ScottSpec

I send out email reminders and mail reminders weekly to any customer we have not seen in the last 4 months. I usually send out the email reminders a week ahead of the mail. That way if the customer responds to the email, I will save the cost of the mail. I'm going to plug my shop management web site here because that is what I use to send them. It's Smotgo.com. You can use the generic messages there or create your own. If you already have a shop management program and you can export your customers, you can upload them to the site and just use the communications tools. We call customers 3 days after they have been in to say thanks and at times call customers that we have not seen or who have come up as being due for service. This has had minimal success. Scott

This may sound a bit out there, but there are times when I have wondered how things would work if we just sold all parts at our cost. I think it would deter customers from wanting to bring their own parts or to be tempted to buy the parts elsewhere and they would save some money on sales tax. We would no longer have to worry about parts margins etc. I've even considered just paying tax on all parts purchases, passing that along to the customer as the cost, and get away from collecting and paying the tax. It might mean doubling our labor and adding service fees, to make up the difference. Again, just an idea I have played with and thought I would share. Scott

I would like to expand on the question about RepairPal. Has anyone compared their prices to the RepairPal estimates? I'm trying to guage how accurate they are so I can compare them to our invoices. Scott

I have used Adwords for years, it is the most successful thing I have ever used to advertise. It has brought me more business than any other form of advertising. While Google's interface i a bit confusing, you can pause or delete your campaigns vey easily. That is the pros. The cons. It now cost a small fortune. I started using it many years ago. Not too many shops were using it then. That made it very affordable. I have pretty much stopped using it because the cost is about 20-40 times more now. While we did get a lot of work, we probably broke even by the time we paid for Adwords. I think it is a good tool to to get something jump started. Like if you are just starting out and want to get some cars in the door. Bing, Yahoo, & Facebook have done nothing for us. I used it to launch my shop management website smotgo.com over the last year. Over 600 people created accounts. I think that is pretty successful, but it was about an $18,000.00 investment. But, without it there is no way I would have reached all those people. When I checked the shops numbers, I calculated about $150,000.00 worth of work over the last few years from Adwords customers. It's hard to totally quantify this value as you don't know what those customers will spend in the future and how much their referrals might be worth, but I spend about $75,000.00 on Adwords, so I'm thinking Google probably did a little better in that deal than I did. You can tune and target you advertising, and set a budget, but then you also limit your opportunities.

bstewart, I am the creator of SMOTGO and the videos. We use it everyday to run our shop. We have a 5 bay shop. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. The shop I own is in Rockville, MD so we are not too far from you. I'm not necessarily trying to remain anonymous. I run a shop full time and this is my hobby/pet project. While I answer any and all questions via email, I am not in a position to offer any type of phone support at this time. So I don't broadcast the connection between my shop and the program to try to mitigate the phone calls. I think you have already picked up on the weakest points of the program, the lack of integration. One of the biggest reasons for this currently is the lack of integration/support from parts and labor vendors. SMOTGO is a web app. Like you said cloud based. There are only 2 other apps. like this that I am aware of. Most of the integration out there is for desktop programs. I've been in touch with RealTime and they are supposed to notify me once they can support a web app. I have tried to contact WorldPac, but have not gotten very far. On there site they say they are working on integration with Omnique which is web app, so I have to believe they are still building the systems. I've had some discussions with Ramac and they are also working on something. So for now, if you go with a web app. you may find integration lacking. It is certainly my desire to have integration, but for now I have to wait for it to become more mainstream. As you read on the site, we do as much as we can to protect your personal information. We have no interest in this info, in fact, you don't need to enter anything more than a last name and a tag number to create an invoice. I'm building a tool for shops like mine. I do hope to find some sponsors in time. This app. is great for a shops that are just starting out as you said, but I think it is a bit more powerful than that. I think this app. can serve small and mid sized shops pretty well. It has a lot of features that some of the more established programs do not. No installation, no backups to worry about, no limit to the number of computers it is used on, runs on anything with a browser, can be used anywhere you have an internet connection. I love being able to check our schedule from home before I head into work. the employees love that also. The can check the schedule any time they want so they know what is going on. I can hang out with the kids at home with my laptop and work on invoices or inventory. While the integration is lacking at this time, there is a copy and paste feature which allows you to copy info from a catalog you already have and then paste those into an invoice. They can also be added to inventory at the same time. Let me know if you have any other questions. Scott

I think Joe gives a really great overall explanation. To put it simply, you just need to ask yourself, does this service create value for my customer and for my business. If your customer loves having a rental car, but it is lowering your bottom line, what is the point in doing it. I think rental cars are one of the easiest added service to offer, and the most beneficial for customers. It's the least disruptive to their lives and it does not require you to have one of your employees sitting outside someones house or driving around looking for them for 45 minutes. However, we do not offer them because of the expense. If you are considering offering rental cars and you are thinking about purchasing your own, I suggest you really do the math with regards to cost. First is insurance. Someone here mentioned that is was not that bad. I have to wonder if that insurance company knows exactly what that car is being used for. Because when I inquired I was shocked at the cost. Also, logically it seems like maintenance would be minimal as you would do the repairs yourself, but when I did the math, I was surprised how much more it was than I thought. Then there is gas. If you want the customer to take care of this, it starts to take away some of the value of the "free loaner car". The last one and the most important in my opinion is the liability. Is it worth losing your business should something go wrong while a customer is driving that car. Occasionally we will "get a customer a loaner car". We call Enterprise, the customer does the paperwork with them and when they return the car, we pay the bill. The only liability we incur is the rental fee. There is a large Mercedes dealer near us that advertises that they have over 100 rental cars. They use Enterprise. Our Home Depot rents trucks. This is all done through Penske. I believe these companies know is is more cost effective to do it that way and that it limits their liability. I would love to hear what you decide and how it works out for you. Scott

More than likely you have nothing to worry about. However, it really depends on how hard the customer wants to push it. Any time I have a vehicle that I think the owner has abandoned, I call a local lien company. This is what they do, and it shifts the responsibility on to them to make sure everything is done properly. The reason I say that ultimately it depends on the customer, is because you can be sued for just about anything. We did a repair on a vehicle that was under $300.00 for a local used car dealer. We tried to contact him and left numerous messages for about 90 days. After that, we went through the lien process. At the end of the process, he filed a lawsuit against us (to challenge the validity of the lien process), we then filed one against him. He asked for $10,000.00 in punitive damages to take it out of small claims court just so I would have to incur significant legal fees from my lawyer. We prevailed because we had done everything correctly (had all our records of the work that was done, when the calls were made, the lien filing, etc.) and had a good attorney. We prevailed in both cases and we were even awarded attorney's fees which is rather unusual. The total award was around $4200.00. It was a nice victory, except we were now up to about $8000.00 in legal fees. Now he is appealing the decisions. We go to court next month and we have already spent another $3000.00 defending the appeal. I'm expecting another $3000.00 before the hearing is over and who knows from there. I'm hoping the judge will find the whole situation as insane as it truly is and this craziness will end. So like so many of the issues all of us deal with everyday, the customers mental state has so much to do with it. I don't know how much he has spent in attorney's fees, I do know he is out at least $4200.00 and his time. I can't image any sane person that would that much money, time, and energy over a $300.00 repair. Scott

This is a little off topic, but it touches on something I have been thinking about doing and wonder if anyone has any experience with this idea. I am considering renting out lifts with tools to anyone who wants to work on their own cars. Has anyone ever tried this? Scott

I tried to have my lifts inspected once a year. We preach the benefits to routine maintenance to our customers, why is it any different when it comes to the equipment in our shops. Scott

Why is it that we as shop owners get frustrated with customers who price shop and don't look at the value or quality of the service we are providing yet when we go to purchase products like oil, all that gets discussed is price? Before we discuss the price we are paying for something like oil, shouldn't we first discuss the type and grade of the oil? What about the supplier? Are they reputable? How do they treat you? Do you trust them? How long is it going to take them to get a delivery to you if you run out? Aren't these all the questions we recommend consumers ask before taking their cars for service? I know I pay more for most of the part, products, and supplies that my shop sells, but I also know I get great service which is far more important to me. I value the service and quality of these products and suppliers, the same way I hope my customers value the service we provide. fnevets, I recommend you talk to other shop owners in your area that you respect and find out what they are doing for oil? Good luck with your new business. Scott

I launched a web based shop management web site earlier this year. It is call SMOTGO or Shop Manager On The Go. Since it is web based, it is very simple to set up and start using. It is a free service and you can access the site anywhere you can get connected to the internet. It has estimating, invoicing, inventory management, vin decoding, CRM and marketing tools. Being web based, it offers a lot of features the traditional programs do not. Currently is short comings are lack of integration. My desire is to add integration in time, but there are no immediate plans. The site is at https://www.smotgo.com and the site about SMOTGO is at http://www.smotgoinfo.com The next phase of the project is the SMOTGOAUTO site. This will be for the consumers/customers to go to view their vehicle history, documents, make appointments etc. If you have any questions, you can email me at [email protected]. Scott