[autovitals]

How do you distinguish between these ‘fake’ appointments, since no customer has confirmed them and real confirmed appointments?

[autovitals]

Marc,

I appreciate your feedback about our AutoVitals system.

Would you mind adding that you never actually used our software? 

And since your last demo is over a year ago, it compares apple with oranges when looking at today’s system.

We have taken the system to new heights involving dozens of shops across the nation before we released it one month ago.

Truly paperless means no paper rack anymore. 2 way integration with the SMS and complete overview where every vehicle is, technician dispatching included. Your WIP screen looks really old and insufficient in comparison.

Videos demonstrating how it works can be found on http://www.autovitals.com/smartflow-training/

[autovitals]

• I would ask your current customers, since they should find it appealing
• from a website effectiveness perspective please keep the following things in mind and check it out again

1. new visitors take 10-15 seconds to let the home page impress them before they decide to find out more about you or go away. Are you attracting them in 10-15 seconds?
2. German car owners strike me as less cost and more quality of work sensitive. Are you making sure your website appeals to that?
3. You are a local business in a local community, does your website develop a trusting relationship already? (empty service bays, no people in the pictures, no intro by the owner and or service advisor don’t seem to help here)
4. I would run a heatmap on your site, which will tell you exactly where people click, so you can optimize your website as you go.

[autovitals]

Members of the AutoVitals network offer a subscription service to their customer motorists. This service informs them about recalls in the last 6 months. 

Some shops take the vehicle to the dealer for the customer, others guide motorists what to do with recall.

[autovitals]

Larry,

have you compared PPC conversation costs with local/organic conversion

costs?

Our research shows that PPC (AdwordsExpress and Adwords) is about 5x

better than Yellow Pages (20% of the cost for the same amount of new

customers).

Organic/Local on the other end is about 4x better than PPC (25% of the

cost of PPC) for the same amount of new customers. PPC visits tend to

bounce on the website at a rate of 80% or higher.

This has been measured for all makes all models general auto repair

shops in towns with >20,000 drivers (population > 65,000)

Thanks in advance.

[autovitals]

I would like to chime in and try to make it simple and actionable,

In our experience, a web presence needs three main ingredients to be

successful, described by the process a searching motorist would go

through:

1. High ranking of Website AND Google places listing

2. Good reputation of the business, expressed by Reviews on Google

search and on the website and more and more importantly by number of

+1 clicks, since it is shown on Google search and influences the

Google algo

3. A website design, which accomplishes a high engagement and lets the

motorist take one of the three main call to actions:

a. call the shop

b. request an appointment or estimate

c. leave an email address to be contacted with specials

That is it. Here is an example, accomplishing all three

http://www.google.com/search?q=auto+repair+campbell+ca

Check out Autotrend Diagnostics,

1. number one with website and google listing

2. two rows of 5 star reviews, one is google, one is the reviews we

collected from their customers

3. a website inviting the user to check the shop out.

One more thing: The reviews can be leveraged for search as well, so

the shop appears more than once. Check this out to see that a motorist

can’t escape Schneiders Auto Repair for the keywords used

http://www.google.com/search?q=saturn+repair+simi+valley+ca

How much is it going to cost?

That depends on your expectations, it should be aligned with the

business success you are achieving through the website.

$5 revenue through the web for $1 spent on your web presence?

More or less than that? Let me know what you think

is reasonable.

[autovitals]

Raymond Massenberg wrote:

> Tom,

>

> The whole Google search thing is a science in itself.

>

> You have probiblaly seen this

>

>

http://www.shopownermag.com/Item/96463/improving_customer_service_beyo

nd_the_counter_leveraging_the_web_to_generate_leads_and_build_customer

_relationships.aspx

>

> It’s a great read.

>

> The problem is Google doesn’t entirely disclose how it chooses what

it displays. Even worse, by the time the SEO companies reverse

engineer the process, Google changes the algorithm again.

Thank you Raymond, I am glad you liked the article.

I want to say one thing though: I propose to not look at Google

changing the algorithm because they want to create business for the

SEO companies and get some of you sleepless nights worrying about the

ranking of your business. It is typically because it increases the

value for the searching public/motorist. Especially with increasing

social interaction the social rank of a website becomes more

important. In other words, a website or business listing recommended

by a ‘friend’ catches your attention more than 20 or more reviews from

‘strangers’, right?

More about the impact social ranking on website and listing can be

found in our blog http://blog.autovitals.com/2012/01/21/rons-

questions-about-unpredictable-search-results/

Tom,

Anything around the Google places listing changes on a regular basis,

and as always when you do open surgery on a living creature, mistakes

have a big impact. So reviews vanish and re-emerge, we got used to it,

although we wish Google paid more attention to the implication on the

small business, caused by those software glitches.

Thank you for running this network.

Uwe