Research · Auto repair
The free email address
Of the auto repair businesses that publish an email address, more than two in five ask customers to write to a free consumer mailbox rather than an address on their own domain.
More than two in five publish a free consumer email address rather than one on their own domain.
A shop can own a domain, run a website on it, and still hand out an address at gmail.com or yahoo.com on every quote, invoice and business card. The address is the part a customer reads most closely, and it is usually the cheapest thing on this list to change.
Why the address itself matters
A free mailbox is not broken. Mail arrives, and plenty of good shops use one. What it costs you is smaller and less dramatic than a broken website, but it is real:
- It reads as less established. A customer comparing three quotes sees three addresses.
- It is not yours. If the person who set it up leaves, the mailbox and its history can leave with them.
- It does not carry your name. Every reply from an address on your own domain repeats your business name.
How we got these numbers
We looked at the published email addresses of businesses categorized as auto repair. Each business was counted once, and a business was treated as having its own address if any one of its addresses sat on a domain that was not a consumer email provider.
Of 39,239 auto repair businesses we analyzed, 16,808 had at least one published email address, and only those are included here. Addresses were classified by their mailbox provider against a list of the common consumer providers.
An honest limitation: these are the businesses we chose to analyze, not a random sample of the industry. A consumer provider we did not list would be counted as an own-domain address, so 43% is a floor rather than a ceiling. And an address on your own domain does not by itself prove anyone is reading it.
What to do about it
- Use the domain you already pay for. If you have a website, you can almost always add mailboxes on it.
- Keep it simple and human. One clear address such as your first name or service@ beats a long one nobody can repeat over the phone.
- Forward the old mailbox. Do not switch off the free address; forward it so nothing sent to it is lost.
- Update where it appears. Your website, your Google profile, invoices, and your email signature.