SMS helps Maaco Midwest get more leads with less time and effort
As an auto painting and collision repair franchise, Maaco Midwest’s aim is to keep the appointment slots filled and locations busy. And as Business Development Manager, Michele Brewer’s aim is to follow up on leads who complete Maaco’s online self-serve estimate tools — and encourage them to make an appointment.
The challenge: So. Many. Phone calls.
Following up on leads is vital. But it can be time-consuming and hard to scale, especially with the number of touchpoints Maaco was looking at: They were finding that it generally took 7-9 contacts (a combination of phone calls and emails) for the lead to book the appointment. Even getting people to answer the phone was a huge barrier. With new leads being auto-generated constantly by their website, Michele was struggling to keep up.
I was making individual cell phone calls, one at a time. And I could reach up to a little over 100 people in a day that way. However, the program that we have available to us … just doesn’t have the capabilities to help us reach out to a large amount of people.
Michele Brewer, Business Development Manager, Maaco Midwest
The solution: Business SMS makes conversational lead generation easy
After researching different options, Michele decided Sinch MessageMedia fit her needs the best. Not wanting to annoy people by sounding like every other cold-caller out there, Michele used Sinch MessageMedia’s flexible platform to tailor her approach to her audience and to her lead nurture strategies. For instance, one day she might be trying to drive business for the Knoxville shop, so she’ll input the numbers, add the shop location, and send the message. Other times, she’ll send personalized texts with short, qualifying questions to nudge leads further toward an appointment.
The results: More gas in the tank for Maaco’s sales
Integrating Sinch MessageMedia into their business development process gave Michele that extra set of hands she’d been looking for — and an extra way to keep the conversation going. As an added bonus, combining phone calls, email, and SMS has resulted in greater engagement on ALL their channels: Customers who hung up on the call or ignored the email are reading and responding to the texts (with some even apologizing to Michele for not responding to her earlier tries!). “Texting is just easier for most people,” she adds. “So, once they get the text and realize I’m not a bot, I get a lot of appointments that way.”
And all this engagement is making a difference that the store managers are noticing, says Michele: “I ask them, ‘Are you generating foot traffic off of this new promotion?’ And the message is getting out there. The conversion rates — like in Little Rock and Sherwood — gave us a really good turnout.”
SMS is just a better way of getting a hold of people. I get a bigger response with SMS and with Sinch MessageMedia because I can reach hundreds of people at one time.
Michele Brewer, Business Development Manager, Maaco Midwest
Sinch MessageMedia also has integrations with over 85 platforms, including HubSpot, Salesforce, Shopify, BigCommerce, and Zoho CRM, creating a seamless turn-key customer engagement solution for small and medium-sized businesses.
“Texting is just easier for most people.”
Michele Brewer, Business Development Manager at Maaco Midwest, chose Sinch MessageMedia because the flexible platform allowed for a tailored approach to her audience and to her lead nurture strategies. Ready to give it a try?
