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Brand Development

Chapel Hill Tire: Drive Happy

How great can car care be?

Pretty great, when you care about the person behind the wheel. And Chapel Hill Tire, a values-based company, lives by five principles that keep them focused on caring for their customers and each other:

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As company president Marc Pons likes to say, “We service cars, but we serve people.” The service is about oil changes, alignments, tires, and etc. The serving is about making people happy. That’s the heart of their brand.

Saving money can make you happy.

Spending it on something fun can make you even happier.

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Being on hold might not make you happy.

But a fun on-hold message might.

“Hi. This is Jennie Jenkins. As a professional voice talent, I’ve read a lot of really bland on hold messages, so I was really glad the folks at Chapel Hill Tire decided to let me tell you something about myself. You know, I just love snickerdoodles. They are so good! Especially when they’re fresh out of the oven -- takes me back to my childhood when my mom and I used to make ‘em on Saturday mornings and that great aroma would just fill the kitchen. But enough about me, a Chapel Hill Tire service advisor will be with you in a minute. Oh. And did you know they have cookies in their waiting room? They do.”

If you didn’t have to take your car to the shop, everyone could be a little happier.

If you run a car care shop, you really don’t want people waiting in your lobby. It irritates them.

Knowing that an impatient customer is waiting for their car puts pressure on your team. Pressure can lead to mistakes. Mistakes are bad.

And sometimes, you pull a car in for a 15 minute oil change and you find out it needs a two hour head gasket replacement. And your already impatient customer is not going to be inclined to wait two more hours.

So, you offer free shuttle service, and that works, some of the time. But the customer still has to bring their car to the shop, and sometimes they have to wait for the shuttle.

Then, you have this great idea. You will pick up the customer’s car, at their home or work, complete whatever service they need, and bring it back to them, good to go.

But for some reason, customers just don’t want it. Too weird, maybe.

So, I decided to start to showing them all the things they could do instead of sitting in the lobby. And free pick up elivery appointments started to soar.

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Yes. Chapel Hill Tire is in Raleigh.

It’s an old problem: your brand name doesn’t really fit what you do anymore, but it has lots of equity; so you don’t want to change it.

“Chapel Hill Tire,” for example, sounds like “a place to get tires in Chapel Hill.”

And that was true, in 1953, when the company first opened its doors. But now, they offer complete car care; they have shops in Raleigh, and they have this new free pick up & delivery service.

We wanted customers to know this, but we didn’t want to bore them. So, we had a little fun with it.

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Internal Branding: Standard Operating Procedures Manual

When the brand position is right, it can inspire great things.

For Chapel Hill Tire, it inspired a movement, outlined in the first section of their Standard Operating Procedures:

“We believe happy employees create happy customers, and happy customers create a thriving business where we can all grow and prosper.

Our goal is to build a work happy, drive happy movement.

We envision a future where Chapel Hill Tire sets the standard for how companies invest in their employees to grow and nurture their skills, empowering every one to build strong lifetime relationships with customers.”

Internal Branding: Manifesto

When the brand position is right, the employees do more than just buy in.

They make it their own.

I didn’t write this manifesto. The employees did.

In a team meeting, they created their own interpretation of the company values and our Drive Happy branding.

And that makes me happier than if I’d written it myself.

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Results

Consistent – and increasing – 5-star reviews on Google My Business

Year-over-year sales increases in every store

3 new stores added, 2016 - 2021

“I wanted our customers to see Chapel Hill Tire the same way that I do. The problem was I, didn’t see it, I felt it. It was emotion buried deep down in my heart. How do you articulate the emotions and feelings of a second generation family business?

The first thing I noticed about David Blair was the quality of his questions. Through David’s discovery process – by asking the right questions – he brought the emotion to life in our “Drive Happy” positioning.

Those two words articulate and capture 70 years of a family business’ dedication to customers and community. “Drive Happy” puts smiles on faces. Thanks to David, we are able to share the love and emotion of our brand with our customers and community. Drive Happy, Chapel Hill!”

-Marc Pons, President and Co-owner, Chapel Hill Tire

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