clever mutt

Johnney Givan wanted a web designer that took the time to clearly understand his specific goals for his new auto repair business. He turned to Clever Mutt for a complete web solution and to make sure he got high levels of customer service

After earning nearly 30 years experience in the auto repair trade and over 10 years experience racing cars you could say Johnney Givan knows a thing or two about keeping vehicles on the road.

In 2010 Johnney decided it was time to break out onto his own and establish an auto repair and body shop that made providing high quality, honest and affordable services to customers its top priority.

"I spent most of my working life repairing vehicles of all types as an employee of other repair shops. Unfortunately you can't spend that amount of time in my business and not come to the conclusion that there are better ways to do things."

"It seemed to me that a lot of customers had a perception that every time they took their vehicle in for work it would end up costing them much more than they expected or take far longer than it should" says Johnney.

These were not the only things Johnney thought needed to be addressed. "I couldn't help thinking that it doesn't take much time out of someone's day to remember to call a customer back when they promised to do so or to go that extra distance such as pick up and return a vehicle when we've finished working on it."

"The problem was I just couldn't see how I could bring about this kind of change in approach by working for local auto repair shops around the Cedar Creek Lake area - I don't think I'm being unfair when I say that there's a lack of quality customer service in my industry right now"

The more Johnney thought about it the more he wanted to bring about these changes directly himself. Clearly there was a business opportunity here.

"I decided that what was needed locally was a bit of a wake-up call in the auto repair industry. It's a big step going into business yourself - but with my experience, the critical support of my friends and family and with the ideas I had about how things could be different I decided to go ahead and do so" says Johnney.

B&B Automotive Repair was born. Like all new business owners making decisions about pricing, suppliers, location, personnel and more, one of the key things Johnney needed to address was marketing.

"I'm not much of an Internet person myself, but I knew that a lot of my potential customers probably used their computers and cell phones to find auto repair and paint and body services, amongst other things.

The internet has just become a part of daily life for a lot of people. I had a few ideas about getting a web site but I wanted to do so within a strict budget - I was just setting up my business after all and had a thousand things to spend money on" recalls Johnney.

"I spoke with Chris and Tiffani at clever mutt to get some advice about what I should be doing for my business online and how my ideas could work - they were good at helping me to understand the possibilities and also what I didn't need, which was really important to me".

"It was clear that Johnney had a great idea about changing customer perceptions about his industry locally. In our initial conversations his passion for honesty & high quality work along with a keen desire to make his services affordable came through clearly" recalls Chris.

"We performed a strategic review of Johnney's local competition and target customer base and provided him with clear recommendations that matched his budget. It was also important for Johnney that his chosen web designer clearly understood his objectives and just 'got on with it', letting him focus on his business. While Johnney needed to project a professional image online he didn't need to spend a fortune on it and his limited available time was an important factor" Chris recalls.

"Our Puppy web site package was perfect for him. It gave Johnney the ability to check in with us but allowed him to be 'hands-off' most of the time. It's also a low cost package which is critical for a new business - we even suggested a 'themed' web site address instead of the typical 'business name' web site address to catch attention" says Chris.

"To really drive Johnney's point's home about attentiveness and good customer service we established social media marketing through Facebook for B&B Auto Repair. We also provided all the training to help Johnney and his team take advantage of business social networking" says Chris.

"The web site and social networking services were exactly what I needed and clever mutt took the time to get to know my business, my competitors and my target customers. They have been available to me 24 hours a day and when I wanted to update my web site with something urgently they responded the same day.

I think it took less than 2 hours from when I put the call in to Chris to him coming out to collect the things he needed, going back and getting everything done and then calling me to say it was complete. Clever mutt provided me with exactly the kind of customer service I want to see!"

"The way they handled everything was exactly what I needed and I'm extremely happy with the end results - just go and take a look for yourself" says Johnney.