Tips & Tricks - Emailing Recommended Services

How do you offer your services after customers have left your shop? Do you practice upselling with AutoFluent®’s Recommended Services? The Recommended Services feature allows you to attach sub-quotes for multiple different services to any vehicle being serviced. You can email suggested services to your customers and receive authorization in your email inbox. If accepted, you can easily merge them onto the work order. Services that aren’t accepted trigger email reminders, and will conveniently stay on file with the vehicle, allowing you to recommend them again the next time the vehicle is in your shop. Click here to visit the Support Portal or contact AutoFluent® Support to learn how to use the Recommended Services feature! 

Now the next question: How do you follow up with your customers who have rejected any recommended services? Bringing in first time visitors to your shop can cost 5 times more than efforts to bring back previous customers. With our Recommended Services Emailing feature, you can send email reminders to notify your customer to come back in to get those services done - helping you spend less time on the phone and more time working.  

Sending Email Reminders

To use the emailing feature, let’s start in the Recommended Services window and add your services as usual. Make sure the customer has an email address, and that the box is checked to Send Email Reminders for Declined Services. (This will be normally checked if an Email Reminder Template has been set up.)  Click the Accept, Decline or Email Services button as usual.  If there are any recommended services that are declined, the Create Email window will pop up for each declined service. From here, you can leave the messages as they are, or customize them, elaborating on the work to be done and the cost. 

Once satisfied with the email, either click the Send Now button to send the email right away, or choose a date and click Send on the Selected Date to queue the email. Queuing the email will remind your customer at that time to come back in for that oil change they had previously passed on. You should check the Mail window periodically to make sure that queued emails are being sent out on time. To do this, simply click Email Mailings from the main menu, review the emails if desired, and click Send All Emails Due to be Sent. Please note that this may take a while, so it is best to leave AutoFluent® alone at that workstation once the sending begins.

Alternatively, in the Recommended Service window, you can select Email rather than Decline for a service or services.  This will let you send them emails without explicitly declining the services.

Setting Up the Reminder Template

You can save even more time  by creating a default message to use when emailing Recommended Services. To do this, click Email Mailings from the AutoFluent® main menu. Once there, click the Mail Templates tab and click New. In the Description, type Reminder, and in the Subject of the email, enter Service Reminder or something similar. A good reminder message would look something like this:

«fullname»,

This is a courtesy reminder. It is time to bring your «model» in for «rec_service»

Andy’s Service Center

When the email is created, «fullname» and «model» will be replaced with the customer’s name and vehicle, and «rec_service» will be replaced with a summary of the service to be performed.  To enter these special words into the message, click on them in the white boxes on the left. When you are finished, click Save Changes.

Next, we must tell AutoFluent® to use this template as the default Reminder Email. Click the Gear icon, open System Settings, and go to the Marketing / Statuses tab. Click the ‘...’ button to choose the Template for Reminder Emails, and choose the template you just created. Then click Save.

Now every time you decline a Recommended Service, be prompted to send them an email in the future, using the template you just created. Emailing recommendations to your customers can help you spend less time on the phone, and prevent misunderstandings. Try out this great tool to increase your shop’s productivity and improve your communications!