Quote Originally Posted by dirtrulz View Post
Just because a business had a bad experience with groupon does not mean it is groupons fault. Offering a coupon for cheap products does not guarantee success if the product sucks. Had some coupons for a restaurant a while back. Apparently groupon started selling them for less that the restaurant wanted them to, even though their contract said that the price would drop after so many days until sold out, to sell whatever groupon had left. The restaurant then refused to honor the value of any of the coupons, even though we bought them when they were first available and paid standard price. They only wanted to give us 5 dollars for a 20 dollar coupon we paid 10 dollars for. I told the manager he was full of $hit and that I would never be back, paid the bill and left. That is a crappy thing to do to your customers, that is between you and groupon, not the customer. The same time we were there there were two other couples who left never to return over the same problem. Their food was ok but not great.

It is what it is, a way to get traffic, but dont expect it to be a miracle. Automotive shops would be tough. Most people are somewhat wary of upsells. You offer a 19,99 oil change special and then tell them they need 300 dollars worth of work that needs to be done "right now". Most will say you are just trying to upsell and drive away and then post a crappy review of you somewhere. The crappy chain shops out there have ruined it for the good shops, they seem to be the worst at upsells that dont need to be done. Dont expect an oil change or radiator flush to win you over customers who use coupons.

Does your shop show up on any review sites? Maybe you could figure out some kind of reward system for you customers to post some reviews. Seems pretty much everyone googles the shop before they take their vehicle there. I have steered away form places with bad reviews. Do you have a website? Do you specialize in any particular service? When people do a search for a particular service like transmission problems do you show up near the top of that search, there are ways to make you show up more and near the top in searches. Maybe offer 5 dollars off next oil change if they bring in a printout of a review they posted, good or bad.
Just a side note, I couldn't buy a filter for the cars I work on for 19.99... Much less the oil and do the job.

I have quite a few excellent reviews. One bad one, angry Russian is angry.