Let’s face it: Every autoshop on Planet Earth has a lot of competition. Even the tiniest of towns usually offers a number of facilities where you can get good, quality repair or maintenance work done on your car.

That’s why it’s critical to ask yourself: How can I BEST attract autoshop customers? How can I make my shop stand out? How can I position my autoshop to get a powerful advantage over my competition?

The following 3 smart, innovative strategies will help you do exactly that. None of these strategies is terribly time-consuming, but each will pay powerful customer-attraction dividends. They are:

# 1 … Don’t Ignore 50 Percent of Your Potential Profits

Right now, fully 50 percent of your potential new customers are people who often HATE to take their car to an autoshop. Why do they hate it? Because, in the past, they may have been patronized or taken advantage of at other autoshops. These people, of course, are women.

So how do you powerfully flip this situation—turning it to your ADVANTAGE? Answer: Make your shop “Certified Female Friendly.” Go out of your way to offer female customers a respectful, confidence-inspiring experience, based on genuine honesty and clear, no-BS communication. Trust us, the word will get out about this—in a way that will powerfully benefit your shop.

#2 … Generate Positive Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Back in the day, a great autoshop attracted new business when friends, family members, or neighbors told each other about the shop. That still happens, of course. But now there’s a way of generating sales-boosting “word-of-mouth” in a much more far-reaching way. That way is online and via social media. That’s how MOST of your potential new customers will hear about you.

So be sure your shop is getting positive reviews on sites such as Google and Facebook. Ask your most-satisfied customers to please consider posting a brief review or comment about your autoshop. Make it easy for them to do so by emailing them the link to the site, once they’ve said they’d be happy to post something for you.

#3 … Get Online Marketing and Management Power!

Today’s business-boosting software, such as that offered by Auto Bookings Online, gives you a “whole new world” of customer-attraction power. By using your “CRM” (Customer Relationship Management software), you can leave inefficiency and time-consuming procedures behind, and immediately start attracting new customers.

For example, with just a click or two of your computer, you can offer a special discount service (say, 10 percent off a tire-rotation or oil-change) to existing customers, if they will offer you the email address of someone they feel may benefit from your service. In this way, your “magnetic” power to attract customers will organically grow and grow, by “rippling out” from your core of already-satisfied customers.

Auto Bookings Online is an online tool specifically designed to help auto-repair shops maximize profitability through better-managed customer bookings.