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Express oil change lanes

ATLAuto
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Go to solution Solved by Joe Marconi,

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ATLAuto Rising Star

ATLAuto

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I was just speaking with my banker the other day, and he made the following statement, "Yeah, I don't go to you guys for oil changes, since I know that it will take too long. Rather, I save the big stuff for you and go to Jiffy Lube where I can get in and out in 10 minutes."

 

This got me thinking a bit ... a ton of customers do this. We see them in our shops all the time with competitor's stickers on their windows and invoices in their glove boxes. They use us for the tough stuff but give the easy (and profitable!) work to the chain stores. Why? Convenience. Look at what most of these oil change shops do ... you drive in, stay in your car, they do the work and bring a credit card terminal to your window, and you are out of there in 10 minutes. Look at what we do ... they park, come in, talk to the service adviser, take a seat, wait .... wait some more ... wait some more. Maybe, they will be out of there in 30 minutes, but that's pretty optimistic. Many will be waiting there 45 minutes to an hour.

 

This got me thinking ... could I setup a couple bays in the shop to do just this? Has anyone in here had any luck with setting up some express lanes on the side of their shop? ...or even dug a pit underneath a few bays to allow the customer to stay in their vehicle?

 

Any thoughts on getting this work back into our shop would be much appreciated.

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  • 2 weeks later...
nmikmik Enthusiast

nmikmik

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Don't know how it is in your town(s). We usually look at the oil changes as the money loosing "opportunity".

Just calculate how much real cost goes into the regular (not synthetic) oil change and I doubt it will look very profitable. That is with very high liability of the work done. I think the most money the quick lubes make are in the upsell of the other services like air, cabin, whatever filters etc. It turns into much longer than 10 minutes and $29.99 oil change for the customer, but perception is still "a quick lube" place :) I am sure we have members here that can set you up with some rough data.

If i had a choice, i'd prefer the customer to get the oil change elsewhere, but come back to me for everything, and I mean everything, else.

I suspect you can find a much better use of your "real estate" than quick lube.

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weighit Enthusiast

weighit

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Happened to be in a small town in Texas a couple of years ago and needed a oil change for the PT Cruiser I had. Pulled in and checked in and noticed their sign they did rotation and balancing too. Said sign me up, I was really impressed with the speed and while the oil was done on one rack and the tire work on another, it was very fast. In talking with the owner I asked how the added service was working? He said to me it has been a real money maker and turned his 'dead' flat stall into real money. He said he cross trained the employees and gave them some spiff money for any tire work sold. One stop shop for me and I was happy.

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  • Have you checked out Joe's Latest Blog?

    • Joe Marconi
      Technician Production is More Complicated than You Think
      By Joe Marconi in Joe's Blog
         0 comments
      Auto shop owners are always looking for ways to improve production levels. They focus their attention on their technicians and require certain expectations of performance in billable labor hours. While technicians must know what is expected of them, they have a limited amount of control over production levels. When all factors are considered, the only thing a well-trained technician has control over is his or her actual efficiency.
      As a review, technician efficiency is the amount of labor time it takes a technician to complete a job compared to the labor time being billed to the customer. Productivity is the time the technician is billing labor hours compared to the time the technician is physically at the shop. The reality is that a technician can be very efficient, but not productive if the technician has a lot of downtime waiting for parts, waiting too long between jobs, or poor workflow systems.
      But let’s go deeper into what affects production in the typical auto repair shop. As a business coach, one of the biggest reasons for low shop production is not charging the correct labor time. Labor for extensive jobs is often not being billed accurately. Rust, seized bolts, and wrong published labor times are just a few reasons for lost labor dollars.
      Another common problem is not understanding how to bill for jobs that require extensive diagnostic testing, and complicated procedures to arrive at the root cause for an onboard computer problem, electrical issue, or drivability issue. These jobs usually take time to analyze, using sophisticated tools, and by the shop’s top technician. Typically, these jobs are billed at a standard menu labor charge, instead of at a higher labor rate. This results in less billed labor hours than the actual labor time spent. The amount of lost labor hours here can cripple a shop’s overall profit.
      Many shop owners do a great job at calculating their labor rate but may not understand what their true effective labor is, which is their labor sales divided by the total labor hours sold. In many cases, I have seen a shop that has a shop labor rate of over $150.00 per hour, but the actual effective labor rate is around $100. Not good.
      Lastly, technician production can suffer when the service advisors are too busy or not motivated to build relationships with customers, which results in a low sales closing ratio. And let’s not forget that to be productive, a shop needs to have the right systems, the right tools and equipment, an extensive information system, and of course, great leadership.
      The bottom line is this; many factors need to be considered when looking to increase production levels. While it does start with the technician, it doesn’t end there. Consider all the factors above when looking for ways to improve your shop’s labor production.

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