Jimmy: This is going to be an awesome and engaging Deep Dive webinar. We've been working on this webinar and information for a couple of weeks, so this is some great information that's going to help you as a shop owner. You are going to have questions. I guarantee it. I know you're going to have questions. Write down your questions and send them to KUKUI so we can help get you the answers you need. 

I am KUKUI. 

My name is Jimmy Lea. KUKUI started on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. KUKUI, the word, has a deeper meaning than just a word.  The people of the Islands would use the KUKUI Nut like a lamp, a candle, a lantern. It means to enlighten or enlightenment in the Polynesian language. The KUKUI nuts are these KUKUI beads that I wear. Today we are going to enlighten you as to things you can do on the internet, On the web. Things that you can do to retain and engage your customers. We want to enlighten you today as to those things that can happen next for you in your shop. 

KUKUI has combined both the best practices in the Software Industry with the best practices of the automotive Repair Industry. We have brought them both together to give you the bar none, the best experience for shop owners with software, websites, client, relationship management, emails, text messaging, and postcards.  

On our panel here today is 50 or 60 years’ worth of experience in the automotive aftermarket, even the daughter of a shop owner, and she was raised in the shop. 

Jimmy: Miss Lori Metzler. Lori, thank you for joining this morning. How are you? 

Lori: Hi, Jimmy, I'm good. Thanks for having me. 

Jimmy: Lori has 30 plus years of experience in the automotive aftermarket software industry. Thank you, Lori. We appreciate your expertise and your experience. 

Lori: Thank you. 

Jimmy: Trisha Vasquez. Trisha is awesome. She's so knowledgeable. With more than a decade in the automotive aftermarket, she's been a long-time KUKUI Family member Trisha, thank you for joining. 

Trisha: Thanks, Jimmy. Good to see you this morning. 

Jimmy: And joining as well is Tara Tabrizi-Mason. Tara has over a decade of experience also in the automotive aftermarket industry. So excited to have you with us here this morning. Tara, how are you? 

Tara: I'm fabulous, Jimmy. Thank you for inviting me to the Webinar. 

Jimmy: We're going to jump right into this because I've got some questions that I want to ask even before we get started with any sort of presentation. Let's have a discussion, There are so many options available in the industry. There are so many options today to stay connected and to stay engaged with your customers. Is there any way of knowing what marketing methods would work best for a specific shop? 

Tara: There are quite a bit of options out there for shop owners. We live in what is known as a multi-channel marketing world. What that really means for you as a shop owner for most of you on this call is that you have a lot of ways you can connect with your customers. I talk to shops that are growing their second and third shops. They all that a multichannel marketing approach is always going to outperform a single one. So what are we talking about here? I'm talking about direct mail, email, text, phone calls, and social media.  ll of these communication methods need to be working hand in hand. That is really my most favorite part about working at KUKUI. And, The KUKUI All-in-One Success Platform is able to take care of this in one place for our shopowners. So, one single platform can manage the bulk of this communication. 

I'm talking to our customers every day, and the most successful shops are maximizing the platform in all of these communication areas. 

They are making follow-up calls. 

They are sending emails.  

They're shooting out texts.

They're utilizing postcards and more. 

70% of customers or consumers connected with brands through multiple channels before making a purchase or coming back. I take myself as an example: I'm a working mom. I have two kids, maybe three if you had my husband and I'm busy. So even when it comes to my dentist, for instance, these are things we know we have to do. I'll get the reminder email for my teeth cleaning. Usually, when I'm looking at my email, it's a busy workday. So I get my email, and then I'm going back to work. And then sometimes I'll get that reminder text. But maybe I'm at the grocery store. Sometimes it takes that reminder postcard from my dentist for me to go because our days are busy. When I finally sit down to look at the mail, I am a little more relaxed and I can make a phone call to book the teeth cleaning. So sometimes for me, it takes two, three, or four touches before this busy mom of two with a husband actually picks up the phone and takes that next step. 

Jimmy: It reaches every aspect of the family and the whole family dynamic. As a busy person, I need those multiple touches. We've got to think of ourselves as a client and customer as well. Think of all the information that's coming to remind us that we need to go to the dentist or for that doctor's appointment. 

Trisha, when you talk to shops, what recommendations are you giving? Let's say a shop is not always using a multichannel approach. How do they prioritize? Or how do they even know where to start? 

Trisha: Every shop is going to be different, but I feel like the approach should be pretty much the same. So in this case, it's really not about understanding not only your marketing communication methods but also your customer base. So really getting to know your demographics, who you're marketing to, are they male? Are they female? or are a majority of them, baby boomers? Or are they falling into Gen Y, Gen X, or Gen Z? There are so many different ways to communicate now, and everybody likes a different form of communication. So really, you might have to take a step back and analyze who is my customer?  I'm excited to share these worksheets that Tara and Lori have put together because it will be a really great opportunity to take a step back and analyze who is my customer? How do they want to be communicated? And then what campaigns can I best align them with the communication channels that I have available? Lori, I know you have a multi marketing channel household that likes a little bit of everything. Do you want to share that? 

Lori: Sure if you know me, you know, my 80-year-old mother and my 20-year-old son live with me, and I'm somewhere in my 40s. For our house, if you want to market to us, we need a little bit of everything. My mother loves to go out and get the mail. The postcards are still on the counter from two weeks ago reminding her that she needed an oil change. My son won't talk to anybody on the phone. He's all about his phone and texting. I'm in emails, whether it be work email during the day or my personal email at night. 

And who doesn't want to talk to an 80-year-old lady on the phone? My mother answers the phone every time it rings. She loves to talk. She loves to know that someone is thinking about her. So for our family, every marketing method actually works. There's something for everybody. 

Trisha: Lori, I just caught something you said your 80-year-old mother is still driving, she needs an oil change.

Lori: Yes, she's driving, and she's OK. 

Jimmy: That is awesome. My grandmother at 85, finally determined, OK, I'm not going to drive at night anymore. Two years later,  She just handed over the keys and said, hey, look, guys, this is cool, but I'm done. I'm just not going to drive anymore. 

So it sounds like your mother has a few more years ahead of her in driving cars, which is awesome. So on that note, Lori, I have a question for you. With all of the different marketing methods. How is it that a shop owner can track everything?  Doesn't that get confusing with all of these different channels of sending an email, a text message, a phone call, a postcard? 

Lori: That is such a good question, because it can absolutely be overwhelming, and that's understandable. We understand the same marketing plan does not work for every shop. Different vehicles and different services offered to different demographics require different communication. Even the weather could be a factor in planning out your marketing. I recently started working on a customer journey worksheet that my clients can fill out. It helps better visualize what they're sending out and when. 

Let me show you how simple it can actually be. 

So everyone you've got a copy of the Client Journey Timeline. This is designed to give you a gauge on how much to send and when. It could be overwhelming to juggle all of the different marketing methods and communication a shop could send out. This is as simple as listing out the different reminders you want to send out. The most common reminders are the “Appointment Reminder”, “Thank you”, “Oil Change”, “Declined Services”, “Lost Customer”, “Please leave a review”, and that occasional seasonal or holiday mailer, email, or text.  Once the reminders are decided, then just add them to this chart. Behind the Ad, list the marketing method for distribution. This could be a text, an email, a postcard, or a phone call. Then after the ad, specify the timeline interval. How often do they want to send out each type of reminder? You are now stacking your marketing. 

Please note the different intervals for the same reminder, but a different marketing source. A method that works best for one shop might not work for another. So I always advise shop owners to customize the tempo. Ideally, I would prefer to have all shops think about what services they want to remind their customers about, at what interval, and what marketing source. It is also a great agenda item to speak about at the next marketing meeting with your KUKUI Client Success Coordinator.

Jimmy: Lori, with your more than 30 years of experience in the Automotive Industry, How would you explain making the most of these different marketing methods? 

Lori: I would not necessarily say that one marketing method is superior to another since every customer base is unique. I tend to look at it as, “What marketing source or module will complement one another when you are marketing to your customers?” 

Jimmy: Lori, I've heard you reference stacked marketing before. What does that mean to you? 

Lori: We've mentioned using different marketing methods. To me, every marketing method has value. And, by stacking or layering them, you are able to communicate with your customers in a way that complements one another. 

I know there's a fear of over marketing to customers, and that's 100% understandable. But, there are a couple of different things to remember. When it comes to your customer communications here at KUKUI, you can see if a customer gets an email, they can unsubscribe from that email. If they get a text, they could opt out of texting. And if you're doing follow-up phone calls, you can actually flag them for “Do Not Call” on the follow-up module. Using this method a customer can teach you which communication method they prefer to receive from your shop. So again, there's a communication piece here for every marketing method. Assuring that we are not communicating in a way they don't want. 

Second, you know, the marketing results after a customer comes in for service. 

An example is an oil change: text reminder goes out at 3,000 miles. The customer comes in at 3,500 miles. If there was an email scheduled at 4,000 miles, that email won't go out, since the oil change will automatically reset itself. 

Jimmy: Lori, in your opinion, do you believe email is still an effective marketing tool? 

Lori: Absolutely! When it comes to emails, I found that the average email capture rate for my shops is around 75%. While I will not say that one marketing method is superior to another. I will say that I encourage the use of multiple methods that complement one another. And that's one of the reasons I'm a fan of utilizing the KUKUI retention module while devising the right marketing plan for shops. I want to remind everyone of the importance of actually customizing your reminders. 

Jimmy: OK, now, Lori, can you explain what you mean by customize? I mean that it has a lot of different references. 

Lori:  A great example is the shop services and the intervals they recommend. Every shop has intervals where they want to actually see their customers. So, we highly encourage every shop to customize how they have set up emails, postcards, and texting. The first one I think of is the ongoing “Oil Change” retention email campaign. Most consumers understand the importance of having their oil changed on their vehicle, but because no vehicle and no driver are the same, I recommend making sure you have the right oil change campaign created for your customer. And by that, I mean conventional, semi-synthetic, fully synthetic, diesel, or Euro Oil Change. What interval does the shop recommend?  Miles or Months? And yes, we track your customers driving habits, I refer to this as my grandma driver versus a commuter driver. 

Everybody drives different mileage every day. A shop owner can schedule them to get the reminder based on their specific driving habits, so the timing is right. Some shops have three different oil changes starting from the bottom. You have conventional at three months, 3,000 miles, you have synthetic at 5,000 miles or six months, and you have diesel. They're all set up at different intervals, so this Shop Owner can actually accurately target his or her customers for their next service. 

And of course, we have our “Declining Services” Campaigns, this is also your recommended services. They, one and the same. And when does a shop want to remind their customers of their recent recommendations? Three days is the most common, but you could choose 15, 30, 40, 50, 60, whatever that shop actually wants. Again, the most common is 30 days. Same as you see here for the shop. In addition to your oil changes or declining services, you can also do state reminders or state inspection reminders and emission reminders, and smog inspections, all depending on the state. 

In addition to the regular retention reminders, how about going outside the box a little bit, especially talking about inspections? Now that's a great customer to target, to become a new customer that comes in again. And I would highly recommend shops consider marketing to those inspection customers to remind them about other services they might provide. You don't do just provide inspections, you also provide repair and maintenance services. That's the perfect type of customer to send a new customer email to, whether it's a week after their first visit or one month. 

Jimmy: Hold on a second, Lori, I've got a question for you. I want to ask about this specific oil change email campaign. The question is coming in from Katie. Katie is asking how does the KUKUI system knows which customer vehicles go with which type of oil change, so they get the correct email campaign? 

Lori: That's a great question, Katie.  KUKUI has access to your Point of Sale System, every night we upload this information to confirm that we have the right email setup. We consult with a shop to make sure we know the code for the 3,000-mile oil change.  So we set up the oil change. We customize actually how they enter it, to match that interval, and to match the invoice from that customer. 

So when you're talking about the campaigns, somebody who's using conventional oil would be reminded at 3,000 miles or three months. 

Jimmy: In my truck, I pay for the Full Synthetic Oil Change, so my reminder would be at 5,000 miles or six months. I would get the synthetic oil campaign. Not the conventional, correct?

Lori: Correct. Because we're pulling the information exactly as that shop specifically enters it into their system. 

Jimmy:   Oh, perfect. OK, so we've talked about the email information, and then you were going to discuss something about customer surveys.

Lori: Yes so when you're doing your Digital Vehicle Inspections, we talked about doing the new customer emails, but then in addition to that, outside the regular retention, I'm a fan of surveys. Especially, if you are a AAA shop. AAA wants to make sure you are getting those 40 responses a year. This is an easy way for a shop to get those responses and to satisfy AAA’s requirements. 

And if you have a new Service Advisor and you want to know how he or she is representing the shop, we can create a survey on our site and email it to your customers 3 days after their visit. A shop recently told me, they were interested in hosting a car care clinic for their customers. They decided to send out a survey. Their customer base had no interest in attending a car care clinic, so they decided to not host the event. If they had not sent out the survey, they would have gone through the expense of advertising and setup. Sending out a survey told them it was not a good idea. So it's just another way of utilizing the email platform. 

Customers respond differently to marketing. That's one of the reasons we recommend utilizing all of the KUKUI Communication methods, from postcards, emails, phone calls, and texting. 

Jimmy:   Nice and since we're talking about stacking these marketing methods today, what do you like to stack the email campaigns with? 

Lori: Oh, Jimmy, The follow-up module is one of my absolute favorites. 

While all marketing can be stacked, I always recommend emails and the follow-up module together. They really do complement one another. 

Jimmy: Can you show us an example of what that might look like? 

Lori:  Absolutely. So first, let's think about the retention we had set up for that one shop. 

We had declined services for 30 days. 

We had oil changes for five months and three months. 

Now we are going to stack the marketing or layer the marketing.  Let's go to the follow-up module and see how to actually set that up. 

So we understand that no matter how great your email open rate might be. Not everyone reads and responds to emails. This is where the value of making that personal phone call comes into play, Jimmy. This is a great reminder to your customer that they need service. And yes, you could potentially see the revenue come in that same day or the next day, depending on your availability. 

Even if your customer did receive and read their email or postcard, a phone call can always enhance your marketing. By stacking your marketing, you're increasing your chances of scheduling that appointment. 

So we just verified the oil change emails, we're at three months and six months now on the follow-up module, you can see here the same oil changes are set up at seven months for the Synthetic and Diesel, and then four months for the conventional oil change. We are stacking or layering the reminders. 

The purpose of interval changing is to allow customers time to read the email and schedule an appointment. So if a customer schedules that appointment before that four months, the customer will not show up for a follow-up phone call.  Preventing over marketing to your customers. The oil change again will simply reset itself. 

The exact same process works for “Decline Services.” An Email is set to go at 30 days after service. There is a 2 week grace period allowing for the customer to call and schedule the appointment.  If the customer does call in and schedule their appointment at 35 days they are then automatically taken out of the 45-day follow-up phone call campaign.  

Same process for “Lost Customers.” The email is set up to be sent at nine months, the follow-up module shows a phone call to be made at 12 months, allowing three months between reminders. 

These intervals are 100% customizable for shop-specific needs. It could be 12 months, eight months, 15 months, whatever you desire it to be. 

Jimmy: Oh, that's awesome! 

Joanne, to your question about postcards… Yes, the postcards would be a great idea. We'll talk about postcards here in a minute. So if you'll hold on to that question here for a second, we can get to that. 

Patricia is asking Lori, do you have a specific script document for your service advisors to use in a follow-up phone call?

Lori:   We have a script for all of them. 

Absolutely, I'll be happy to send that to you. 

Jimmy: Let's include that in our follow-up email. We can include these handouts and the Follow-Up Script as well.

OK, so I love how we really are using all of these different marketing mediums. We've just stacked our combined emails and phone calls into the customer coming in for service. Is there a recommendation for the “Thank You” Campaign, or, is this just that One Touch enough scenario? 

Lori:   Who doesn't want to feel appreciated? Really? Personally, I would not mind getting that email thanking me for my business and asking for a review. And then to even get a phone call to check in a couple of days later… Especially if I'm a new customer to that shop or spending a good amount of money. This shop even has the “Thank You” campaign set up for new customers who spent over $500. They're all about showing their customer that they matter, and nowadays I think that's more critical than ever before. What's more personal than a phone call?

Looking at the KUKUI dashboard “Follow-Up” module, we don't want to forget about tracking those phone calls. Now talking about “Thank You” specifically. I had a shop owner recently share with me how impactful those thank you phone calls were. 

It wasn't just about strengthening that customer relationship. What I'm showing you here is that even the “Thank You” campaign brings in revenue. 

$9,000 was booked to his calendar by making the “Thank You” phone calls. Customers were actually asking him to service their other vehicles and moving forward with their decline services instead of waiting out 30 days or for that next paycheck. 

So, do the phone calls work even for “Thank You’s”? Absolutely!

Jimmy: That is so cool. $9,000 from calling a customer and saying, thank you. It works. 

OK, now, Joanne, you were asking about postcards, let us pivot to talking about postcards.

10 years ago I remember in the automotive industry there was a narrative saying that direct mail was dead. 

It's a thing of the past. 

Over recent years, it's been very clear that there's a resurgence when it comes to postcards. Tara, would you agree that postcards are a great way of reaching clients? 

Tara: Absolutely, without a doubt, 100% There was a time when email marketing took the world by storm. A little over a decade ago, I was working for another well-known company in the automotive industry, and it was a CRM focused on email marketing. And, at that time it was all email, email, email. Believe it or not, that was a time where we actually only got emails from friends and family. 

So emails were huge and took the world by storm. 

Now we're kind of seeing that with text. 

10 years ago, there were actual articles on Google talking about closing the post offices. And that's just not the case anymore. I 100% agree that postcards are experiencing a resurgence. They're coming back and there is a place in your shop’s marketing plan for postcards. 

And there are a few reasons for that because postcards do have a lot of benefits. 

The first one is they reach a majority of your customers. They actually have to go in to get the mail out. So without a doubt, it's going to reach them. 

We are in a world of screens, from TV, Computers, and smartphones, there is a benefit of being able to hold something tangible in your hand.  You can set it on the counter, attach it to the fridge, or stuff it in the glove compartment. 

So that's why it is important to complement these different marketing channels. Singularly each one has its benefits, and they also have their cons too.  But that's why we need to utilize them all together. 

Another great thing I love about direct mail is that when people get a postcard, they sit and they read it. Written email and texts are great. I usually read my emails during a busy workday. Or if I'm having a text come through, I'm usually busy doing something. So those typically are like on-the-go methods. 

When you're getting your mail, you're going to grab it and you're going to sit and read these things. So they make a different impression. 

And another great thing, too, and why retention Postcards work so well.  Personalization! These postcards are going to have the customer's name and recommended services.

So again, these are our really great marketing methods that I think many shops forget about. 

Jimmy: Lori, can you tell us a little bit more about the KUKUI retention postcards? Because I hear a lot of shops are using postcards for acquisition, acquiring new customers? 

What are some of the good or common examples of postcards for retention that you have seen most effective? 

Lori:   Thank you for bringing that up because when it comes to postcards, a lot of shops really think about them for new customer acquisition. And really, they work exceptionally well for retention too, because you're able to personalize these, so retention postcards convert really, really well. Again, that different impression happens when they receive that postcard. Just like I talked about with me in the dentist, for example, sometimes it takes an email, a text, and then potentially that postcard to make that impression. And we make it really easy. I want to show a few examples here. 

Here's one of our customers, Dave Tool. So the first one here is the reminder postcard. What's really great is you're going to be able to get a design set up for your shop, KUKUI will do that for you. And then depending on the different campaigns you want to run, we'll update the card depending on that campaign. 

Jimmy:   OK, so if it's an oil change reminder, a lost customer, whatever that is, decline service, we'll update it for you. And we're going to, as Lori mentioned, be pulling these when you tell us to based on the information in your shop software. 

Lori: And I mean, I love this. So this is Dave tool, his son Beau to the right, one of their employees on the left. And this is the “Lost Customer” communication. And you can see it reads “Hi, John- We haven't seen you here at Tools recently,” and then they give an offer. 

So it's personalized. They took the time to send this to me, and I want to show you this other one, too. 

It's a declined service or a recommendation. KUKUI pulled this information straight from the shop software. We were able to see the different bullet points here, the radiator flush, the oil change. These things make an impression and we make it really easy too. 

So let's say you don't want to just do reminder postcards. You want to send a retention blast during the holidays. We actually have an email template gallery. Christmas, Easter, Back-To-School, and Autumn. All of the different holidays are here.  including tax day cards and break specials. Take some time to click on our postcard tab and look at the email template gallery. Take some time to do this, because this in itself will generate some ideas. 

For some shops, there is a budget issue.  Maybe you don't want to send these to everyone in your customer base, KUKUI can actually put some settings in a place where you can have these go out to at least the customers you don't have emails for, or for customers who spent more than $1000 this year. This would go out to potentially someone like my grandma who doesn’t have an email account. She needs that postcard. So if she leaves your shop and you're not marketing to her, she may never come back. She needs that postcard. And you know, I'm a sucker for a good stat. Everyone on the team knows it because I talk about this a lot. 

Another one that I saw the other day was about customers, a majority. I think it was like about 80% of customers really appreciate doing business with a company that offers a personalized experience. 

There is a Valentine's Day card and you can see it's personalized. 

We have Christmas stuff in there. 

Thanksgiving is thankful for being our customer. 

These postcards make an impression. 

And then most importantly, you all want to know every penny you're spending is getting some return. And what I'm going to show you here is our postcard dashboard. So on that very first page of your control panel, you're going to see all the tracked calls coming in. So that's going to let you know how many calls are converted into revenue. But right here on the postcard dashboard, this is just going to overall show you if a postcard went out to this customer, did they come in? And this is important because when you're stacking marketing, sometimes it could be a few things that help drive a customer into the shop. For this shop they sent out a “Factory Recommendation” postcard to customers that came in and over the last 0 to 30 days, this shop did $31,000 in revenue.

So it gives you an idea of what's working and what isn't. Because we understand, every dollar spent wants to know that you're getting a return. 

Jimmy: So that's what I love about KUKUI as we're really big on the data in the tracking, and we're able to show you what is working and what is not working.

Lori:   Just to remind everybody to get tracking numbers with your packages. And if you haven't used them all, you probably should have some available and there are some that should be allocated toward direct mail marketing. 

Jimmy: OK, now Greg's got a question, I think this is a really good question. His printer only likes the idea of sending the big postcards, which I agree with. I like the big postcards myself. He has been sending the normal-sized one for years. Are there any opinions or any data about the size of different postcards making a difference in the responses that shops are getting from customers? 

Lori: Well, I know personally here at KUKUI we use a larger cardstock size. It's a little bit glossy, so it's a really high-end card. And this is going to go out to the shop. So for me, KUKUI always makes our decisions based on data, right? And we want to make sure things convert. So that is why we've chosen that card. It is a little bigger than the normal one. It's going to be a little thicker and a nice quality print. So we've chosen that because we've seen it convert the best. 

The Postcard response rate that we're seeing here at KUKUI is in the teens. That seems to be three, four, or five times what a normal response rate is for most postcards. I would say this says our larger format postcards are just killing it when it compares to Traditional postcards. Going back to what we said if you're a shop that hasn't done retention postcards and maybe you've only done new customer acquisition postcards that didn't really work for you? So postcards don't work for your shop?! No, that's not the case. Retention postcards are a really great way to get customers back in. It's going to help you stack your marketing. And again, they're personalized, so they're going to be getting this from someone that they've done business with. They know you. It works a lot better. It converts better. 

Jimmy: Nice can you explain again real quickly? Patricia's asking, she says. Can you explain how the tracking number works on a postcard? 

Lori: Oh, absolutely, Patricia. Great question. Thank you for asking. So we will put a tracking number on your postcard. It's going to look like a number coming straight from your area, so it's going to look very similar to your number. And when a customer calls, it's going to route that call directly to the shop line. So everything just integrates perfectly. So when your service advisor picks up that phone, we're going to be able to track exactly where that marketing source came from. And to that note, if you guys are doing anything out there marketing, get a tracking number. If you're spending money on marketing, you'll want to track that marketing. If you're sponsoring a baseball team, if you're doing something with the Chamber of Commerce and you're going to, you're doing a magazine ad stick, a tracking number on it because that's going to help us, and help you because we can stick that on the dashboard. And you can see how many calls you're getting. 

Jimmy: Oh, I love it. OK, and the last couple of questions here, can I get a sample of a postcard sent so I can see what it looks like before we order a bunch of them? And I think this question is about retention, but it also sounds like it could be a question about an acquisition. 

Lori: Absolutely go ahead and touch base with your client success coordinator, and we'd be happy to help you with that. 

Jimmy: And Joanne was asking that question. So thank you, Joanne. I really appreciate that. 

OK, moving on now, I feel like we're saving the best for last. One of my personal favorites. Let's talk about texting. Trisha, I know texting has become the most convenient way to communicate these days. But what kind of impact does texting have now compared to all the different communication methods that we just went over? 

Trisha: Yeah Jimmy, in my opinion, definitely saved the best for last. Maybe I'm biased because I'm a millennial. I'm in my 30s, and I text every day professionally and personally. So if you haven't implemented text marketing yet, I think it's a fabulous idea. It's very easy. It's very quick. It's highly effective. You can utilize texting for multiple types of touchpoints and campaigns. And to Terry's point, texting is taking the world by storm. 

If we're talking about texting compared to email though today because a lot of people like to compare the two statistically. Email marketing research states that it's dropped to about 20% across the board for an open rate. That's a general statistic though. At KUKUI, we are still at an amazing 50% to 60% open rate for email. So to all of Lori's points earlier, do not stop utilizing email in your marketing plan. 

Jimmy:  OK, that's just a general statement across the board. But when we're talking about texting in general as well, the open rate is 98%. OK, so 98% open rate with texting and 90% of that people are opening within three minutes. So if you're looking for something quick that you really want to get in front of your customers three minutes open rates, pretty awesome. 

Trisha: And then research also is saying that it takes about 90 seconds to respond to a text. And this is sure this is true because I've seen some of our clients send out text messages. I believe in our webinar. Last month, Mike Delfino sent out some text messages live if you sat in on that one and people were responding pretty immediately, so that's very awesome to know. And then with email, some people are saying the response rate can be 90 minutes or 24 hours. Even so, it's a much longer response rate. I mean, the last statistic I want to share is that 75% of people are actually happy to receive text marketing and offers through text. I don't think you should be over-bombarding and communicating with your customers. Marketing campaigns and marketing messages and offers. But 75% of people are happy to receive them, and if they are used properly, I think it will be highly effective and great for converting as well. 

Jimmy:  These are such great points there. And I have a quick question from Joanne. She's asking in sending out text messages, can our shop logo come up in a text message as well? 

Trisha: That's a good question, Joanne. We do have an option to attach an image to the marketing, to some marketing campaigns. The “Thank you”, “Please leave us a review”, in my opinion, is a great campaign to have a branded image or your logo because you just serviced the customer. It's very professional, it's very brand consistent and you're also asking for feedback. So that campaign, I would say yes, definitely put your logo or an image there. You can also attach images to some of the marketing campaigns if you're creating a custom campaign, if you don't have text connect today, please reach out to your coordinator if all of this is sounding enticing. You can attach a logo and image to those as well. I've heard, and in my opinion, those types of campaigns are more personable. They're more just wanting to let you know John Smith that you're due for a service, maybe an oil change. Maybe you missed a client service last time because you want those to be really casual and more of a soft touch you don't necessarily need, in my opinion, a logo or image for those types of campaigns. But you do have the option to if you like. 

I love that it's all customizable that we can customize. If you want your logo, you can. 

Jimmy: So Trisha, when we talk about text marketing, what are some of the advantages and benefits that come with it? 

Trisha: Oh, absolutely a ton of benefits and advantages with text marketing. I think the most important thing, though, is to really understand how to implement and utilize text marketing the right way. So we listen to Lori, we listen to Tara. It's really about stacking these communication methods right effectively for your shop, how it complements your customer base. And really, from a sales perspective, it does take 5-8 touches to close the deal. You want to talk about it from a sales perspective. 

Jimmy: So how can we trickle in texting, properly? 

Trisha: There are some points to keep in mind. Text messages should be short and sweet, straight to the point you don't need extra fluff. Obviously, this isn't like an email where you can put tons of taglines and graphics and whatnot, so keep it short. If the campaign specifically that you're setting up is geared towards getting the customer back into the shop, maybe you want to offer an oil change campaign, or decline services campaign. Don't be afraid to use attention grabbers in these short text messages.  Maybe you want to do a quick $10 off if anybody comes in this week? Hey, so don't be afraid to provide those gifts. These are your existing customers. You can also utilize text messaging for mass blasting now, which is really awesome because maybe you guys are closed for the holidays, or maybe you guys are opening a new location or you just hired a technician who does hybrid vehicle servicing. So now you're opening your market to hybrids, you can mass text people at once now letting them know about these new announcements, which is awesome. And then, of course, the most popular day-to-day. Operationally, you're going to have to utilize texting in real-time communication right to texting. 

How can we communicate status updates about the vehicle? 

How can we answer quick questions? 

How can we continuously stay engaged with customers so that our brand is top of mind? 

Jimmy: Texting is such a great way of communicating. Now I'm sure everyone understands the concept of texting. We know how to do this, but I think everyone needs to know and understand the difference between touchpoints versus KUKUI marketing messages. Can you elaborate a little bit on and explain the differences between a text message and marketing messages? 

Trisha: Yes, absolutely. It's very important to know the difference between a touchpoint via text or a marketing message via text. And I think that's important because you don't want to overwhelm your customers with so many campaigns out there. So it's really going to be beneficial to understand the difference when you are taking a step back to build that follow-up program that we're talking about when you look at that worksheet. 

Tara and Lori provided and you're building your follow-up program to understand when to sprinkle in the touchpoint versus when to sprinkle in the marketing message, right? So touchpoints are highly effective for ongoing engagement, in my opinion, for retention rate, for just keeping customers engaged consistently, and keeping your brand top of mind. I love the touchpoints because the goal here is to not generate immediate revenue. The goal here is to show that you care. You're following up with your customer three months after you service their vehicle. You know, John Smith just wanted to check in how your How's your vehicle running? Call us if you have questions. It's not geared towards getting immediate revenue. Or maybe you're just following up in nine months. Maybe you did the follow-up in three months. You did the follow-up phone call in six months, and then you did another follow-up text in nine months. So these touchpoints are really valuable to keep your brand top of mind. Another type of marketing message is the marketing campaign, right? So these are actually geared towards getting the customer back into the shop. So these have a little bit more strategy and thought in mind because these are going to be your oil change reminders, your declined service reminders, lost customers. We haven't seen you in 12 months and 9 months. So I have to put some purpose and some thought and some creativity into these messages,  I need to understand, who am I sending the message to? When am I sending it? Is it after the email, before the email? Who is my customer? Do you know the season? Can I play into the weather? Can I make this a little bit more unique? So those are the differences between a touchpoint and a marketing message? 

Jimmy: Oh, that's awesome, that makes a lot of sense. And to build a solid follow-up program, would you need to have both types of campaigns? Is there a best practice on what message to set up through texting? 

Trisha: I personally say yes, in my opinion. I think it's best practice for sure. You got to have a little bit of both. And again, when the coordinator is putting your follow-up program together, these are drip-style campaigns. Now you're dripping them and stacking them with your emails and postcards. So it really is a drip-style campaign now. And Jimmy, I want to show an example of this. 

The text connect platform allows you to set up your ongoing text campaigns very similar to email. You can see there's a one-month follow-up. That's a touchpoint appointment reminder. That's a touchpoint, but then you have marketing campaigns, oil change reminders geared to getting the customer back into the shop recommended service geared to getting the customer back into the shop. We haven't seen you in 12 months again trying to get the customer back into the shop. So highly effective to have a little bit of both. But again, keep in mind your program, your follow-up schedule, or is going to be different from the next shop. So we'll have to work with you on that. 

Jimmy: OK, so one last question, because you brought up a great point, you said that these ongoing campaigns are more of a drip-style. Got that? If the KUKUI also has text blasting, can you give us a quick explanation on when and how to use text blasting? 

Trisha: Of course, Yep. So text blasting, Our goal is to not have you use the text blasting as frequently as maybe you would want. You've got to put yourself in the consumer’s shoes now. How annoying is it to get a text blast from the same company once a week? I think I've unsubscribed to a few this month already. They're retail companies, but it was getting annoying, right? Be careful when you use text blasting. You use it all the time because the drip-style campaigns are meant to keep your base filled. OK, if you're finding yourself turning to this tool too often, maybe we take a step back and again, reconfigure your marketing strategy. The text blasting is an amazing tool because, for example, at the peak of the pandemic, things were uncertain and people needed to keep the bays filled. So they were doing a blast, maybe once a month, just reminding their customers, you know, hey, we're open if you need. If you need a service, you know, here's $10 off. Here is an example of a campaign blast where the shop gave $75 off any repair service.  It went to 76 people and generated over $2,000. 

We do want to track the analytics, the metrics. You want to show your return here.  And, this is just another great way to utilize text marketing. 

Jimmy: That is so amazing, so if a shop is using text blasting too much, then chances are they need to look at their drip system. Correct? 

Trisha: Absolutely. If you find yourself doing text blasts weekly, I would say, let's have a chat. Let's talk with your coordinator to think about all the different drip-style campaigns you have going on. Because of the shop that I just talked about on our previous slide, who runs these amazing drip-style campaigns on the previous slide? He also does postcards and email since he signed up for text connect. 

Jimmy: OK, and I've got a question from Joanne. And I think this goes right along with this drip campaign and it's about a birthday. I have a customer with a birthday coming up on Monday. Is there any way of personalizing it to wish her a happy birthday? Can that be a drip campaign or is that a blast campaign? How is it? What do you think? 

Trisha: So if your shop management system has an area for birthdays. You can create a custom ongoing campaign where we trigger a happy birthday text message that you can customize and make your own and it will send to your customer on their birthday. So yes, you can. I know some shop management systems don't have that field, so to those shop owners, I am sorry you can't get in the fun on the birthday message, but for the ones that do, you absolutely can. 

Jimmy: That's perfect. This is all great information. Extremely valuable. Now I want to remind all of you that for everyone who registered, an email was sent with these worksheets prior to the webinar. So now we have all these different channels. It's time for us to kind of wrap this up and put a bow on it. Tara, I know you have a way of doing this as well. We showed what Lori's timeline look like. Do you have a timeline as well? Can you share it with everyone? Because I found it very powerful and I want to be able to share it with our audience as well. 

Tara: Absolutely I know we don't have much time left here, so I'll try to keep this quick for all you owners that need to get back to your shop. But this is the way that I envision it and I share it with shops. Obviously, Lori has her way. She looks at it too. So just like every shop is not the same the way you envision your marketing. 

I really like the timeline approach. Here is 24 hours after that customer came in for a visit. Perhaps you have the thank you and review text, the email goes out. And then two weeks later there's that follow-up text to your existing customers. And, as Lori said, a follow-up call is really great when it's a new customer. So I want to go ahead and make sure two weeks after we do that, follow up and call. It's really eye-opening when you get it down on paper because when I put this down on paper, I must have changed it five different times. I have the 30-day reminder for a declined or recommended service via text or email. And if they don't come in for that, then maybe 45 days later, I want to hit them with a postcard. But let's say you're a good shop that is strict and disciplined with doing phone calls. Maybe 45 days after you want to make that phone call and then 50 to 60 days later, you send them the postcard. It's Customizable, Make it yours. I encourage you to have some sort of plan. Really think about the customer journey and how often you're touching them because we all know that when you get a new customer in the door, you do not want them walking out the door without some plan to get them back. We know it costs more money to get a new customer than it is to retain our old ones, so this is really important. You have a blank copy of the Customer Timeline.  Get out a pen and paper and just start jotting it down. We recommend our shops do one at least quarterly text blast to keep up that engagement. 

Plan to send a “Happy new year”, potentially in the first quarter. Second-quarter, maybe a summer road trip special. Maybe Q3, We do the Labor Day. Q4 is for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I also want to encourage you guys to think creatively with these blasts. 

A lot of shops get an absolutely insane return on a customer loyalty card. Run a report on customer spending. And let's say the customer spent between $250 and $750. Now, Send them a card and maybe they'll slap $22.63 on it. Maybe the higher spenders get $52.66. Start filling this out and take this to your next meeting with your client success coordinator and get everything set up. So thank you, everybody. 

Jimmy: Oh, that's awesome. Thank you so much, and I appreciate the blank format as well. Shops can go in and fill out this information and really customize the touches. Personalize it to their shop. And Lori, you also have an Auto repair, customer journey, love this as well, this is also included for everybody in a blank format, so you can fill out the information here as well. 

There've been a lot of questions, comments, concerns coming through for Trisha. There was one specifically about texting. Shannon is asking what is the best way to get customers to sign up for text marketing? 

Trisha: This is a very great question because when you are essentially marketing to customers via text, there is a requirement to gather permission from them. So if you're looking to do text blasts and you are planning to do mass texting in your marketing plan, we will be collecting opt-ins in multiple ways. There's a lot of ways, so we will add a pop-up window onto your website if you let us. So when people are visiting for the first time, or they haven't visited in a while, once they go to your website, they can immediately opt-in for your text marketing. On the appointments page of your website, We can add a section at the very end, prompting them to opt-in as they're making an online appointment. We're also going to be able to email blast your customers to let them know you now offer text marketing. We can direct them to a place where they can opt-in. And the most favorite one from KUKUI right now is what we call a keyword opt-in where you can promote a keyword. It would be, for example, text “save” or text “specials” to this texting number, whatever number we assign to you, and it would automatically opt your customer in through there as well. This is very popular because you can promote this at the shop, you can promote it on your website, you can promote it on any of your marketing collateral, and then your customer can save $10, $20 on their next visit. Another way you can collect opt-ins is by just manually opting people in your customer’s module within the KUKUI control panel. I know I'm just saying this out loud and you can't visually see it, so please, please, please, if you don't have text connect and you have a lot of questions in regards to texting, please ask your coordinator to get you set up with somebody here and we'll be happy to do a demonstration to answer all of your texting questions. 

Jimmy: Yeah, I've seen a lot of questions coming in from Shannon, from Patricia, from Joanne. There's a tremendous amount of questions coming through Adam and Glenn. They're asking a lot of questions about texting like we have consumed our lives over time. But gosh, there are so many more questions that have still been coming through. I would still like to address all of these. For those who aren't here or had to leave, that's fine. It is recorded. You can come back and see this information as well. There are a lot of questions yet to address. To be able to answer all these questions for our clients, for our shops that are here on this call. McKenna has been monitoring a lot of these questions that are coming through. Are there any specifically McKenna, that you think that we should address here with these clients that we can address or? Did we hit all of them? 

Mackenna: There was an awesome comment by Glenn. Do you want to touch base on that, jimmy? 

Jimmy: So Glenn said we sent out a summer tire change every email special on Monday.  1,506 emails were sent based on the criteria I picked as of today, four days later. We have made over $15,000 in sales based on that one email alone. I feel that is a great success. Plus, we have many more future bookings that are coming up and not in the sales numbers yet. This is beautiful. Glenn, congratulations. That is a very successful email campaign. I know Lori is probably just jumping up and down. I'm just so excited about the success of a great email. That's wonderful. 

Phil White, you asked what generates the tracking and the follow-up module? I'll leave that to Lori since she talked about that. 

Lori: Absolutely that's actually a great question. So once you actually call a customer and you flag it as you made that outbound phone call, we know that customer came in within 30 days and that's what populates the revenue. So you completed a phone call and that customer came back in. I love how these campaigns work with the intelligence of the KUKUI system, if a client comes in between that 3,000 or 4,000 mark on mileage, it resets it automatically. All of the campaigns. So it's perfect that way you don't over market and send somebody a customer, email, or text message when they were just here yesterday. It's a beautiful way of doing that. 

Jimmy: Love it. I also see someone asking if this is recorded. It absolutely is available for them to view. Yeah, give us a couple of days here to come in and edit this information. Get it reposted onto the website, you'll see an email go out, probably on Monday that says the recording is here, it's available. You can watch it on the KUKUI website and the blog page. And that way you can review all this great and glorious information. 

Shop owners, friends, thank you so very much. This is my contact information. Cell phones, email addresses. Drop me a text message. Do you want to connect? Do you want to know more information about emails, phone calls, texting, or postcards? Drop me a line here. We would love to have a conversation about your marketing goals. It's just a phenomenal program. I thank you all for being here. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you to my panel. Lori, Trisha, Tara, thank you so much. Any final words from the three of you? Are we good? Lori, anything for you? 

Lori: Well, I just want to encourage all the shops out there to reach out to their coordinator and go look at the journey plan out there, marketing, figure out what they want to send, and to win. And I both shared great examples of what to do. So make it your own and talk to your coordinator. 

Trisha: I was just going to say thank you all for joining. For the shops out there who are feeling overwhelmed with all of the different marketing methods. I hope now it's easier to digest these worksheets. Use the KUKUI All-in-One Success platform, because it will make your communication so much easier and you can automate most messages. 

Jimmy: Beautiful, Tara. Final words. 

Tara: Thanks again, everyone for joining. I do want to encourage you to. If you didn't see the deep dive a few weeks ago with Mike Delfino regarding texting, that was a great one. You will see how he's stacking his marketing and he was doing text in real-time. So if you want to see how well texting works and it's taking the world by storm, go look in our archive and check that out. And then last point is when you're marketing and you get unsubscribed like an unsubscribe from your email or a stop from your texting. Don't freak out. I know as a shop owner you're like, Oh my gosh, they're mad at me. That's not the case. That customer is customizing the way that they want to communicate with you. So I always try to tell the shop, don't get offended. Don't worry. Obviously if you're over texting and you're getting stops like 50 a day, then we want to talk about something. But if you're going to take our worksheets and you're methodical about how you're doing this texting and you're going to be stacking it appropriately, then everything's going to be fine and you're going to be getting a lot of business in the shop. And we're all going to be making money. 

Jimmy:   Beautiful love it. Love it. Thank you very much. Thank you to my panel. That's here and from me. I say thank you to you. Thank you for joining us to talk about the kwekwe system and this deep dive. For those of you who are watching this, our deep dives in April are going to be amazing. There's a great new announcement coming out about lead scoring, so you're able to score your phone calls. That's April 15. Then we've got a webinar on the 22nd talking about making the most out of your customer database and then again on the 29th. Talking about service advisors, service advisor training, using the KUKUI system to help your service advisors increase their conversions from six seven eight 9% up into the 30% 40% So we've got some great webinars coming up and ahead of us looking very much forward looking to have you join us for those. So with that, thank you very much. Hope everybody has a blessed day and we'll see you again soon.