Does your location use social media?

It’s a great way to stay connected to the customer.
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"We are just getting into it. We have a Facebook page and we’re starting to look at Twitter. With our fleet customers, Twitter would be a good tool to get information out. If something is down, you can cut out the middle point of communication, which is the dispatcher, and just get right to the end user— the driver. You would cut out quite a bit of hassle."
—William Howell, Irving Oil

"We have a Facebook page for our casinos and one for our restaurants. In the local markets we’re using text messages to promote our casinos. We’ll send out text messages with specials—be here in 10 minutes and you get a double free play. When the customers come in, they show the text. I think a mobile app would be good for our casinos."
—Damon Borden, Broadway Travel Plazas

"We currently advertise the Facebook logo on our Davis Travel Center billboards. In addition, we communicate any milestones or events that are current and relevant to our fans. Examples include postings of our newly completed Denny’s restaurant while under construction, pictures from Driver Appreciation Days, and community awareness photos taken at local schools. We recently highlighted an employee who retired after 29 years with us. We are currently encouraging customers to send us photos to post of them with our Davis Travel Centers red mug wherever they travel. It’s a great way to stay connected to the customer."
—J. Rex Davis, M. L. Davis Oil Co. Inc.

"We have an Iowa 80 Facebook page that encompasses our four truckstops. By doing it under the group umbrella, it gives us more to talk about with customers. We also have a Facebook page for Iowa80.com, which is our mail-order catalog. We post coupon codes there, and we post detailed happenings from the Iowa 80 Truckstop. For CAT Scale, we also have a Facebook page and we post our scale openings. We also use it as a forum to get feedback from our customers, such as where they’d like to see scales. It is also another way for them to contact us and is a good dialogue tool. We also have a smart phone app that lists all of our locations and has a search function. It is tied to our website so anytime we open a new location it automatically updates the app."
—Heather DeBaillie, Iowa 80 Group

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This article originally ran in Stop Watch magazineStop Watch provides in-depth content to assist NATSO members in improving their travel plaza business operations and provides context on trends and news affecting the industry.

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