AAA Approved Auto Repair

[John]

They are trying but I believe as of now it was put on hold. Many shops in the mid-Atlantic area complained as did a lot of shops in the Connecticut market. We would most likely leave the program if the made it a mandatory requirement. AAA are not good for competition, we feel they would eventually use that info for their again and our demise. That just my thought 

[pbrennan]

I would also agree – it could be great source of referrals & future repeat customers if done correctly. But, your customer database is almost the entire value of your company. 

On another note – isn’t AAA referring to your shop, anyway? They have a list of all of their customers.

[Joe Fordyce]

By logging in to the AAA Portal, they want you to show who owns the vehicle, what was repaired, how much you discounted, and how much you charged.  Yes they are farming, but they disguise it as creating a database to inform their members about possible upcoming failures on their vehicles.  For example, if the 2009 XMachine is known to need a water pump between 65000 and 85000 miles, they may inform a member that they should have the water pump inspected carefully on their next visit.  They also claim they will be using this info for members interested in purchasing a used vehicle, so then they can warn them of possible upcoming repairs that will be needed.  Hard to say what else they’re doing with this farmed info, but that’s what they tell you on the surface.

They are also offering repair vouchers randomly to their members.  Once we enter the vehicle repair info, they can be selected to receive anywhere from $10 to $100 in the form of a repair voucher that they can use on their NEXT visit.  It works like a gift card type of payment.

AAA has rolled out a new program called Priority Service, which is just slightly different from the regular type of AAA referral we’ve gotten forever.  Priority Service requires that you log in to the AAA site, then set your status to “Ready…” or “Not Ready to receive Priority Service Tows.”  If you are set to Ready, that means that if AAA gets a tow call for a breakdown in your area, they will see online that you are ready.  They will call and you must be able to give them a Yes or No on the spot to receive the vehicle.  Part of the package is that you must perform triage on the vehicle within the first hour that it arrives at your shop.  That doesn’t mean it has to be fixed, just has to be looked at/tested/diagnosed.  Once that is done, you are free to tell the customer how long it will take to get it back up and running.  You’re also REQUIRED to give the 10% discount to this customer for the job, but knowing that up front allows one to adjust pricing accordingly.

To answer your question, no, it has not been a windfall of riches for us.

[Daniel]

In our area they have opened their own auto repair shops (3) They spiff their drivers to poach customers back to their own locations.  We are no longer part of their program. Could not see paying to belong to them only to have them actively poach customers.  We found out about the poaching from several of our regular customers who also said the drivers put on the hard sell and would become rude if customer declined their advances. So for us, NO AAA.. If a customer says they will have AAA tow in their car, we politely offer to send our tow service and pay for it. And recommend not renewing their membership.