Useful experience: How to open a car service and for half a year to get a plus
Every adult person sooner or later comes to the idea of their own business. Most never hesitate to take the first step, but those who still dare to do this act face typical problems that are much easier to overcome if you use the experience of predecessors.
Our reader Alexey Zaboisky talks about his own experience of opening a car service center. Further, the story from the first person.
Last year, we decided to open a car-care center with friends. It was not interesting to plow on my uncle, I wanted to promote my small business. With the room was lucky – it was found through friends. Although not on the main avenue of the city (to be honest, our establishment is located in some kind of hole), but it is quite suitable for car service, and therefore the rent is rather symbolic.
A part of the necessary equipment was purchased through Avito, the rest was got through acquaintances. In total, the lift, transmission rack, compressor and other necessary tools were purchased for about 200 thousand rubles. It remains to wait until the endless line of customers will start knocking on the gates of our garage, but with this, as it turned out, there was a big problem.
Naturally, in the first place, they began to advertise by acquaintances, friends and relatives. The effect of this is about zero. Bought a printer and printed ads. They began to shove advertising for car wipers in the courtyards of the surrounding areas, throwing mailboxes at doorways. As a result, 5-6 calls happened, but the long-awaited wave of customers could not be reached.
What is an aggregator?
At this stage, there was an understanding that approximately the same amount that was spent on opening a car service center (and even more) would have to be spent on advertising in order to receive at least some orders. It was already sad, went to wool the Internet and came across the topic of aggregators. Who does not know, the site aggregator usually tries to combine the largest possible number of taxis, restaurants, hotels, and so on. Those. any business units from the service sector in which he specializes. In this case, the aggregator itself invests in advertising and promotion, after which it receives applications and transfers them to performers for certain percentages. It turned out that service stations have already begun to work with similar aggregators. So we we found https://uremont.com.
Experience with Uremont
At that moment, we had nothing to lose, so we were ready for everything – even to give interest on orders. But here, as it turned out, we were once again lucky with friends: Uremont itself opened relatively recently, so at the start it gives the service stations fabulous conditions: free registration and plus 5000 rubles to the account (to be able to test the work).
As it turned out, this is enough to pay for 500 first received applications for the price of 10 rubles. Of course, we didn’t believe at first, there must be a catch somewhere, but in our situation we didn’t have to choose too much – we registered. They dragged a laptop with a modem whistle into service and waited for bids. I can not say that a large flow immediately went, but 10-15 pieces a day came.
We tried to respond to all applications – the first real customers appeared. Over time, we began to notice various working tricks: for the client to choose our service, you need not only to quickly respond and offer a minimum price, but it is also important to have a dialogue with the client in the right way (I won’t reveal all the secrets, but we gradually picked up our own response format, which it works more than half the time).
Applications with https://uremont.com over time became much more, we tried to answer each, the number of customers increased. In the older and promoted “serious” service station in the vicinity, we were openly surprised by our “luck on customers”, although initially they openly laughed at our attempts.
Development prospects
Now my friends and I have already ceased to cope with such an influx on our own, so we expanded a little – we bought another lift and took a couple of new craftsmen. Of course we are happy, because worked our idea. At the moment (a little more than half a year has passed since the opening), not only have they beaten off all investments, but they have even made a small plus. Very small, but still! We are thinking about opening a body shop or car wash. Read more …
I want to tell everyone. Do not listen to anyone, go to your dream. Believe in yourself and in your strength. Then you will succeed. If my story seems useful to someone, I will be very happy. Learn more and get into service!
