Around 2 1/2 months ago, I had an idea. It came on the heels of one of our more successful articles on Twitter, and how it helped me make a decision on where not to buy a new set of tires. There would be a survey that deliberately excluded people in the tire industry (to the best of our ability), and tested brand awareness, while targeting a few specific questions within the industry.
I’m not a statistician, by any stretch of the imagination, but I did have a general idea of what I would do to get some responses. So, we set up a contest over on the main site, and didn’t link to it from any other page on our site. We offered a single copy of Super Mario Bros for Wii as the carrot, and let it rip on Twitter, Facebook, and a few contest sites.
To insure that there were no double entries, we made sure that their IP address and email address were logged, and that they were disallowed access once their original answers had been tabulated. We ended up with 851 unique responses.
I can hear you saying “Enough with the methodology. That stuff is boring. Get to the questions and answers.”
Fine then. There were four major questions that were asked:
- When I say “tires”, what brand do you think of?
- How long do you think it should take someone to change a set of tires?
- How frequently do you check the air in your tires?
- Where did you buy your last set of tires?
I’ll give a little bit of analysis after each question is graphed out, and give my take on what the sum of the data implies near the end. Let’s get to the first question:
When I say “tires”, what brand do you think of?
Goodyear leads in brand awareness, followed by Michelin.
As much as I was expecting Goodyear to win out in brand awareness, I wasn’t expecting that they would take nearly half the pie. Bias is a funny thing, as I expected Michelin to be within 5% or so of Goodyear. As to Bridgestone, I can see why they have paid so much to sponsor the SuperBowl halftime show each year.
While this may not seem like a particularly important question now, it may have some interesting applications later.
On to question 2:
How long do you think it should take someone to change a set of tires?
Is 30 minutes a reasonable amount of time to change a set of tires?
This is an instance where the data gets very interesting. The vast majority of people think it should take 30 minutes to change out a set of tires. If you will note, this percentage (46.3%) is the same percentage of people who hold Goodyear in their “top of mind awareness”.
The question I have for all the shop owners out there is this: Is 30 minutes a reasonable amount of time to dismount, balance, and mount a set of tires? Is that enough time for your guys (or gals) to do their job thoroughly, safely, and in a correct manner?
The second place answer, (45 Minutes) seems a much more acceptable amount of time.
How frequently do you check the air in your tires?
3 Months is a long time to go without checking air pressure.
Honestly, this is the question that I was most excited to learn the answer to. Air pressure has plenty to do with tire life, fuel efficiency, and even stopping ability. It really shocked me to learn that nearly 1/3 of all respondents waited 3 months (or, let’s face it, longer) to get their tire pressure checked.
It seems that some consumers put tire inflation in the same category as flossing: Why should they do it, when they can pay a professional to do it for them at their scheduled checkup? This is a safety issue that needs to be hammered home at the service desk, come checkout time.
Something as simple as showing a customer where to find the recommended psi levels for their particular vehicle would help tremendously. With numbers like this, I would be afraid to find out when they rotated their tires last.
Where did you buy your last set of tires?
The local tire dealer is still king, but how do you define "local" these days?
This is a comforting chart, if you don’t look at things too closely. It shows that nearly 7 out of 10 respondents bought tires through a local dealer. The question is, do people differentiate between chains (like Les Schwab), and the 2-bay shop down on the corner.
I will say I was extremely surprised that the online purchase of tires was only 2.5%. With the fear that I hear in many dealers voices, throughout online forums, I expected that number to clear 10% or better. It turns out that the number of respondents who didn’t own a car(54), was greater than the number of consumers who bought their last set of tires online(20).
As usual, the biggest problem for the local tire dealer is Wally World(and other big-boxes), with their loss-leading oil changes. It will be interesting to see if online tire sales take a bite out of their business. That would be poetic justice.
Interesting Discoveries
You may have noticed that I mentioned respondents who did not own a car, or take public transportation. Their responses are only included in the first 2 questions. If I had included their responses for questions 3&4 , they would have skewed the data somewhat.
In an odd turn, people who do not own cars estimated it would take 45 minutes to change out a set of tires. They also stretched Goodyear’s margin in the area of brand awareness to 2.5/1 over Michelin. I guess that will make the marketing people happy, even if they won’t be buying their tires.
When I began this survey, I assumed that people who were buying tires online were perhaps better educated with regard to tire care. After all, few people know what their tire size even is, much less the model they want to buy. They may be better educated, but it seems that they are just as slack as the general population with regard to tire care. Their inflation schedule is almost exactly the same as other people who responded.
Post-Mortem
I could spend days plowing over the various data with regard to statistical significance, who is more likely to buy their brand locally, vs. who will choose to go to Sam’s Club.
The truth about statistics is, regardless of field, they only give you a broad view. You can manipulate that sample to say whatever you want it to. This was my first shot at giving you guys some data that you can use. From my perspective (and regardless of this survey) education needs to be a factor in customer service.
Managing expectations is huge. Don’t just let your customer sit down and wait, when they think it will just be 30 minutes. If you have to make your own little book that tells them what you will be doing in the back, while the impact wrench is jarring faintly in the background, do it.
Take the time to open the driver’s side door,and help them locate the recommended psi for their tires. Hold a class on how to properly inflate a tire, if you need to, even if it is just as simple as showing them where the tire stem is, and how to use a pressure gauge.
Give to your customers, and be repaid in loyalty.
There is a saying that there are three kinds of untruth: Lies, damnable lies, and statistics. Hopefully, these stats have helped give you direction, instead of diverting your attention from the truth.
Let us know what you think in the comments. If you have any questions about methodology, or want to get your hands on the raw data-sans email addresses, of course-then shoot us an email at: blogfeedback@buybigtires.com .
Next week, we’re doing a “greatest hits of 09″ post. I’ll rehash our most popular posts this year, and maybe throw in a bit of commentary about why I think they did so well. Email us, and let us know if there is a post you’d like to insure is included.
We’ll be back then, bringing you the latest news affecting the tire and mining industries.
Until next time, we’ll be…
Signing off…
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