Give Your Fixed Ops a Boost by Ramping up Social Media
By Ted Ings, Executive Director
Let’s be honest – fixed ops doesn’t get a whole lot of love online.
Most dealership landing pages are awash in new car promotions, while the service and parts departments are relegated to an inconspicuous link in the upper righthand corner.
Increase fixed ops revenue by building a social media presence
And guess what? That same bias – where sales gets all the glory and fixed ops is an afterthought – bleeds over into social media as well. But it doesn’t (and shouldn’t) have to be that way. Recent studies have found 49% of dealership profits come from service [CBT], which means fixed ops departments deserve the limelight far more often.
How you can highlight fixed ops via social media
Everyone, including grandma, is online these days. Let the general public know how great your service and parts departments are (and keep business from going to independent shops) by reaching out via social media. Here are some ways you can get the job done.
1. Announce deals
Everyone’s looking to save a buck. Appeal to the thriftiness of your customers by posting the latest promotions and deals via social media. Catchy graphics and copywriting help draw attention and reel in shoppers.
2. Create in-depth articles
According to Google’s latest metrics, people want long-format articles written by experts. And your service team has a lot of in-depth knowledge that fits the bill.
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Have your technical experts (i.e., technicians, parts professionals, and advisors) get with your creative team. Your content writer or marketing guru can do initial research on a topic, then hand it off to a service employee for technical review. Or the process can work the other way around: a technician can write the draft, then give it to marketing for review and any necessary editing.
3. Post videos
If an image is worth 1,000 words, how much is a video worth? A cool 1.8 million words, according to an article on Idea Rocket [IdeaRocket]. And that means you need to start posting videos – now.
There are plenty of topics to film in the service department. For instance, you can create videos that outline how particular repairs are carried out. Or, perhaps, document the way certain vehicle components work.
Customers love how-to videos as well; show them simple maintenance tips, like checking tire pressure or topping off washer fluid.
4. Showcase staff members
It’s great to let customers know an actual person is working on their car. Help guests become acquainted with the technician under the hood of their car, or the advisor writing their repair order, by posting employee profiles on social media.
After all, people are more likely to do business with someone they know – and a short bio acts as a great introduction. Feel free to throw in some personal information about team members, too, instead of keeping the articles completely work-related.
5. Have some fun
People are drawn to upbeat individuals. So, share content that shows your service department having a good time. Humorous posts are also great because, well, everyone loves to have a good laugh.
6. Repost engaging content
Not everything you post must be created from scratch. You can reshare engaging articles from others (while citing the original source, of course), as well as memes and other fun content. There’s a lot of great online media related to parts and service that takes only a couple seconds to share.
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Make your social media presence known
Building a social media presence takes time, which means you’ll want to start working on a platform for your service department right away.
WHO IS TED INGS?
Because most fixed ops employees don’t have the bandwidth to post content regularly, you might want to consider bringing a social media manager or marketing expert onboard. That is, if you don’t have one already. You may also want to consider contracting the work out.
Once you get started, you’ll find ramping up your fixed ops social media presence to be well worth the effort.
Sources:
https://www.cbtnews.com/service-department-now-makes-up-49-of-your-dealerships-gross-profit/
https://idearocketanimation.com/4293-video-worth-1-million-words/
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