Catering your website to mobile devices

I recently participated in an industry panel discussion related to the advent of self-service claims.

Various facts were cited about the growing use of smartphones and tablets and the number of transactions that can be performed on those devices. We learned that nearly 42 percent of all U.S. mobile subscribers now use smartphones. That number is expected to grow exponentially as pricing comes down and cellphone service providers entice customers with attractive bundled deals.

As smart phones and tablets become a more personal, social and ubiquitous experience for consumers, business owners have an opportunity to better engage target audiences, if they understand how to connect and leverage the unique characteristics of these emerging platforms.

To illustrate how to better engage with target audiences, insurers showed examples of claims' first notice of loss reporting and claim progression monitoring. I looked at the panel and realized there was one missing panelist: a collision shop owner, who is a key component of the claims process.

A J.D. Power and Associates study on claims satisfaction found that the customer satisfaction touchpoints with a collision repair were 36 percent related to the body shop experience, 62 percent related to the claims estimation process and a mere 2 percent related to the rental car. I looked at those numbers and thought if the customer has the car repaired at a direct repair program shop, the shop is responsible for a whopping 98 percent of the customer satisfaction touchpoints on a collision repair.

Armed with these facts — an increase of mobile devices and the claims satisfaction so closely related to the collision shop — how does your shop fare in the mobile device environment?

To test this in my local area, I used my iPhone's Siri feature to find a body shop. Siri did fairly well, finding seven collision repair shops before starting to list the soap and lotion retail store named "The Body Shop."

Drilling down into the list, I found that many auto body shop websites did not display well on a mobile device. Picture formats were not compatible with an Apple system, so they displayed as a red "X." I believe that if you had your website designer take the time to insert the photo, you want all your customers to see it.

Worse still, a few shops had elaborate banners created that really made the website attractive on a desktop, but did not translate to a mobile device, leaving the mobile device user unimpressed with the shop's website.

Another thing I noticed is that mobile device search engines usually display findings in a different order than the most popular desktop search engines. Mobile devices are much more likely to list reviews from sites like YELP.

Have you looked at these reviews about your shop lately? You should. These sites give you the good, the bad and the ugly of customer sentiment toward your shop. This can be valuable input for improving your customer relations. Thankfully, YELP now allows businesses to respond both privately and publicly to reviews. It also offers helpful tips on their website about the best way to respond.

So I challenge you to sit down at your desk with your key management personnel and do a little research. Query your body shop in the top few search engines on your desktop, then do the same on a tablet device and smartphone. You might be surprised with what you see or more importantly what you don't see.

Work with your web designer to make sure your site clearly shows what you want customers to see on these different displays. Check your reviews and, if you feel compelled to respond to a negative or misleading review, search the site of the review for the best way to do that. Stay connected to your customers in the way they want to connect with you.

Greg Horn is vice president of industry relations for Mitchell International.