Roll by Goodyear has experienced substantial growth in the last few years. What started in just a handful of locations has grown to 32 markets today – and the brand has other major expansion plans on the horizon.

Why texting?

Some customers accidentally purchase the wrong tire size for their vehicles when ordering online. When this occurs and is not caught before the tire installation date, drivers waste time, and customers get frustrated as the appointment must be rescheduled. To mitigate this and keep customers happy, Roll by Goodyear works to confirm vehicle tire size prior to installation day. Catching any incorrect orders prevents organizational headaches, subdues customer frustration, and ensures the installation occurs as planned.

Prior to implementing Textline’s business texting solution, Roll by Goodyear’s centralized logistics team called or emailed customers to confirm the correct tire size. “We just didn’t get the response rate,” said Mandy Cruzen, Manager of Network Design and Route Optimization at Goodyear.

In addition to catching wrong tire size orders, the company also wanted a better way to share updates with their drivers, which are called ambassadors. On a quest to solve these company communication challenges, Cruzen began looking into texting as a solution. “This was all born out of wrong tire sizes and not getting confirmations, so I started looking,” Cruzen said. “I talked to a few other vendors, but yours was by far the most user-friendly.”

Approach

The Roll by Goodyear MILES team — mobile installation logistics excellence and support — is the team that uses Textline. The team consists of 10 agents who log in and take turns chatting with customers and confirming customer tire size.

The team saves time with Textline’s Shortcut feature. This feature allows Textline users to create and save text templates for common and recurring messages sent to customers.

Often, the first text message sent to Roll by Goodyear customers is the “Tire Size Confirmation” Shortcut. It asks customers to confirm the tire size ordered online is correct and shares where to find this information on their vehicles. A customer is instructed to reply yes or send in a photo (MMS message) for the MILES team to review. Using Shortcuts and MMS makes it possible for the Roll by Goodyear team to verify information quickly and handle several customer conversations at once.

In addition, Roll by Goodyear uses Textline Announcements to send scheduled messages to customers and drivers. The MILES team covers 7 am to 10 pm Monday through Saturday and sometimes works to confirm information on Sunday. As a result, the team often schedules text messages to send at more convenient times. For example, instead of sending a text to a customer at 10 pm on the East Coast, the team will set up the text to send the next morning at 8 am.

The team also sends Announcements to its drivers. The company will send copies of the Goodyear newsletter or update them on other key information. This helps drivers stay informed since they are away from their computers most of the time.

Another popular feature for the MILES team is Whispers, which are used by agents to communicate internally within the Textline app. Agents can leave colleagues private internal notes to share important information about a particular customer conversation or ask clarifying questions. This helps improve communication internally so customers always feel supported and heard.

This article explores Roll by Goodyear’s initial Textline use case, but the company has expanded how it uses Textline and will continue to explore new features. In particular, Roll by Goodyear recently established a new Textline Department for its business-to-business segment. This will allow the team to keep its B2B operations separate. Additionally, Roll by Goodyear is exploring how to use the Textline API to automate the initial tire confirmation text sent to customers. We look forward to seeing how Textline continues to improve Roll by Goodyear’s operations.

Results

Texting has helped Roll by Goodyear keep its drivers in the know, improve response rates, and decrease the number of wrong tire size orders.

Specifically, prior to implementing texting the response rate for tire size confirmations via email and phone combined was 44 percent. Since moving to Textline, the customer response rate has jumped to about 80 percent. “We’re getting close to almost doubling our response rate by going to Textline. The customers love it and it's opened up our communication with ambassadors,” Cruzen said.

In addition to bolstering the customer response rate, Roll by Goodyear also has cut down the number of wrong tire size instances. Prior to Textline, Roll by Goodyear caught about 1 percent of all instances of wrong tire size. Now, the company catches 3.5 percent of wrong tire size orders.