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Are you closing Christmas Eve & New Years Eve


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That's a very interesting way to do things. Its kinda a give and take. You give your techs holidays and wanted days with family off but they give to the business by working extra hours up to the holiday. I like it! We currently are closed on Christmas and New Years but operate normal hours every other day. Might give what you are doing a try......

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  • 1 year later...

I'll shut down early on Christmas eve... if it's slow. Closed Christmas day and New years day. However, if it plays out like it has almost every year, the week between Christmas and New years day has always been one of the busiest weeks. Almost all the jobs are stereo related from good ol' dad or grandpa trying to install one.

 

Happens every year.

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I start getting calls a few weeks before Christmas from local shop owners asking me what I am doing for the holidays, especially when Christmas and New Years day falls in the middle of the week.

 

Here's what we do. First, we close Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, open till 2pm on New Year's Eve and close New Year's Day. But, the week before Christmas we start expanding our hours, so that we can maximize the potential tech hours. We sit down with the techs and tell them what we are doing. We book longer days so we can minimize the impact on sales. This has worked out very good.

 

This is not to say that we have normal sales weeks, but it is better than if we did nothing.

 

What do other shops do?

So what do you say to the tech that says " I have to work longer hours the week before to get a holiday off?".

I can see a mutiny in some shops!! If it works for you, great.

 

Dave

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         5 comments
      I recently spoke with a friend of mine who owns a large general repair shop in the Midwest. His father founded the business in 1975. He was telling me that although he’s busy, he’s also very frustrated. When I probed him more about his frustrations, he said that it’s hard to find qualified technicians. My friend employs four technicians and is looking to hire two more. I then asked him, “How long does a technician last working for you.” He looked puzzled and replied, “I never really thought about that, but I can tell that except for one tech, most technicians don’t last working for me longer than a few years.”
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