gandgautorepair

Good article, Joe. Unfortunately, good phone skills don't come naturally, it takes a little training. One of my pet peeves is long phone answering scripts, which sound way too impersonal and end up getting spoken so fast that the caller doesn't even know what was said, and even if they called the right place. Smile, speak slow, company name and your name, listen, connect.

We are starting to work on a plan to start gradually transferring ownership to my operations manager. It will be a gradual buy in since I have no need to fully retire from the business, I don't work that much now and fully enjoy the process of owning and managing the shop overall. When the ownership transfer gets close to 50%, 10+ yrs or I croak before then, there are banks that will gladly finance the rest of the buyout at reasonable terms. I have a banker in my BNI group that would gladly make that loan. We are well on the way to having all of our processes and procedures written down, one of our goals for this year, and have already finished our employee handbook and our safety manual. Next is getting the buyout down on paper and a valuation formula determined.

I am currently thinking of doing this. My best go getter guy is late 40's and wearing down physically. My service advisers are busy, and work flow, parts tracking and productivity are hard to manage consistently. I want to grow and add another tech, but how to do it. Thinking of taking my guy and have him be shop foreman/lead tech but still expect 20-30 hours production from him. Would let me add another lower priced tech and help the SA's with all of those misc exception situations that get in the way of both the SA's and tech's productivity. Wonder what other people have had success with something like this.

We have our warranty displayed on a large framed poster on the wall, and we have a delivery brochure that we put every final invoice into and give to the customer when they pick up the car. The brochure is hard copy, folded one time, has our branding on the outside, and inside explains our store warranty and our nationwide Certified Auto Care warranty. BTW, we give a Lifetime warranty on both parts and labor, excluding drivetrain, maintenance, and commercial vehicles.

Also, because we do Lifetime, we have a Lifetime Warranty logo that fits our branding that we use in every marketing piece we do and is displayed in the waiting room.

So sorry to hear this happened to you. Thanks for talking about it, it is a good reminder for the rest of us. I have a very key employee that I trust. This is a good reminder to have certain communications with him to help avoid the possibility of a good person going bad, or just taking too much advantage of a good situation. Thankfully, my current setup he doesn't write checks or pay bills, and someone else does all the Quickbooks entries. Still, something important to be mindful of.

You can market to attract those brands, but I'd work on everything. I also found out from experience starting a new shop that when you position yourself as a specialty that becomes your image in more minds than you would ever think, and ends up limiting you later when you really do want to work on everything. Build with as much capacity as you can, you'll want to have it later. I would hope that longer term you don't want to be the main guy, and that means you will need more capacity. Your own business should be more than just a glorified job, at least you should be working for it to be more of a business than a job long term.

I put the word out to the tool truck drivers and parts reps and anyone who matters that I pay my techs the highest rate in town. I have no way to exactly verify that, but I do pay a high rate. The labor rate you charge is mostly in your own head, not your customers. There are ways to charge more, but that is another discussion. In my opinion, you have to pay a high pay rate to be successful long term, both to attract and retain good employees. Then charge accordingly to hit the numbers you need.

Lot's of questions here. Have you talked to a person at the dealership who looked at the car? How far did the girl drive after seeing the temp was hot (might be hard to determine)? What is the car worth? What exactly on those cars could have caused this to happen? Are you part of network like Certified Auto Care or Technet? Gathering as much info as possible is the first step. 

We had one a few years ago where we had flushed the cooling system and done a couple things to resolve an overheating problem. We couldn't duplicate the symptom. A week later the girl drove over the mountains (I5 up the Grapevine, if anyone knows where that is) and it got hot and she hurt the motor. She admitted to her mother that she just kept driving and didn't stop until she got to the top and an off ramp. We didn't fix the car. It was 15 yr old car, they didn't want to spend more money on it, and we didn't think we owned the whole motor because she kept driving it.

Last year we did some work on a customers Dodge 1500. A few weeks later a heater hose blew off while he was towing up a mountain. He admitted he didn't stop right away. We didn't work on the heater hose, tech swears he had no reason to remove the heater hose to do the job. We put a motor in the truck. Customer is a good customer, and has a large circle of influence, and we just didn't want to argue about it. We just smiled and replaced the motor.

My point is that each decision is individual based on the facts, and what your brain and gut tell you is the right thing to do. 

I understand the benefit of tracking efficiency. I'm just having a hard time figuring out how to accurately and consistently get the numbers. I'm talking about having the tech clock in and out on each job so you know how much time is actually spent working. For you who are doing this, how do you do it? Time clock to punch in and out? There is a time clock per RO function on the Bolt On tablet, but it seems like it could be very inaccurate so we haven't started using it yet. Is it just a matter of me forcing the issue and making it happen? The problem with that is that I don't work in the store, so I need serious buy in from my people or it will be inconsistent. I learned in 25 years of dealership management that inconsistent numbers cannot be used for managing. I would like to have the numbers, have had many conversations about it, but am not sold yet in implementing it.

Also, I have a C tech lube guy who does our oil changes and alignments. My goal for him is 20 hrs week billed, and this month is the first time he's actually hit that average. He also cleans up around the shop some and helps the other techs some. When I add his time and numbers in it skews the overall numbers. I've been counting half of his time as available to try to get a comparably accurate number. How do you count a lube techs hours into the average? We do a lot of oil changes, but not nearly enough to keep him busy all day doing them, and he gets .4.

Google Adwords is probably our single most important advertising. We've also worked on our website and had a consistent Facebook presence to produce good organic search results. We also have increased our Yelp advertising, and as much as we're not favorable towards Yelp I have to admit that it works for us. 

Google and Yelp have worked hard to insert themselves into the market as important sources of info for people searching for a good place to do business. We have to face reality and go with the flow, in my opinion. It works for us. I did no direct mail since last year, minimal Facebook last month, but $2500 with Google and Yelp and we had 108 first time customers in April. Obviously, word of mouth and referrals play in to that, but digital marketing in this day and age is important if we want to stand out.

In today's world we have reviews in multiple places. People search reviews on all sorts of products and services. It's a different world now. Before internet reviews were so readily available then AAA and BBB were more important. Today I think nobody cares, since good info about a business is so easy to get. I've refused to pay a subscription to BBB and AAA just so I could get recommended. Don't need it.

We still do a tire rotation for 10 bucks with an oil change. Easier to do a good inspection, especially the brakes. No rust issues for us, if there was maybe it would be a different situation. Also, if the customer says they get tire rotation for free, then we just say we'll do it for free as well and go ahead and do the rotation.

Just got back from a 3.5 week trip, here for 4 days then gone again for another 10. Yep, if the goal of business ownership isn't to have the free time that we need to do the things we like to do then we definitely have the wrong perspective. Granted, we have to pay our dues, and it doesn't happen overnight. Thankfully, I've paid my dues.   

I managed car dealerships for 30 years before opening my repair shop, and dealt with the habits of all ethnicities. The Indians were the hardest. With them it was mostly about building trust, which was very difficult. Interestingly, they would deal with an Indian salesperson very differently from a non-Indian. One thing is for sure, a good deal is totally a perception, not a reality. It does not matter what the real deal, or price comes out to, it's all about how the customer perceives it. Just like dealing with what our prices and labor rates are, the concept of fairness across the board is mostly in our heads, not our customers. We had an internal saying in the dealership sales departments that "customers who pay the most are the happiest" and that statement is 100% true. The guy who gets the lowest actual price thinks he left something on the table and the person who gets what they want at what they can afford (regardless of how "good" a deal it is) is the happiest. 

In you're situation, sounds like you have a handle on it. For the sake of your people it would most likely save time and build the trust of your repeat Indian customers if you had a consistent pricing model for those customers. Call it family plan, or preferred customer, or special customer, or something to justify a discount that you show on the RO. Then do the round off down a few bucks if they still say anything. At least you know that once you get the pricing worked out, you have very good and loyal customers who make lots of referrals.

We had this happen last year. Said we broke their cruise control and we had noted on the RO that there was a symptom related to the cruise control when we did our inspection. Customer argued, but left with a smile on their face, and then plastered negative reviews on every possible site. Oh well. I answered them all with the facts, which is all you can do. People see through that stuff. People also see that all of our great reviews aren't fake.

Do what you say you'll do and let it go. If you haven't started on the repairs, then maybe stop now and don't do it. The purpose of the bad reviews is to manipulate you do drop your price when the customer picks up the car in exchange for revising or removing the reviews. You choose if you want to live with the reviews or pay the guy to remove them.

I'd refund to the customer the amount of the master cylinder replacement, and re-explain that the pads, rotors and calipers obviously needed to be replaced. If he's already filed in small claims court and won't drop the action after the refund, then it's a judgement call on your part if you'd rather refund the rest of the repair or go to small claims court and take your chances. I'd probably base the decision on the customers attitude after offering the refund and explanation. If you have pics of the metal to metal rotors, and reasonable evidence of sticky calipers, I wouldn't be afraid of the small claims court...but do you want to take the time to mess with it or just be done with the situation and move on. Hopefully, you compared the soft pedal to a like vehicle to make sure you actually had a problem or was it just customer perception. Did the vehicle lock up the brakes on a hard stop even though the pedal felt soft?

11 hours ago, [email protected] said:

Was this on a ford truck?

My first thought...

On 2/25/2018 at 12:46 PM, bstewart said:

Smaller shops are always more efficient. I've read in numerous places that the most efficient shop setup is 2 techs, 1 advisor, 1 shop owner, followed closely by 3 techs, 1-2 advisors, 1 owner.

Owning 2 small shops with 3-5 employees each will be more efficient than owning 1 large shop with the same number of people combined (6-10 employees).

EDIT: Shoot for 20% net profit based on sales. That should always be your goal to meet and beat. The best shops make up to 35% net profit as a percentage of sales. Most shops make under 10%, and many make 0-3%.

I imagine that could be a great setup for a working owner. I don't work in my shop, so I've grown it to 4 techs and 2 advisers, with an admin/CSR person and a porter. I felt this gave me a safety margin that I wouldn't have to go back to work if someone didn't show up or I lost an employee. My question came up in the context of setting goals and planning for the future. What are my goals? What size do I want to grow to? What does that mean for staffing and facility? We did 1.3 last year and it already looks like we'll hit 1.55-1.6 this year. Do I want to settle in with my current staffing and enjoy what we get or keep it growing and find room for more people? As a non-working owner, and looking at what other shops are doing, I consider a goal of 15% net as a good goal. Nothing wrong with 20% and I know that is an industry standard, but not that many are hitting it. We did over 20% for Jan and Feb, and will try to keep that going.

Not sure what you're already doing, but the basics are a good inspection on every car or truck and consistently looking up the factory maintenance schedules every time...then do the work that you find. We have signs around the customer area all about the benefits and savings of proper maintenance, so we stress maintenance over repair. Then we present that we inspect the car every time so they are safe and the car is reliable. We'd rather find a problem while they're car is in the shop then them finding it out on the road. I have signs with sayings like these so customers read them and the advisers have consistent word tracts. You could look up a variety of factory maintenance schedules to get ideas of services you would need at add.

A good question that I've thought about but haven't done anything about. In CA we can't charge shop supplies. I don't think it would work to add a specific separate charge, which would be hard to explain. About the only way I see to do it is to add a little more test labor that the tech doesn't get flagged for.

I've been approached by one of the local card processing vendors about a similar program. They had all sorts of misleading calculations, what I called pencil whipping, to show a good benefit to the business owner. In the end, it's a fancy, misleading way to charge more credit card fees and make the customer pay for it. I told them, and friends who were seriously considering it, just raise your prices 1.6-2% and keep paying your current fees and you're better off. They insisted I was wrong and their crazy calculations were right. They claimed they had a CPA look at it and liked the program. I told them tell me which CPA it was so I would never use that guy.

I'm not against gradually moving credit card charges to the customer, but going from 1.6 to 3% to do it is a scam.

Make them feel special and keep them happy. The few dollars you'll make on employee markup is totally insignificant to your bottom line. How the employee feels about you is WAY more valuable.

We have stayed away from radio because in our market it's too broad a reach, we market to an area closer to the shop. However, we have started a small budget with a popular radio show on a Christian radio station where both of the DJ's are our customers, and we are getting a good response. In you're smaller market area, I would think it could be effective and worth doing. 

On 2/5/2018 at 3:56 PM, alfredauto said:

Focus on efficiency. Do 1.3 with 4 employees, then do it with 2 employees.  8 employees should produce 4m+

Well, that's a lofty goal. There is such a thing as stress and burn out, and I would be concerned with employee turnover. With a small staff turn over can kill you. I don't work in my shop, so I need happy, well trained people who will stay a long time. Turn over means I might have to go back to work. I finally feel safe with 2 full time service advisors, and an admin person who was a CSR and can back up service write if needed, and a porter who has also been crossed trained to be able to write a ticket and handle some parts processes. My goal is for me to be safe not working there, and that means the right combination of people, and enough business to support that level.

I don't know if there is an answer to my question. I respect the experience of the people on this forum so I thought I'd throw it out there and see what can be learned. I'm dealing with goals about where I want this business to go, what to grow or not to grow too.

I've been in BNI for 5 years now, and it is very much worth it. Like someone else already said, I think most of the people will refer to you when they're talking to someone who is having a problem or mentions something about needing service. I doubt they would bring it up just to bring it up and make a referral. While I do get referrals from the group, my biggest return is from the people in my group, some of them have fleets. Not sure how you spend 5-6 hrs a week. Well, if you're new to the group and are doing lots of one to ones that would take up some time. I really enjoy our group, good friends and great learning about other industries. BTW, if I had to pick one of your questions it would be the first one.