Real Life PR Lessons: Big O Tires

I love real life lessons in creating positive public perception and sentiment. Here's a real life tale from my experience at Big O tires.

The Situation:

For the past couple of months I've been getting into my car and seeing a "low tire pressure light." At first it would come on every couple of weeks (easily ignorable), but over the last week it was every day so off to find a tire store I go.

The choice; a no brainer--The Big O Tires I see everyday driving on my way to work. Why? Convenience. 

The Experience:

I actually take an afternoon off for this task and other "catch-up" errands so I drive to the store, get out of my  car and go in. Immediately met by the strong smell of tire rubber and grease, I head to the front counter and tell the service guy my problem.

He takes my keys and after 15-20 minutes calls my name; okay the dreaded judgement time. As we know, there are two ways this can go--it'll cost you $400 or it is an easy fix for $50. 

You know what it cost me? $0. Yep, zero dollars. It needed a little patch (a nail in the tire), he pointed out I was a first time customer and said "this one's on me, come back and see us."

And you know what? THAT made my day, and I will go back next time I need something "tires." 

Win:

Great "on the ground" customer service is the best type of PR a company can hope for and Big O won me over quickly. It had to do partially with the cost, partially with the in store experience and friendly serviceman and partially that it didn't take 3 hours.

Fail:

The first thing I wanted to do when I had the experience is to share the news. I pulled out my iPhone, searched for Big O's Twitter handle, didn't see anything and didn't want to spend too much more time looking so I moved on.

After a few more errands I went home and fired up the desktop and searched more in-depth for a Twitter handle because I REALLY wanted to share the expierience. No luck. 

Get this--Big O actually had me spending MORE time looking for their social media outlets, even looking on their website, to say what a great experience I had at their store than the repair did. In 2011, something is CLEARLY wrong with that. 

C'mon Big O, get a corporate social media presence going. You have 500 locations in 21 states. It is time. (of note competitor Discount Tire has 4,200 followers on Twitter that they are interacting with each day)