Hughes Advertising: Do You See a Saxophone Player or a Woman’s Face?.

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Do You See a Saxophone Player
or a Woman’s Face?.

This picture is an optical illusion. Many kinds of optical illusion exist, but the most popular are like this one: a picture containing two images. Which image you see depends on how you look at it.

Optical illusions are powerful tools for revealing constraints that mediate perception. Perception is reality, and how customers and insurers perceive "who you are" and "what you do" is a reality you must face every day.

Insurance companies have created an optical illusion that sadly, many auto glass installers have bought into: a windshield is just something you look through, and windshield installation can be done fast, easily, and cheaply. Anyone ("even trained monkeys"—a statement I heard in a recent focus group) can do it in the convenience of a parking lot or your driveway.

Over the years, insurers have experimented with perception to produce illusions for consumers about "who you are" and "what you do" by either limiting the information needed to interpret the perception or by deliberately setting up situations where the rules conflict.

Insurers know how consumers perceive, and much of consumers’ perception of your industry comes from insurers’ ability to shape their perception to match insurers’ wishes.

Your goal is to provide a quality and safe auto glass replacement for all your customers, to follow-up to assure they were completely satisfied, and to ask if they know of other people or businesses that might benefit from using your services.

As long as you only react, consumers’ insurer-shaped illusions will control how you do business.

However, if your shop does quality work, and you truly care about your customers’ well-being and safety, you can "flip" the illusion.

Take the Offensive

Recently while I was waiting at a radio station for my client to arrive to do a new commercial, an account executive I’d trained years ago saw me, and we struck up a conversation. She told me a rock had broken her windshield, and she was going to get it replaced later that day. I briefly explained how her car’s windshield is part of its structural integrity and how an improper installation could compromise her safety. She was startled and said she had no idea the windshield was so vital: neither her insurer nor the glass shop had even mentioned this.

In 5 minutes, I flipped a perception she’d had for years. Until we spoke, she hadn’t perceived her windshield that way; now she does and always will.

Flip the Illusion

Tell your customers up front that safe, proper windshield replacement is a multi-step process your people are trained, skilled, and ready to perform. Destroy the image that you just pop out the old windshield and put in a new one. People need to know there’s a labor-intensive removal process for glass, moldings, old adhesives, etc., inspection of pinch welds for rust and corrosion damage, and so forth. If there’s rust, you’ll have to do rust procedures—how much depends on how much rust and how much damage it’s done.

There’s cleaning up debris and readying the space for the new glass; checking and prepping new glass; correctly applying proper E-coatings (if needed) and urethanes. Two people are required to set the new glass. In addition to glass, they have to install new moldings, allow full cure time, do final testing and inspect (for air and water leaks) before releasing the car to the owner.

Plus, you don’t just give the car back with a thank-you note or a rear-view mirror hanger with a coupon. Your installers need to take time with the owner walking through, step by step, the entire removal and replacement process, plus information on safe drive away times.

These are your customers. They should know how important their windshield replacement is to their vehicle’s structural integrity and their safety. They need to know that replacement is complicated, and highly skilled installation professionals did the work correctly and safely. They should also know you’ll follow up soon (24-48 hours) and again in 90 days to make sure they’re completely satisfied.

Take these steps, and you’ll flip the consumer’s image so they see windshield replacement as a multi-step process that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Time well spent? You bet.

Take the offensive.

The future of your business depends on how you shape/reshape your customers’ perceptions.

[This article has been reviewed by our corporate attorney. They may be reprinted only with permission and this full notice attached and printed with the article: Reprinted with permission of Tom Hughes and Beyond Parts & Equipment, July 2000, © 2000, Millennium Publications, Inc. Other use or publication of this version is strictly prohibited.]

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