How effective are waiting area Point of Sales Material?

[Joe Marconi]

I walked into an electronics store the other day and on the walls were large posters of sale items. On the service counters at the register were more sale offerings. There were sale tags on the items on the shelves. I instantly got the feeling of “information overload.”

 

This got me thinking, many of us (me included), flood our customer waiting areas with brochures, posters, flyers, menu boards, etc. How effective are they? Should we narrow our focus on fewer items at a time? Is less, actually more, in terms of how we market our shops?

[thelmuth]

I think less is definitely more. I know when I go in someplace and there are a ton of signs, etc. I just kind of ignore them all... unless I am sitting in a waiting area for a time, then I will look at them out of boredom.

 

My wife commented to me yesterday about a 4 page ad for a local grocery store. It was laid out in a grid system with a lot of pictures. She said "I can't stand their ads. I go into information overload and don't even want to look at it."

[ATLAuto]

I'm going to agree on the less-is-more strategy. We are already inundated with information, and our brains simply cannot digest every thing presented to us.

 

I just came across this this last night in a web-design book I was browsing (ironically, I didn't even read the whole book, just skimmed it):

 

Edited January 6, 2014 by Wes Daniel

[mmotley]

I use a slideshow on my TV to show the different products/services we offer. In effect, this is one advertisement piece, however it changes every 10 seconds to show another service or product. Has been invaluable in adding on sales to tickets.

[ATLAuto]

Motley, your TV slideshow reminded me of the recent R+W article from the business below. They build belt and brake displays for shops. I'm thinking about making our own timing belt display for a destroyed engine.

 

Article: http://www.ratchetandwrench.com/RatchetWrench/November-2013/Educating-the-Customer/

Website for the displays: http://displaysinmotioninc.com/

[mmotley]

Wes, I would love to see the cost of those displays. I'm sure they work great, I'm just afraid the price is gonna be way too high for the return on invest (plus floor or wall space). By no means am I saying my slideshow is the greatest idea ever (I'm really just to cheap to pay for cable and I don't have enough waiting customers), but like Joe originally asked, can we have to many sales displays. The TV takes up just a little space on the wall, didn't cost me much (really, I took it out of my room at home, so it was kinda free), and has sold tons of keys, rock chip repairs, and headlight buff jobs.

 

I guess it comes down to how many customers you have waiting around and being bored vs. customers coming in a out quickly. Bored customer might check out displays and brochures, but those just coming in to drop off their car or have you check their MIL real quick will at least glance at a tv... At least that's my train of thought. If I ever had a bigger waiting room and extra money laying around, I would probably invest in some of those displays though.

[ATLAuto]

From the article, I understood that he kept them behind the counter and only pulled the demos out to help the customer understand the issues. The example he used was a customer with a quote $300 cheaper to do a timing belt at another shop. Naturally, the other shop didn't quote the idlers, tensioner, nor water pump. With his demo, he could show everything that went into a timing belt job and sell it.

 

Do you have a copy of the slideshow from your TV? I would like to see it, if you don't mind.

[mmotley]

That makes way more sense (I didn't read the articles, just kind of skimmed...lazy). At that point, I would say they are definitely worth it.

 

Wes, shoot me a PM with your email address and I'll send you a copy of the slideshow.

 

For future reference, if anyone is interested in making a slideshow for a TV, here is a quick rundown:

 

1. In paint/power point/etc. save your image as a jpeg.

2. Save all your files to a thumb drive/jump drive/usb drive

3. Most TVs nowadays have a usb hook up. Insert the usb drive into there

4. Turn on the TV. Some will automatically detect the drive, others you may have to change input to media or whatever

5. Set to play, you may have to choose to loop all the images so they keep playing over and over.

 

Reference http://www.scantips.com/basics1f.html for the correct pixel size for your image. I think it says to set it to 1920x1080 pixels

Edited January 10, 2014 by mmotley

[DisplaysinMotionInc]

Hello All!

 

My name is Samantha and I am a representative from Displays in Motion. I noticed that we were previously mentioned in this thread and I thought I would chime in.

 

We have found that our automotive displays are highly effective in increasing sales and building trust with customers. We keep our displays out in our waiting area and use them almost every day to help explain repairs.

 

Someone mentioned that they were worried about what a display like this might cost and I think you might be surprised at how affordable they really are! Please contact us at 303-756-2886 or through our e-mail address at [email protected] to learn more!

 

Thanks!

 

-Samantha

Edited February 4, 2014 by DisplaysinMotionInc

[alfredauto]

I agree with less is more strategy. We recently painted our waiting room and put in some new furniture. I removed 90% of the stuff and didn't put it back. Customers like the clean look better. I display a few tires and have a nice brake pad display and a few nice metal signs. The rest is non automotive stuff. No tv in our place, magazines and free wifi only. Customers like it because they can work in relative quiet. I have some informative automotive brochures out so they can get their own ideas of what they should be asking for rather than me trying to sell them something.

[ncsvoboda7]

I am going to go out on a lim here and guess that most of us here in the automotive mechanic world are pretty handy. If you have a little time on the weekend I don't see it to be too much of a task to make your own displays either, might be kind of fun.

 

I also had a question for you guys, I have been toying with the idea lately of making informative step by step videos of my mechanic doing all sorts of common repairs and then editing them into short "how its done" type videos that can be played to customers to explain a repair process, or simply to have playing in the waiting area. The videos would have speech and subtitling so you could have it muted or the sound on.

 

Would these videos be of use to anyone? Would you be willing to pay say $10-20 bucks for a set of them. Could have different sets like brakes and suspension, engine, drive train etc. Each $10-20. Worth it to anyone?