cmautocare

How do shops handle the use of cellular phones by their technicians during work hours?

On 5/22/2016 at 1:10 PM, alfredauto said:

We have a free Yelp listing. I personally hate that anyone can leave a negative review even someone who flunked inspection and got their sticker scraped from coming in expired.

Unfortunately, all the review sites (Yelp, Google, Yahoo, Sure Critic, etc) allow clients to leave negative reviews.  AND, the kicker, is it doesn't even have to be a real client or a real situation...if you have competition that wants to write negative reviews, there is REALLY NOTHING that can be done to delete them.  There are processes, but rarely do they work.

We also have been approached many times by Yelp to "purchase" their advertising packages.  We have elected not to pay for their services because of the tremendous amount of responses (reviews and questions) that we get by being a free business associate.  

We used to have a negative attitude toward Yelp, that that was in the beginning.  We have a lot of clients who have found us using Yelp, as well as fair amount of positive reviews that continue to "work" for us.

35 minutes ago, AndersonAuto said:

I outlined all of this in another thread. 
 

Mind IF I ask what brand, because getting Dexos Full Synthetic in Texas is over $4.00/quart.  A WIX oil filter of $3.00.  

Again, I don't see basement bargin oil changes being super effective, except for taking care of current clients.  Conversion rates for the people chasing cheap oil changes is extremely low, regardless of how well you treat them.  

Sound like you are doing something right or different!  Keep up good work.

20 hours ago, AndersonAuto said:

Yes, I am offering a full synthetic Dexos approved oil change for $29.95. The margins aren't much, but it's not zero. Just north of $5.00 if my lube dude does it. Pretty much zip if one of my master techs does it. But margin on the oil change isn't the point of the oil change. The inspection is. And no, we don't just load the RO up with wallet flushes. My advisors won't put up with that. We do a full and proper inspection on the vehicle, that we can demonstrate the need for any item at any time, and we present the findings to the customer. Since my advisors are great at their job, they sell a large portion of the work.

I spent the weekend at the lake, and on Saturday my guys closed $17,751 at $555 a repair order. We're closing in on another record month, and should end up at about $220K. Then I'll net 20% of that. And I've promoted myself up to shuttle driver. Life is good.

 

What are you paying for the oil?  Oil filter? Sounds like you are doing well but........

On 6/16/2017 at 5:58 PM, AndersonAuto said:

I do cheap oil changes, although since switching to only using full synthetic it went up to $29.95. No desperation here. It's part of my business model, and working fantastic.

Now that you mention it, a permanent sign is certainly cheaper than my mailers. I'll have to think about doing that.

And how are you offering $29.95 FULL (or 100%) synthetic oil changes for only $29.95.  What is your margin or are you not worried about margin and just worried about getting the cars in and upsetting of this price?  Offering $9.95 / $19.95 or $29.95 oil changes are nothing but a way to attract those chasing the cheapest oil changes, then if and when "specials" are over, they will move on to the next discounted service.  We have found that all the mailers, GROUPONS and other mass ways to attract clients will not attract great clients.  Do they build build car count yes, but is it the car count and the clients you want?  How many of those GROUPON clients remain your clients?  Or do they move on to the next cheap thing?

We don't offer these discounted services, we offer quality services with integrity and a smile while not pressuring clients to purchase their repairs.  There are multiple shops around our area doing the discounted services, but our bays remain full and our schedule is full for the next 2 weeks with appointments.  

As mentioned early but another subscriber: Cheap work isn't good , good work isn't cheap!!  

Very frustrated. Why should we have to call for support and have the information either faxed or emailed? Switched to Mitchell manager and ProDemand as a new shop owner, but the frustration level of both is very high.

Our technicians can not find the information for service and repair as easily as AllData offers. It takes myself 3x's the amount of time to find information, which is killing production time. And when a technician is frustrated to obtain information, it doesn't make for a happy shop!

There is NOT enough space to write MY frustrations with Mitchell manager.

Beginning to think I have made a fairly expensive mistake.