This is just something my partner and I were thinking about. We have a small chain of auto repair shops in South Carolina. My two cousins and I recently took over the day to day operations from my Dad and my Uncle. We have experienced people to help us out and I have been working for my Dad since I was in junior high school. My cousins are a bit younger, but they are both competent and learning the business fairly well. Our main focus is in car maintainence, we do tune ups, oil changes, tire service and that sort of thing.
We are wondering if we could start giving our customes a free app for their iPhones and other devices. The main focus would be reminding the customers that their cars needed new tires and oil changes, but also there might be an option to receive news about our specials. I do not mean that we would be spamming the customers, just that they could receive our ads if they wanted them. Most of our customers are very loyal as we serve a lot of rural areas where they did not have as many options in the past. We are wondering if there is a way to synchronize your smartphone to your car’s onboard computers actually. I am sure that this will be possible in the future and it would be great if your car could phone you up and tell you not to abuse it.
If this is something that can be done on a budget we would really be interested. It could be written off on our marketing budget and it would be a cool way to attract younger customers. If we could get them to come try us out we think that we can keep their business.