Are You a Victim of Jobber Jibber Jabber?

Remember as a child when you stood in a line shoulder to shoulder with your friends. The first person in line whispered a sentence to the person next to him and so on down the line until it reached the last person. The person at the end of the line then said the sentence aloud. Remember how drastically the message changed from what came out of the first person’s mouth?

For manufacturers of branded automotive aftermarket products, the traditional distribution channel poses very similar communication problems.

Do you think the product and brand story you communicate to the WD is being passed along accurately to the jobber (if at all)? Continue down the channel and it’s easy to imagine that what the jobber is telling your end-using customer (if anything) is not consistent with your original message.

Now factor that hundreds of other manufacturers are looking for the distributors and jobbers to get their messages out as well, and your communications problem grows exponentially. You're fortunate if the WD or jobber advocates on your behalf at all, much less with effective messaging and branding.

What needs to change long term is our reliance on the distribution chain to relay our product and brand message to the end using installer.

Start providing YOUR end using shops with the product and brand information they need to have. Aftermarket Rewards enables manufacturers to communicate directly with their end using shops. When you have the ability to communicate directly with your end using installers, you'll be able to provide targeted and relevant product and brand information to the person with the ultimate purchasing authority.

And because your end using installers will have been receiving relevant information from you, the next time they call the WD for a fuel pump (or a starter, alternator, brakes, etc…) they'll call for your product by name. They'll know that your brand is what’s best for their customer and ultimately for their business.

Got GAAS? We did.

Aftermarket Rewards attended AAIA’s 2008 Global Automotive Aftermarket Symposium rubbing elbows with industry leaders. All of the sessions and panel discussions were absolutely top-notch so our hats off to the symposium’s organizers (special thanks to Ernst & Young who sponsored the Tuesday night reception … world-class feedbag).

With that said, there were a couple of the GAAS panel discussions that really grabbed our attention. In particular, it seemed that several alarming themes ran through the discussions concerning service dealers:
* They’re confused about what’s in the box and where it’s coming from
* They’re worried about where they can go for consistent product quality
* They want more communication regarding products and training
* They perceive that aftermarket suppliers don’t match up to OE quality

These are tough challenges for manufacturers to address through traditional sales and marketing practices because the aftermarket distribution channel makes it all but impossible for you to know who’s buying your products at the end-user level.

This is where Aftermarket Rewards can come into play for you. With Aftermarket Rewards we can help you:
* know what shops are buying your products
* reward those shops for their purchases
* intelligently cross-sell and up-sell your complete portfolio to those shops
* directly communicate your quality message to those shops
* directly market your products to shops who we identify as non-buyers

Manufacturers don’t be left in the dark concerning your end-using customers. Contact Aftermarket Rewards today to learn more.