing the owner or service manager of a dealership is great if you can get their time and attention the ones who answer the phones often hold the real referral power. Guy Kawasaki has a great blog post on this called "The Art of of Sucking Down." Usually the caller will ask to be transferred to the body shop and what you hope the response will be is, "Oh, we don't have a body shop but we use . Can I give you their number?"
2. Make it easy for them to refer you. Leave literature about your shop and business cards on the counter and with the people who answer the phones. Sometimes attaching them to a box of donuts (hey, it worked for Enterprise rent a car!) works wonders as well.
3. Offer to do favors or discounted repairs for the dealership employees. "Can we wash your car today? No cost and no strings attached. We just wanted you to see how we take care of people's cars so you can refer us with confidence." This will cost you very little and the trust it engenders will go miles to getting quality referrals.
4. Refer them. Add a link on your website to them as a business partner. Tell your friends about them when they are looking for a new car. Send your sublet mechanical work to them. Pass out their literature or at least make it available on a display table. Treat them the way you want to be treated and refer them the way you'd like to be referred. As Dr. Ivan Misner reminds us all the time: "Giver's gain." In other words, those who give are the ones who get. Take the initiative and give, give, give.
5. Ask them for referrals. Make it explicitly clear that you would like them to refer you. This is so obvious that it is easy to miss or forget or assume they know. So, when you deliver their car back to them after that free wash and they say, "It hasn't been that shiny in years! Thank you! What do I owe you?" You can say, "Absolutely nothing... all I want is for you to tell your customers about us if they ever have a need."
