Reviews on your MechanicNet Website!

Transcription

1 Reviews on your MechanicNet Website SEPTEMBER April Inside Lane: SEO MNG Updates Reviews on your MechanicNet Website! by Frank Renteria Your MechanicNet program has always provided the ability for your customers to give you feedback by completing an online survey. Several shops have requested that we also allow the ability for customers to post reviews for all to see. You asked, and we listened! Reviews are now available on your MechanicNet Website. This new feature is completely optional: just contact our customer support team and let us know that you want to add reviews on your website. To help get a positive start we can convert your existing CSI/ Surveys to reviews. This is important as it will assure that you get started with a host of positive reviews. This way you don t have to worry about one bad review hurting your business. The conversion will be done once. uses inappropriate language or makes a personal attack. Before you turn on reviews make sure you are ready to live with an occasional bad review. Today s consumers use reviews when searching for new businesses. Reviews are a great sales tool. However, the inverse is also true. Too many bad reviews can hurt your business. Getting started is easy and we are the only company that can help you get started right with some good reviews and comments. Reviews are also a good way to improve your website s ranking with search engines like Yahoo, Bing and Google. If you would like to give it a try, please support@mechanicnet.com or call us toll-free at M How it works: When your customer receives a Thank You , they have the option to either write a review (public), or fill out a survey (private only you can see surveys). Reviews work just like Google reviews: the consumer selects 1 to 5 stars, enters a title and adds their comments. You may get a bad review, and while rare, they do happen to the best of shops. In fact, consumers understand this and tend to be suspicious of businesses who display only 5 star reviews. To maintain the integrity of our review process, we do not remove bad reviews simply because they are bad. We will, however, remove reviews if the reviewer is not a customer of the shop, BE0910 Note: This feature may not be available to all programs. MECHANICNET.COM /SEPTEMBER 2010 BULLETIN

2 Inside Lane: SEO By La Ne Scott Dear La Ne What is SEO and why should I care? Technically wet behind the ears, Baton, MA Dear Technically, We have been hearing more about SEO, so I have asked our COO and Vice President to answer this question There has been a lot of discussion lately about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). So I thought I would take a minute to provide an introduction into a relatively complex subject. What SEO promises is to make sure that your website will be found by search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing etc.) and displayed on the first or second results page. Since the Internet is typically the first place people look, it is important that your business is easy to find. Getting to the top of a search can be a challenge. The Internet search engines apply a set of rules (algorithms) to find relevant web pages based on your search criteria. These algorithms consider a number of factors including key words, site activity, and links. For example, if a user enters automotive repair in the search bar, the search engine scans Internet web pages looking for these words and ranks the sites depending on the number of matches. At the same time it looks at a number of other factors, including the site s link structure, this is the number of other related sites to which this site is linked. In fact, there are many factors that determine a site s ranking, but it all boils down to site relevance. It is important to remember the search engine companies primary mission is deliver web pages that find what you are looking for. So how do you get your site to appear on page one, or even two, when people look for automotive service? You may already be there, but if you are not, here are some steps you can take. First, keep the content on your website fresh, change images and copy on a regular basis (when was the last time you updated your promotions page?). Adding new images or copy tells the search engine that your site is active. If you still want to do more, you can claim your Google business page and add your website link. You can also create a Facebook page for your shop and link it to your website. And of course, you can turn on our new review module! To make these changes, simply contact customer support; we will be ready to help. Whatever you do, be assured we are looking at ways to improve your ranking on SEO. - Dave Peterson, COO and Senior Vice President If you have a question you would like answered in our next Monthly Bulletin, send it to lscott@mng-inc.com. M MECHANICNET.COM / SEPTEMBER 2010 BULLETIN

3 MNG Updates Going Green Don t forget to check out the great new Going Green image we just created. This fuzzy green car is available today and was developed to encourage your customer to switch their communication preference from postcard to and to remind your customers that you care about the environment. To help you promote this message, we are offering a complimentary Going Green poster. This beautiful 8 1/2 x 11 full color poster will look great in your waiting room! For a very limited time you can have one of these posters free of charge. Don t delay; these posters will cost $5.00 plus shipping starting November 1st. To get yours today contact us at support@mechanicnet.com and request a copy of the Going Green poster. ROI Opt-in By Cheryl Hopkins In keeping with our Going Green initiatives, MechanicNet now has the monthly bulletin online! Your current monthly ROI (Return on Investment) reports have always been available online and now we have added the monthly bulletin. You can access both the report and the monthly bulletin from the MyShop dashboard. Starting in November, we will not automatically mail the physical report and bulletin to your shop unless you opt-in to continue receiving these by mail. Going forward, we will alert you that your shop results have been compiled and the Contacts Customer Support support@mechanicnet.com Training training@mechanicnet.com Promotions promotions@mechanicnet.com Sales sales@mechanicnet.com Billing accounting@mechanicnet.com Phone Number reports and bulletin are ready by sending you an and postcard. For any shop that would also like to continue to receive their monthly ROI report and bulletin by mail, please let us know by sending your request to support@mechanicnet.com. Unsubscribe In reviewing your weekly communications you probably noticed that some of your customers are no longer receiving reminders, thank you notes and/or promotions. This is very likely due to the fact that they have Unsubscribed from s. As you know, once a customer asks to be removed from your mailing list, we are required by law to stop sending communications to these customers. We have provided a new tool to help shops identify these customers. You will find this report listing unsubscribed customers on the MyShop dashboard under Other Useful Tools. Please note that when an unsubscribe request is submitted, we change their communication preference from to postcard (if appropriate). We also add a note to the customer s file indicating that they have unsubscribed from communications. If you are using other programs to your customers, or are sending s yourself, you need to make sure that you remove these customers from your other mailing lists. Of course, if one of your customers unsubscribes from by mistake, they can always re-subscribe through their MyCar page. This gives us a record that the customer made this request (keeping us, and you, in compliance with the law) and we can resume sending s to their address. If you have any questions regarding this new report, please send an to support@mechanicnet.com or give us a call at M Cheryl Hopkins Staff Writer (Customer Support Manager) Frank Renteria Staff Writer (Customer Support) La Ne Scott Staff Writer (Training) James Nery Graphics/Layout MECHANICNET.COM / SEPTEMBER 2010 BULLETIN

4 Deadline Winter Maintenance Mail date Battery Service Online Training Basic Plus 9:00 am PST Winter Maintenance 2010 PROMOTION CALENDAR 2010 Promotions Absolute Deadline Online Training epromotions 9:00 am PST Battery Service 9/17/ /1/2010 Winter Maintenance 10/1/ /15/2010 Deadline Holiday Cards Holiday Cards Holiday 11/12/ /26/ PROMOTION CALENDAR 2011 Promotions Referral We Miss You Service Promo Spring Maintenance Spring Maintenance Services Promo Referral Summer Maintenance We Miss You Back to School Fall Maintenance Services Promo Winter Maintenance Holiday Birthday Rewards Referral Absolute Deadline 31-Dec Jan Feb Feb Mar Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug-11 2-Sep Sep Nov Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Mar-11 8-Apr-11 8-Apr-11 6-May-11 3-Jun-11 1-Jul-11 5-Aug-11 9-Sep Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan-12

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