By Doris Barnes of Elite We can all agree that generating happy customers is critical to the success of your shop. Below you’ll find 5 tips that are going to help you do just that. Apply them, and you’ll be pleased to see the positive results that come from making just a few simple changes! 1. Find as many things in common with your customers as possible. Think about your closest friends for a minute. Why do you connect? You connect with them because of the things you share in common, right
By Bob Cooper Henry Ford once said, “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” Clearly one of the keys to success in building an auto repair shop is having your entire staff working together as a team. The question is, how do you create an environment that fosters team spirit? Here are six easy steps that will not only help you create team spirit, but will help you build a more profitable, successful auto repair business at the same time. Step
By Bob Cooper Every shop owner has a number of important responsibilities. First and foremost, they are responsible for setting the goals of the company and hiring the right people. They are also responsible for creating the plan, managing their employees and ensuring the success of the company. But there’s another major responsibility that every shop owner has, and that’s to bring ethics into every decision making process, and to let their moral compass guide them. This checklist is certainly
By Bob Cooper If you want to build a successful auto repair business, you will need to have a number of things in place, yet nothing is more important than having service advisors who can sell in a professional and ethical way. In today’s competitive environment you’re seeing vehicles less frequently, customers have greater access to information, and they have choices unlike ever before. So here’s a guide to help you hire the superstar advisors who will take your shop to the top: 1. Look for
By Bob Cooper With vehicles being built better than ever before, and with service intervals continually being extended, you are going to see your customers less often. This means that your service advisors have to be razor sharp when that phone rings. Although there is no silver bullet that will allow you to bring in every first-time caller, there are a number of things you can do to get more appointments. In this article, I would like to share some of the best practices we teach in our service
By Bob Cooper Not long ago it was easy to beat your competitors. All that you needed was more equipment, a healthy advertising budget and the ability to fix cars right the first time. Well, those days are long gone. Today, cars are being built better and require service less frequently, customers have more choices than ever before, and they are able to do a tremendous amount of research online before they even pick up the phone. Additionally, this industry is experiencing an extraordinary short
By Doris Barnes In a world where service advisors don’t want to be considered salespeople, we need to search our souls. Why is it that “selling” has become a dirty word? Why is it that we cringe at the term “sales?” It’s simple! Most service advisors do what they do each day because they care about people. To become a “salesperson”, in their mind, means to become pushy and overbearing. To most, it means that their interest must shift to one thing and one thing only… The customer’s Visa card
By Bob Cooper I am sure we can all agree that our industry, and society, has been going through quite a transformation. One of the changes that’s had an extraordinary impact, and will have an even bigger impact in the coming years, is transparency. Not only do today’s consumers have an expectation of transparency, but they have access to pricing information that was beyond our wildest dreams just a few short years ago. Just look at all the major retailers. With rare exception, you can walk int
The top shops in America realize that in order to build a successful business they will need to have team players that are self-starters, who can produce, and who will never compromise their ethics. Over the years I’ve not only been fortunate enough to hire many of our industry superstars, but I have seen hiring mistakes made every day by shop owners all across America. In order to help you with your business, I’d like to share what I believe to be the 5 most common hiring mistakes that shop own
In the world of auto repair and service, one thing is for certain: You are going to lose customers. They will move, no longer have a need for their automobile, turn to one of your competitors, or buy a new vehicle and then take it to the dealer for service. Accordingly, you need a consistent stream of new customers, and since you more than likely have competition in your community, you need to help those potential customers see that your shop is the right shop. The way that you accomplish this g
There’s no doubt that pricing is one of the most misunderstood elements of business. There’s not only a lot of bad information out there, but with these tough economic times, there’s a lot of uncertainty as well. So what I decided to do with this article is break the subject of pricing down into three components: Base pricing, price modification and measuring results. Base Pricing At Elite we believe that in all cases, your prices need to be competitive. By “competitive”, I’m not suggesting th
Most service advisors fall into one of three traps with first-time customers: they’ll either avoid recommending a complete inspection, they’ll try to bundle the inspection into a service, or they’ll just inspect the vehicle without the owner’s permission. Unfortunately, all of these approaches can jeopardize the customer experience, and reflect poorly on your shop. Let’s take a look at each one… The service advisors who shy away from recommending a complete inspection to first-time customers are
By Bob Cooper As business owners, our best teachers will always be our employees and our customers. They understand many components of our businesses, and in most cases, they really do care about our success. Learning from our employees is relatively simple. All that we need to do is pay attention to their passing comments, and engage them during our employee meetings and reviews. What I would like to do with this article is provide you with a step-by-step guide that will help you do what ever
Over the years I have had the opportunity to work with many of the top shop owners in America, and I have met thousands of owners who are living from day to day, and then unfortunately fail. There have been a lot of discoveries along the way, so I would like to use this article to share what I feel to be the top 7 reasons why most shops fail. 1. Pride. There is no question that pride plays an important role in a shop owner’s success. It causes them to make sure that their shops are clean, vehi
By Bob Cooper In today’s market, service advisors are facing a number of challenges. One of the more complex challenges is when a skeptical first-time customer comes in for an oil service, and the advisor discovers that this customer needs a long list of repairs. This is what most advisors refer to as the proverbial “laundry list.” Unfortunately, what most service advisors will do is either hold back some of the recommendations because they are afraid they’ll scare the customer away, or they’ll
By Bob Cooper of Elite For decades shop owners have had the luxury of being able to rely on a short list of traditional media to bring in new customers. They’ve primarily utilized directory ads, print media, radio and TV, and to some extent, local grassroots marketing programs. With rare exception, each of these advertising mediums has had a long-standing track record of performance (either good or bad), so you knew what you were getting when investing in these mediums. Today, we live in a comp
I am sure you will agree that in our industry there are a number of unwritten rules that shop owners have followed for decades. They know that they have to hire gifted technicians, stay at the forefront of vehicle technology, and can never jeopardize their relationships with their customers; just to name a few. Unfortunately, there is another rule that far too many shop owners (and service advisors) have believed in for decades. It’s a rule that’s been passed down from one generation to the next
As we all know, the most powerful form of advertising always has been, and always will be, word of mouth. Although every shop owner would like to believe the majority of their customers are songbirds, the reality is, they’re not. I am not suggesting that you don’t have some customers who love to sing your song, but it’s safe to say that they’re a very small percentage of your overall customer base. I feel comfortable making such a strong statement because even if as little as 10% of your custome
By Bob Cooper of Elite Many years ago when I was still working on cars, I came to the realization that I would someday own my own shop. I also realized that in order to do so, I would first have to learn how to sell service. The challenge I faced at that time was not only did I not know how to sell, but I also had little respect for salespeople, because I viewed them as people who would take people’s money, and more often than not do little in return. So I was actually faced with two challenges
By Bob Cooper Over the last 22 years I've been amazed to discover just how many shop owners are lost when it comes to knowing and understanding “the numbers". In order to build a successful auto repair shop, you are going to need to know two sets of numbers: Your “financial" benchmarks, and your “operational" benchmarks. Without a clear understanding of these benchmarks, it becomes quite challenging for shop owners to pinpoint where they are falling short of their goals, and where improvements
By Bob Cooper One of the single greatest challenges shop owners face today is finding and hiring the superstars. Regardless of whether you are looking to hire technicians or service advisors, here are some tips that will help you hire the stars. 1. Accept the fact that with rare exception, the stars you are looking for are already working, and are reasonably satisfied. This doesn’t mean that they won’t be open to a conversation with you, because many of them will be. It’s your responsibility t
By Bob Cooper Over the past one hundred plus years marketing strategies, and the brands that were built, were developed by two entities: The client, and the ad agency. The client would tell the agency how they envisioned their brand, and the agency would develop the advertising campaigns that would create that very same image in the minds of the targeted consumers. The tobacco companies wanted to create brands that would cause a consumer to feel good when they used their products, and the ad ag
By Bob Cooper
1. Know your customers’ buying habits. You’ll need to know your customers’ buying habits as well as their service histories. You should always request your first-time customers’ service records, and should ask them about their service histories verbally as well. This information can be extremely helpful during any sales process, especially when it comes to selling maintenance. Great doctors are always interested in a patient’s medical history, just as great service advisors a
