Navigating the Summer Slump: A Practical Guide for UK Automotive Service Businesses
Are you seeing less leads? Customers harder to reach? Or new bookings slowing down?
Every Summer, schools break up, families gear up for holidays, and car enthusiasts turn to events and driving tours – and many UK automotive service businesses notice a slow down.
If you’re reading this in the summer months – chances are, what you’re seeing is actually a very normal and predictable seasonal dip, called the Summer Slump.
I’ve seen the same cycle repeating itself, year after year, over the past 9 years.
Why Does the Summer Slump Happen?
During June, July, and August, people typically prioritise travel, leisure, and holidays, often delaying non-essential automotive services such as car detailing, other luxury services and some routine maintenances such as service and MOTs.
This naturally leads to fewer people in the market for automotive services and lower lead volumes.
Turning the summer sales dip into a strategic advantage
Instead of jumping to panic stations – there’s a better way!
As the old saying goes “Fail to plan and plan to fail”.
Step one – get to know the seasonal trends that influence your business performance
Step two – revisit your business and marketing plan
Step three – strategically plan to increase your marketing, sales and promotional activity ahead of seasonal dips to keep on winning
Real-Life Insights: The Data Tells the Story
Analysis of real world data tells a really clear story of seasonality. In the interest of keeping it simple for this blog I’ve focused on “car detailing” in the “UK” market, but we can complete similar research on a per-request basis for clients in different niche’s as part of our ongoing retainers or as a one-off consultancy project.
Google Trends
Starting with Google Trends I looked at the past 5 years, and amalgamated the data to show a really clean and simple seasonality in searches for car detailing in the UK.
The chart below covers:
- Thick blue line clearly displays the monthly interest trend.
- Annotated points highlight key seasonal shifts:
- Peak Interest in Spring – May being the biggest month for people searching for car detailing
- Start of the Summer Slump in June which continues through to August
- The decline slows down through Autumn
- Lowest point during November and December through Winter
Form submissions
Secondly I took a sample of form submissions from lead gen forms for a car detailing client, using a sample of 2,447 leads from the past 3 years. Using form submission date to identify seasonal trends.
Here I was really questioning whether there was a crossover in what I could see in the Google Trend analysis with leads generated for one client.
This chart covers:
- Thick blue line clearly emphasizes the trend.
- Annotated markers highlight:
- Peak Activity in Spring – May was the best month of the year
- Start of the Summer Slump from June – lead volume was lower than the previous 4 months
- July slightly increased but August had one of the biggest drop offs
- September to November were consistently low
- December was the lowest month on record
Marketing, Sales and Promotional ideas to counter the summer slump
Tune your sales processes
Focus on 3 key areas of your sales process
- First touchpoint with your customer – speed wins sales – don’t delay that first call with your new potential client
- Your follow-up game will make or break your sales process – not everyone is ready to do the deal straight away, there’ll be shopping around, price checking, and research on your brand. Following up with your potential customers multiple times, shows that you care about their business and helps to build trust that you will follow through on your promises
- Rework your past leads i.e. the customers you’ve quoted and not heard from for week(s) – get back in touch, find out what there objections were or the reasons they didn’t go ahead, if you’ve got people that didn’t go ahead because of price, when you’re slow, give them a personalised offer or discount to get them over the line
Ramp up your video content
Meta Ads has very quickly become the No.1 channel for lead gen in automotive over the past year
Increase your social media activity
Not just posting (or posting more), think about engaging with people and businesses who could become future clients and partners.
Email and SMS campaigns
One of the most well known, and recognised ways to engagement with existing/past clients – known for it’s effectiveness.
Pick up the phone and call you top 10/20/50 customers
Think about those customers who’ve brought multiple vehicles and recommended multiple friends, call them. Focus on building the relationship, and find out if they’ve got any new cars or if there are opportunities to upsell or cross sell your other services.
Use promotional offers and discounting to drive demand
The phrase “Summer Sale” exists for a reason – because many industries and verticals experience the summer slump – not just automotive service businesses.
Competitions and giveaways
Over the years we’ve used competitions and giveaways to create quick demand for Pyramid Car Care, for products and for services.
I was reminded on how effective it can be recently when our client Machine Polishing Central Scotland ran a giveaway for a car detailing service, and used it to get over 1,000 people enter the competition through a lead gen form. After the competition was drawn, we followed up with offers and marketing emails, and have seen multiple thousands of pounds worth of bookings on the back of it – on a relatively low cost giveaway.
Networking with local dealerships and other automotive business
Successfuly growing your trade business should be a long term effort, not just a short term dip, but if you’ve got this far without it – it could be time to starting building relationship with local dealerships, and other local automotive services businesses i.e. if you offer car detailing, then targeting vehicle restoration, PPF, Tinting, and similar companies. Even speaking with competitors and identifying customers where you don’t overlap can be a great way to build business through referrals and commission schemes.
Exhibit and visit local car events
This is such an unlooked way of catching up with your existing clients, and getting introductions to potential new clients.
Last updated: 2024/07/17
What is Seasonality?
Seasonality refers to the predictable changes that occur in your business year after year.
For automotive businesses, this can have a profound impact on marketing effectiveness, customer engagement, leads, bookings and ultimately, your bottom line.
Automotive services often see increased demand in spring and summer months as customers prepare for road trips or seek to restore their vehicles after winter.
Dealerships might experience higher foot traffic and sales during March and September, thanks to promotions and new model releases.
Understanding these patterns, can you help you understand your business better and allows us to tailor marketing strategies that align with customer behaviors. By leveraging seasonal trends, we can optimize lead generation, increase bookings, and drive sales more effectively.
During peak periods targeted campaigns can capitalise on heightened interest, while off-peak periods require more creative approaches to maintain steady business flow.
Top 3 periods of seasonality for car detailing businesses and what you can do to avoid your business freezing over
Winter (December – February)– arguably the most difficult period in the year is between December – February for car detailers, battling snow and ice, whilst trying to wash and maintain cars is no small feat. Through winter 2023 at Pyramid Car Care we literally had snow foam freezing on the surface of cars, making it nearly impossible to wash cars on the coldest days.
What you can do during the winter period?
- Winter detailing packages
- Winter maintenance content
- Promotional offers such as winter sale
Summer Holiday Season (June – August) – We all look forward to summer: holidays abroad and holidays at home, pub gardens, and soaking up the sun, the 6 weeks holidays and so on. It’s the same for your customers too which means less people will be searching for your services and actively booking them too.
What you can do during the summer holiday season?
- This is a good time of year to diversify your marketing and test new strategies and approaches
- Attend local car events – this is a great way to get outside, and build relationships with potential customers
- Create your own local events such as a summer open day and invite existing customers and prospects for a BBQ, car show or demonstrations at your premises or nearby event space if you don’t have a suitable location
- Focus on existing customers and building relationships – reach out to people by phone or email
Back To School (September) – After the summer holidays, I would love to say it’s plain sailing but every year, there’s a slow down around the back to school period, and it makes sense, it’s a big stressful change in routine, and the majority of us parents will be thinking about just getting through the first couple of weeks.
What you can do during the back to school disruption?
- It’s short lived – and we usually se things settle down within 2-3 weeks
- Focus on relationship building with existing customers
- Create fun content about going “back to school” and / or the impact this has on our cars
- Target parents with promotional offers with relatable messaging such as “Back to school is hard for us all, but let us take the pressure off cleaning your car. Freshen up your car with valeting services at ….”
The key thing to remember is that every business is different, and every business will be affected differently by seasonality – this information is not intended as a one-size-fits-all guide.
