Cascade Collision’s road to 59% more Google search appearances

“We care more about our reputation than the dollar amount on the final bill,” Haley Sanderson told us during our interview with her. After more than a decade with Cascade Collision, the conviction of that statement comes across in her voice. 

From receptionist to now Director of Business Development, Haley has held a variety of positions at Cascade. Needless to say, she knows the business inside and out. 

“Most people don’t know what to do next when they get in an accident,” Haley told us. “We focus on guiding them through making a claim with their insurance and taking the necessary steps.” 

If you’ve just been in an accident, the last thing you want to do is get stuck on hold. That’s why Cascade has invested heavily in becoming the most responsive repair shop in their area. “Our communication has improved immensely,” Haley told us. That said, it didn’t happen overnight.

Calls were resulting in phone tag.

“Our business is different because no one sits at their desk all day,” Haley told us. “We’re constantly on the move.” Dropping everything to make a phone call would often slow the team down and would limit how much they could accomplish in any given hour. For both the customer and Cascade’s team, playing phone tag was costly. 

Due to the inefficiency of phone calls, Haley had her sights set on text messaging. However, as a business with multiple locations, she worried about the logistics of messaging.  

As she told us, “I wanted to turn on our Google messaging, but I didn’t have a way to divvy out those messages to the front desk managers who have access to their location’s schedule.” Without the ability to get messages to the right people at the right locations, messaging would have only served to complicate things further. 

Review invites were getting lost in the glovebox. 

In addition to that problem, Haley was aware that they needed to improve their online reputation. “Coming from a customer’s point of view myself,” Haley told us, “I always research a company I’m going to be spending money with.” She knew that her customers were no different. 

Unless Cascade was showing up at the top of search results with five-star reviews, Haley knew they would be limited in their reach. That said, knowing you need more reviews and actually getting them are two different things. 

“We used to staple a review invite card to every bill, but those would just end up in the customer’s glovebox,” Haley said. “We were just kind of taking a shot in the dark and hoping for the best.” 

Convenience that’s driving real results. 

Like most customers, Haley first learned about Podium as a reviews solution. She saw that, with Podium, anyone on her team could send a review invite link via text to the customer at any point in the process—no more shooting in the dark. What started as a solution for reviews, however, ended up being much more. 

“Once Podium came around,” Haley told us, “it filtered messages to the appropriate people instead of coming to me. It has saved us a lot of time and headaches.” 

With Podium, Cascade now connects not only with customers much faster, but also within their own team. “Whether you’re at our Lehi location or anywhere else,” Haley told us, “we now work seamlessly together. Podium streamlines communication without having to make a phone call and drop everything you’re doing.”

Cascade now has a 4.8 average star rating with hundreds of reviews and has appeared in 59% more Google search results.