With car owners looking more to repair and maintain rather than buy new, the 55-year-old Oxnard, CA-based Automatic Transmission Rebuilders Association (ATRA) — whose members include 2,300-plus rebuilders, technical subscribers, students and schools — is aiming its new marketing strategy directly at those consumers. “It has always been the case for us that, when the economy is down, our business goes up,” said ATRA CEO Dennis Madden. Marketing to end users, though, has never been ATRA’s focus.
“We have traditionally been more of a technical resource,” Madden explained. “Doing research on transmission repair and things of that nature. It was a complete shift in our thinking to look at the customer.”
The change, he said, was sparked in April by perhaps the simplest question a trade group can ask: What do our members need? “The answer was obvious: They need customers,” Madden said. “If we were a shop, what would we be thinking about to better serve our customers?”
Customer service plays a big part in the new approach. And, with what Madden calls a “general mistrust for the automotive industry and, particularly transmission rebuilders,” at work, ATRA will re-emphasize things like answering customer questions online and by phone, helping them find local member shops, and keeping in touch throughout the repair.
For example, ATRA is redeveloping its website to make it more consumer-friendly. “We had consumer stuff on there, but it really wasn’t something where we were too concerned about it being searchable and organized,” Madden said. “We just started probably a month ago with designing some things specifically tailored to consumers to help answer their questions.”
ATRA hired Thousand Oaks, CA-based Mustang Marketing to help shape the branding and outreach. “They’ll work toward, perhaps, some radio interviews, and getting the message out in other publications that our customers read,” Madden said. “From our standpoint, the Internet will be the primary (outlet). We’re kind of taking it slow because it’s new territory for us.”
The big lesson, he added, was learning to think like a customer. “No one ‘needs’ a transmission,” Madden said. “They need to get to work; they need to get the kids to school. If you’re able to help them with that, you’re going to be the person they will have trust in to take care of their car.”