Exclusive Auto Care

Thank you all for all the input.

 

Im glad that you guys have a similar system to what I am trying to do.

 

I will come up with something and let you guys know.

 

I would like to come up with a chart that will help me know how much to charge for diagnostics.

This is what I have so far. Any input will be appreciated.

 

Level 1

Fluid Check

Air/ Check tires On level 1 I would like things that can be diagnosed visually. I can come up with a reasonable price to charge the Scan Codes customer. I also thought about just charging 0.5 hours but it seems that is not working out too good, plus i dont think is fair to charge $40.00 for fluid check or just to check tires.

 

Level 2

Wheels

Axle

Front, Rear Suspension On Level 2 I would like to list things that I know my techs need to take parts off to be able to check the

problem.

 

Level 3

Engine noise

Cooling system On Level 3 Cars that need to stay over night or takes 1+ hours to diagnosed.

Fuel System

Transmission

 

 

I hope this is a good idea for me to stay on track.

What do you guys think? Good idea? Should i just charged 1 hours minimum of diagnostic time?

 

 

 

If you go strictly by the guide then you are doing them a serious disservice. The labor guides are a starting point for a new clean rust-free vehicle and even then they can hardly ever be met.

What do you suggest Phynny? They are very hard working individuals and they also have a family I want to be able to pay them fair.

For my business, 35% is just too low. I’m not sure how the people are where you are, but for me, I’m not really concerned if a person knows how much the parts cost. If I go to home depot and buy a faucet for $25.00 and installing myself, that’s my choice. But if I call a plumber to install the same faucet, he will charge a markup on the part and labor. The plumber has overhead and has to insure it. It doesn’t matter at that point if I know how much the faucet cost, does it?

 

One of our responsibilities as business owners is to make a profit and to put away money for the future and for reinvestment into our business. Too many of us give away too much and too many give away their entire career.

 

I try to stay in the range of 50-60% gross profit on parts. I don’t really go by anyone’s list. I know what I need to stay in business, so I charge accordingly. When I sell a job I sell value and benefits and sell the entire job. I don’t focus on parts or on labor, but sell the entire job as one.

 

This is the way I do things and have been doing it for nearly 30 years.

What do you mean by "When I sell a job I sell value and benefits and sell the entire job. I don’t focus on parts or on labor, but sell the entire job as one" How do you sell the entire job as one? Could you specify a little more.

 

Which management system do you recommend?

Yes. I used Labor guide for the invoices and keep a copy for our records. I keep that copy with the customer Information form plus any parts that were order with the same ticket.

Very interesting responses from all of you.

 

This is what we do at our shop please correct me if I am not doing it the correct way.

 

We use Real Time Labor Guide. I dont know how good of a system this is but it works for us now.

 

My husband is alone in the morning while my workers go to school. They dont get to the shop till 2:00pm.

Their rate is $16.50 an hour and we pay according to labor guide, for instance if a job takes 3 hours they will get pay for the 3 hours at their rate. If they take 4 hours they will still get pay for only 3. We always have work, so they are always busy. They clean their work area, and they also have their own tools. I would like to pay them hourly from the time they get here to the time they leave. That way I can have a little more control over them and I can set rules and regulations. Unfortunately, our shop is not there yet. I dont want to take the chance and pay them hourly when we dont make the money. By us paying them flat time, I know that we made that money for that week.

 

Is this a fair system? Am I doing something that Is not right or Ilegal?

 

I want to be fair to my employee they are good techs.

I dont have a price matrix in effect. How can I figure the price matrix for my shop?

You have to develop a system that becomes a routine. Suggestions don't work so well trust me I k

Ill try to develop something. Thank you

I was just reading a thread on here for parts mark up. You might want to go find that thread, very helpful! Good luck with your business.

Grifftans Im looking for the thread but cant seem to find it. Could you direct me to it or post the link?

 

Thank you

Zulma

I have a Customer Information form that my customers fill out before we can work in their vehicle. The form includes simple questions such as name, address and phone numbers, with a detail brief description about our policies. A signature is required for us to work on their cars.

 

My problem starts when the vehicle enters the shop. I (receptionist) fill out the vehicle information such as, year, make, model, mileage, vin and license plates. My husband diagnoses the vehicle and gives the job to a mechanic. Everything is done verbally. I would like to generate a form of some sort where they (mechanics) can fill out for themselves. I believe that is more convenient for me for them to fill the vehicle information. The form should include the diagnostic, parts that need to be order, notes and recommendations. That way they would just come in hand me the form and I can order parts needed. I think it would also help me to be aware as to what they did, and is wrong with a customers car. That way I can explain or give a little detail to customer about what was done.

 

We are currently using a Employee Work Order form that I have created on Microsoft work. Im not sure this form is working for what I have intended it for.

 

Any advice will help.

 

What else should the form include? What outline could I use for my employees to understand it?

 

Thank you

Zulma

 

 

 

That is one of the marketing strategies I used a couple of weeks ago. I made some fliers and went to stores like Walmart and even the local college. Well I got kicked out of the college because I was not authorize to touch peoples cars. So that was a done deal there. At Walmart I did almost half of the parking lot when I would watch people getting to their cars and wouldn't even read the flyer they would just throw it on the ground. That really did it for me. I had spent my money on making copies and let me mention that it was as hot as it could be on that day for them to just throw them in the ground. I decided instead of placing the fliers in their cars I would hand them to them in person. So I did. That seem a little more effective to me.

 

Good luck with your marketing!

Zulma

Thank you all for the good advice and feed back in return.

 

I will definitely make sure that I do my research and take some type of seminar or class to be more educated about the business. I will also be making changes to our policy dealing with parts and warranties.

 

You all have a wonderful day.

 

Zulma

If I could give you any advice it would to be a to take a service advisor training course.

 

I started off my shop 7 years ago and I would say the first 3-4 years were a disaster. I was more concerned with what I thought my customers wanted more so than making sure the business and the owners (ME!) needed out of it. After taking a service advisor training course I understood the business from a business perspective. Proper parts pricing (using a parts matrix or making sure you get a certain amount of gross profit) was something I never realized. Also selling the job and the value of your service opposed to labor hours was pretty crucial. If you are trying to sell your customers "labor hours" they can easily go and price shop anywhere. Sell them on the unique value of doing business at your shop opposed to price and labor hours.

 

Also never EVERRRR offer warranty on parts brought in by a customer! I have recently instituted a hard policy on no outside parts. I used to have a soft policy however bad experiences have led me to really crack down hard on this problem. Most people who bring their own parts are not worth being your customers. You don't bring your own ingredients to a restaurant why should our business be the same. Also you are using parts you stand by so you should be offering a confidence based warranty. If you are charging an appropriate mark up on parts and you know the parts are quality and the job is quality then there should be no reason why you wouldn't offer at least a 24k miles 24 month warranty. This builds confidence with your customers as well as gives you a basis to sell only your parts due to warranty issues.

 

The service advisor course I took was put on by WorldPac but I am sure there are other trade organizations that have classes. Don't get caught up in expensive programs that costs thousands of dollars. They may help I can't cross them out completely however the course I took was a 3 day course that cost me somewhere around $800 if I remember correctly. I have just recently blew the dust off my material I got from the course and am reviewing it again in order to write my operations and employee handbook and i have to say, the BEST money i have ever spent.

 

 

Sorry if my rambling is a little incoherent, I am typing as I am thinking LOL best of luck to you!

 

 

P.S. I was just thinking, your shop is named Exclusive Auto Repair... it is not so exclusive if you allow customers to bring their own parts! I would seriously consider nixing that ASAP!

Thank you so much for all the advice. I will take it all in. I will also make sure I make some changes.

First of all, the best of luck to you.

 

You post addresses a lot of issues, maybe too much to answer within the forums. But, let me try to offer my help. I have been in business for 33 years. One of things that I have learned is that we sometimes focus too much on the price and what everyone else is doing. You need to charge what you are worth, and make a profit. You need to understand the balance between being profitable and competitive. But with that said, if you market your company with a focus on price, that is all the customer sees. For example; People go to Wall Mart for the everyday low prices. That's because Wall Mart markets themselves that way.

 

You don't have to be the cheapest and don't promote price. Find what makes you different and unique and promote that.

 

Part mark up is another issue. We target min of 50% overall, even with dealers parts when we can. But we work on a matrix, getting more for lower cost items and less for higher cost items.

 

We do not give a warranty if the customer brings their own parts. But, this is rare for us, we discourage anyone from bringing their own parts. That is not my customer.

 

I never worry about labor rates, I am usually the highest in my area. But again, I don't promote price, I promote value service, long warranties, money savings maintenance packages, convenience, shuttle rides home, lifetime protection on major components and many other feature benefits. The more perceived value, the less price becomes an issue. Think of McDonalds....now think of a fancy Steak House......two totally different perceptions, right?

 

One last bit of advice. I also learned that being everything to everyone is a sure way to fail. I have found that the narrow the market I target, the more profitable it is. Understand you key profile customer and take care of these. They will bring you the greatest amount of return and send more people like them.

 

Again, best of luck!

Thank you so much for all the advice. It was easy to understand with the examples that you have provided.

I was just reading a thread on here for parts mark up. You might want to go find that thread, very helpful! Good luck with your business.

Thank you for the feed back. I will look for the article.

HOWDY!! WELCOME!

Thank you Mr. Jeff.

Welcome and the best of luck! Looking forward to you participation in the forums.

Thank you. Great website.

Congratulations and welcome. My service manager is a great guy and he is from Cypress, TX.

Thank you. Yes, Cypress is about 30-45 mins from our area.

Hello to you all, husband and wife from Houston, Tx and we are coming close to our 1st year as business owners of an Auto Repair Shop.

Good day to you all!

 

I have been trying to do research in how to financially manage our small business, and came across this site. Been looking around it and reading some real good articles.

 

My husband and I have started our own mechanic shop in Houston Tx. This is our 2nd time giving it a try. Last time we got into it without knowing anything at all about how to run a business. We mutually decided to closed it down and wait till the time was right for us to try again. We both got a job at a repair shop. My husband was working as a mechanic in the shop and I was helping inside the office. We got some experience while working there but not enough.

 

3 years later and here we are again. This time we seen there was an opportunity and we just could not let it go by.

 

On November 22, we will be making one year since we open our small Auto Repair Shop. We are so grateful with all the support that we have been receiving from our community. We have lots of work, and is all by referrals. The only marketing i have done is through Facebook, most of our customers are walk-ins or friends, or family members from people we have done work to their vehicles. We are very happy with the outcome. Our local dealer is even sending us cars for us to work on them and right now their jobs is what is keeping us afloat.

 

Our shop name is Exclusive Auto Care, we have 2 mechanics that work with my husband. Very good guys by the way. I work in the office. I deal with the customers. I get the jobs in, and my husband gets them out. I order parts, deal with estimates and invoices, all that good stuff. I enjoyed what I do and why I do it.

 

Im not so sure that we are doing everything the right way or how we suppose to. Our rate is $80.00/hour. We are the cheapest ones in our area. The rest auto shops charge $90-$100/hour. There is 4 mechanic shops in our same street, regardless of that I dont see them as competitors. We all trying to make a living here, and their reputation is not all that good. We are just happy with any work that we get. We order parts from O'reillys Auto Parts. We get a discount and raise the parts to 0.8% (im not too sure about this percentage) How much do you guys mark up parts? Some times I dont think we make any money on parts. At times the customer rather get their own parts and we are ok with that too. If customer bring parts do you guys offer warranty? How long? We were giving 3 months (90 days) but due to us loosing money we had to make it 30 days only. I am thinking about not offering a warranty for parts that are supply by the customer. Could this be a good decision? Why or why not? I am in desperate need of advice I dont want to see our business fall apart.

 

Thank you so much for taking your time to read my post.

 

Have a good day!

Zulma