Word of mouth has been known for a long time as the best and most effective marketing for business. It has high credibility since, in most cases, it is done by happy customers who are not paid for talking good things about or recommending a business to their friends. According to a research conducted by R. Grewal, T.W. Cline, and A. Davies, individuals are more inclined to believe word of mouth than more formal forms of promotion methods because they tend to believe that the referrer is speaking honestly without any hidden agenda.

This is also the case in the auto repair business. Most repair shop owners/managers I met said many of their new customers came to their shop because of their friends’ recommendation. Many shop owners/managers even said they no longer do traditional marketing such as distributing coupons and flyers, and rely 100% on word of mouth for their shop marketing. One owner who just started his independent Mercedes-Benz shop about a year ago said he got most of his customers through recommendation from his previous customers whom he met when he was working as a mechanic at a Mercedes-Benz dealership.

With the increasing use of the Internet as a research and communications platform, word of mouth has become an even more powerful and useful resource for consumers and marketers. Increasingly, people are sharing their experiences with their friends (or even people they don’t really know) in real time through the Internet. Many social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter are becoming important media for businesses for their marketing, especially word of mouth marketing. Word of mouth marketing through the Internet can too be a very powerful, yet inexpensive marketing tool for auto repair shops.

While shop owners/managers realize the importance of word of mouth marketing for their business, they have not used it to its full potential. Based on my discussions, I learned that most of shop owners/managers only do “passive” word of mouth marketing. What I mean with “passive” is, these shop owners/managers are working hard to satisfy their customers and just hoping their happy customers will recommend their shop to their friends. Sometimes shop owners/managers ask their happy customers to recommend their shop, but in most cases, they don’t ask them at all. Furthermore, most of the times, these happy customers will talk to their friends only if their friends ask for recommendation for good repair shops.

Even though this “passive” word of mouth marketing has been proven effective, AutoSally believes repair shop owners/managers can improve their marketing by doing more “active” word of mouth marketing. Some shop owners/managers have started publishing their customer testimonials on their website or brochures/flyers. However, these testimonials have low credibility since they are posted by shop owners/managers, not by the customers themselves.

AutoSally is helping shop managers/owners to do more “active” word of mouth marketing by providing tools that make it easier for their customers to share their opinions. AutoSally implements Facebook and Twitter APIs and encourages car owners to register using their Facebook or Twitter account. Depending on the settings of their Facebook or Twitter account, car owners can share some of the actions they take on AutoSally. For example, when a car owner leaves a good feedback (“Recommend”) for a repair shop in AutoSally, the message below will be posted on his/her Facebook or Twitter account, allowing his/her friends to read it.

“Sally recommends Joe Mechanic in Fairfax, VA for your car maintenance/repair works. View Sally’s feedback at http://autosally.com/profile/mechanic/joe-mechanic.”

AutoSally also allows car owners to easily share a profile of a repair shop they like with their friends on Facebook and Twitter. Each repair shop profile page at AutoSally has Retweet and Facebook Share buttons and car owners can simply click on these buttons to recommend a shop.

By making it easier for car owners to do “active” word of mouth marketing for trusted, qualified repair shops, I hope AutoSally will help shop owners/managers in acquiring new customers and generating more revenues.

Click here to visit AutoSally.