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BRANDING NEEDS TO BE DELIVERED CONSISTENTLY TO INCREASE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

BY MELISSA STEINKEN

Continuity creates trust for customers. It’s the same principle for body shop operators with 2–5 locations and body shop operators with 10 or more locations.

How do you expect a customer to become familiar with your brand if it’s not cohesive?

Take McDonald’s, for an example. You know that if you pull into the drive-thru of any McDonald’s in the U.S., you could get a Happy Meal or a large Diet Coke and medium fries. These are staples to the fast food chain.

But, there’s still some nuance. For example, customers going to McDonald’s franchises in southern states might always expect to order a large sweet tea (a southern staple). Customers can expect the same consistency in service and quality of product but each location has its own little bit of local flavor.

Body shops are no different. A customer should be able to expect a certain level of service and quality repair regardless of the location. But, each shop’s “staples” might look a bit different.

Melanie Spring, chief storyteller at Melanie Spring Productions and creator of Bite-Sized Branding, shares how to build a cohesive brand strategy for your business.

1. CREATE A BRAND BOOK.

When body shops follow the same guidelines across locations, then customers can anticipate the same level of service, Spring says.

She advises creating a guidebook for employees to reference. This “brand book” should contain the company’s logo, style, voice, content and all the other ancillary materials as well. Make sure it is as specific as possible describing how the company writes sentences and what punctuation is preferred.

The guide can be as long as 25 pages or just shorter style guides.

“There are two different styles of brand books,” Spring says. “One you can use to train and the other can be used for more of a stylistic perspective and that can be just a couple of pages.”

The book should be created as a “living document” that can be uploaded to the cloud but also made to be printable.

2. NARROW DOWN A VISION STATEMENT.

The phrases “mission statement” and “vision statement” are often used interchangeably—but that’s inaccurate. The vision statement represents who you are as a company, and should be shared privately, between employees.

Reflect on how the company works as a team, how it works with clients and how the company prepares itself, Spring says. Understanding the company’s core values is critical to forming not just a brand but a unique brand.

Form a voice for your body shop, she says. Customers shouldn’t hear different messages from the company’s CEO, marketing expert, and front desk, for example. Make sure everyone is on the same page with the one brand voice.

3. SET UP SOME SORT OF INTERNAL QUALITY CONTROL.

Once the vision statement and brand book are created, the body shop should have a way to test if all locations are following the same brand identity. Maybe this means the shop operator places “secret shoppers” to visit each location.

Or, an owner can take time to do intermittent check-ins at each facility. Spring recommends taking time to visit each shop personally and assess how it is operating. After all, an owner could be tracking CSI for a long time but not once take measures to implement customer feedback.

4. ASSIGN ONE PERSON TO MANAGE THE BRAND’S MESSAGES.

One area of branding that might get overlooked is maintaining the shop’s Facebook page or other social media sites. For multiple locations, the body shop could have separate Facebook pages for each one. If so, one person in a higher position should oversee the content being posted on there. That way, one person can make sure the brand’s message is told consistently across multiple pages. But, be aware of bandwidth. Spring urges not to take on too much and, if it’s easier to have one company Facebook page, stick to one.

“It’s really hard for even big companies to maintain multiple social media feeds,” Spring says. “It’s really easy for them to target ads to different locations, so if you have one Facebook account but four different locations, you’re going to have everyone doing all their reviews in one place and then you do ads to get it out to different locations.”

Shops can filter social media photos and video ideas from staff to one person. Encourage people to share the work they're doing but send it to one person to manage posting.

5. BRING LOCAL PERSONALITY TO EACH SHOP.

Find a cause or program to support that makes the acquisition stand out from others under the same brand.

For instance, use marketing dollars to support a local charity. Or, support a local sports team. Even if there are limited resources, every business should have some giving back element to it.

“If you’re going to build a brand, you’ll need to build a club to go along with your brand,” Spring says.

Figure out the customer you’re trying to attract into the shop and build the brand’s personality from there.