Mr. Lube (owned by the Prairie Lube Ltd.), owns and operates 21 locations in Calgary, Southern Alberta and Saskatoon.
We recently connected with Amanda Parkin, Executive Assistant at Prairie Lube in Ltd. Calgary.
What do you find are your biggest challenges?
We have found that we need to really help educate customers and build their trust in the Mr. Lube brand in order to get them to venture away from doing their vehicle maintenance at the dealerships. We are always working to ensure they know that they can come to a Mr. Lube for vehicle maintenance and their warranty is not affected.
Once customers understand this and visit one of our locations, we want to create a repeat customer so they come back the next time they are getting their vehicle serviced.
What is your strategy to overcome this challenge?
We want the consumer to think of Mr. Lube first when their maintenance reminder comes on. Whether it’s an oil change, or additional maintenance, we want to be top of mind. We are focused on always being ‘on’ and in market. Building brand awareness in our target markets is helping us achieve that.
When advertising, what is the most difficult?
Cost and tracking. Keeping the costs low is difficult as we need to be in market consistently. They say that you need to see something 6 times to get it to stick, so you have to blitz and be in multiple places all the time.
We use outdoor, bus boards, digital and more, and not all of these provide us with the ability to truly track our conversions. For example, with outdoor, they can tell us how many cars go by in a day, but connecting that with a store visit is difficult.
We work hard to see where our dollars are being best spent to attract and retain our customers.
Why did you choose to work with BOOM?
We think it is interesting to have such a large and loyal customer base and marketed as a perk to all the employees/members. We are able to reach a lot of people, for a very low cost.
BOOM engages with their members online, mobile, with direct emails, draws, newsletters and a magazine. It’s a multi-tiered solution for us – all in one place with a real commitment to driving engagement with the Members and for our Mr. Lube brand.
How does the BOOM solution work for you?
Flexibility, consistency and education.
We see new and returning customers directly with BOOM Members. We have also found that BOOM Members return to Mr. Lube for their next services. This is very important to us as Mr. Lube has multiple products. Being able to market them all in BOOM means that we can convert a customer to come visit not just 1 or 2 times a year for their oil change, but perhaps 3 or 4 times a year, if they also do tire changes.
BOOM gives us the advantage of saying Mr. Lube doesn’t just do oil changes. We are able to run multiple offers, concurrently, that both promote our oil changes, but also other services, like maintenance and tire changes.
If a new promotion comes up that we want to highlight, BOOM helps us to update and promote the offers in their various channels to their members.
Why do you think the BOOM solution is a success for Mr. Lube?
Many reasons! Conversions, brand awareness, versatility and customer care.
We have been with BOOM for almost 10 years and, definitely, the BOOM Team makes it a success. They don’t just sit idly by, they are helpful and always reaching out with new ideas.
The people who do come to see us from BOOM, come back again! We get repeat customers from the BOOM Program. The BOOM Members are local and targeted to a category we want – people who are working and spend money and drive.
The program is versatile and allows us to change offers and update information all the time.
Plus, they keep growing their member base and are always improving their website and mobile solutions.
Do you have any tips for other retail brands to be as successful as Mr. Lube has been with BOOM?
The first thing is to 'keep it simple'! The easier it is to redeem for both the customer and your employee at the location, the more likely it will be used and tracked properly.
Second, is to make sure you train your employees on what is being offered and how to enter it in the POS. This makes it more likely that the BOOM Member will receive their offer and return.
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