American Tire Distributors (ATD), with more than 71 distribution centers throughout the United States, is the largest distributor of tires, custom wheels, and shop supplies to the nation’s independent tire dealers, repair shops, and automotive performance shops.
In collaboration with Michelin Tires, American Tire Distributors set out to build a national campaign that would increase phone enquiries, web site visits, and store traffic. To handle the increased volume of calls on short notice, Plum technology proved essential. American Tire and Michelin crafted their marketing efforts around a “Ride With Pride” sports theme. The campaign was designed to appeal to sports fans by offering $50 worth of merchandise from footballfanatics.com with the purchase of a set of Michelin Tires from a participating dealer. It was crucial for ATD to be able to provide ample exposure and promote those Michelin dealers that had opted into the promotion.
American Tire needed to match consumers with participating dealers throughout the country. Offering information over the web was an obvious first choice. If consumers visited the American Tire website they could go to the dealer locator feature, enter a zip code and find an appropriate dealer. ATD, however, needed to make it even easier for their consumers - those without immediate Internet access or those on the go - to access information and connect with local dealers.
American Tire Distributors was aware that their consumers, and most of the population, avidly use mobile phones. ATD explored the option of deploying an interactive voice response system (IVR) to help customers quickly find the nearest dealers with little difficulty. Gearing advertising to prompt phone calls proved to be the best path to maximum consumer response. Plum quickly emerged as the solution provider of choice to optimize and automate telephone communications for the marketing campaign. American Tire Distributors relied on Plum’s best-in-class VoiceXML Platform as the foundation to provide dealer locator technology. A complete IVR solution quickly emerged, and ATD hit the ground running successfully with the marketing campaign.
