Tim A.

Thank you guys for the response, we are ones of those shop that made a commitment to close on Saturdays about 11 years ago and worked out fine since most of us had families and we all loved it. Also Saturdays was not managed correctly and made it very difficult on Mondays. But now I am seeing we need to change to get things started in a different direction. I am not sure that only opening by appt. only would work for us, I think we have to be open or just stay closed. My idea on re-opening on Saturdays is not so much to make money that day but to bring in more work for the normal work week along with making it easier for customers to have their car serviced here instead of trying to manipulate their schedule or going somewhere else for oil changes or other services. Next step is going over it with the staff and see what happens. Thanks again, Tim

Well, I think it is time for us to re-open our doors on Saturdays due to much regress. It has been a topic for some time now but recently I was at a confernece that was talking about 2011 projections and it does not seem like the economy is going to get better this year. And after a couple flatline years, it is time to restructure a little. We have been able to acclompish this in the past with our loaner car fleet but that does not seem to be enough this day and age. I did a poll of local shops and dealer in our area and we are one of the only ones closed on Saturdays. A couple dealers are open M-F from 7am to 9pm and on Sat from 8am to 5pm. So I looking for a couple ideas on how other shops are using their crew to be open. I have heard rotating days with the techs where each tech works a Saturday and then has a rotating day off during the week. Another option was to have techs work 4 days, 10 hours a day and also rotate with no vacations because something every every 6 weeks they wouldl get 5 days off in a row. I would to work this out with the same guys we have, make it worthwhile since we all have been spoiled by having off on Saturdays, including me which I am one of the advisors and I coach my kids soccer teams on Saturdays but sacrifices have to be made to strive further. We have 5 techs, 1- lube tech, 1- car wash/porter, 2 advisors, 1 office manager/book keeper and 2 part-time office/shop clean up helpers. I would think to start off we would need to have 1-advisor, 1 master tech, 1 lube tech, 1 car washer and 1- office/suport to get things rolling. I know I am going to have a hard time selling this to the guys in the shop and going to create an up roar but I think we need to try something to get out of this funk. I am looking for ideas on how other shops run their techs hours, systems and also ideas if someone also just opened on Saturdays when they were closed. Any ideas or information would be great. Thank you, Tim

Service advisor training is very important and that person must also adapt to your guidelines. Some of these advisors come from places where in order to make any money, they need to sell everything no matter what the costs. I completely agree with you on not using scare tactics, lowering prices or badgering is not tolerated and if you have one of those advisors, hopefully you can retrain them. If not, cut them. Customers do not buy for 2 reasons, either the money or lack of trust and it is our job to fix the 2nd one. Hopefully there is more to it then just an inspection report for reasons to give customers why there are other items that are needed for each later visits. It has to our experience and knowledge as professionals to let them know on their first visit that they have other maintenance items coming up in so it eases the suprise at that time. There are so many different opinions with services, that we can go on with this forever but as long as the customer is taken care of properly needs to be the final result. We have even our own technicians that believe when certain services are needed and should be done as much as we try to uniform them, it is still the SA to read and understand what is needed per shop guidelines and operations. Tim

Gravy, Your post is great and brings up a things that go on in our industry but I think most industies have some type of shaddy thing go on but there are still the honest ones that survive. I have no problem letting a first time customer know that their vehicle needs services that are $800-1000 or $2000 of course in priority, but that is where you are developing a relationship with them. By that I mean, asking questions, and I mean a lot of questions. By asking them you are gaining trust and show that you care about the vehicles past and customers intentions with the vehicle. If I talk with a customer and he tells me he is only going to keep the vehicle 6 months to a year, I let them know what is needed now and if they plan on keeping the vehicle longer, here is what else is needed. The last thing I want is a customer who spends $200-300 every visit getting upset at me because they are spending this each time and us not letting them know what is expected. I have heard this too many times in the past, "why didn't you tell me or see this last time", and do like to want to here that again since we are the experts and pretty much know what vehicle are do for. Now dont get me wrong, I do not "hard" sell services, our position as professionals is to let them know what is needed and in order of importance, nothing else. Honesty and integrity is what is needed but you do not have to be shy about giving customers information. Isn't that the reason they are at your place? If it is there first time with you, thats is what there are looking for. drPhil, Not sure how you sell starters, alternators and fuel pumps every 30K but I belive that way out hand and is over selling. Do you replace your home light bulbs, funace and stove ignitors, dishwashers on a regular basis before they fail? Because they will all fail one time or another. I am totally into preventative maintenance but that seems a little out there. Of course we know which vehicles are subsepticle to certain failures but should we go in for a heart pacemaker for preventative future heart failure? Anyway, this is an intersting post and would like to hear others on this subject. Tim

Gobbles and Joe, I am looking into service intelligence now, dowloaded the demo but waiting for tech support to help me since I am getting error codes. I think we looked into this many years ago when it was just E-auto club but I believe then it would not integrate into Mitchell. So I will look at it and hopefully works the way I would need it to. Thanks for the reply and help, Tim

Newer member and enjoying the articles in this site, they have been informative and entertaining. Anyway, I am trying to implement a way to streamline customer's service history so us advisors can easliy look up if or when a particular service has been done. We are using manager plus right now and the only way we can see services history is by looking at each individual visit. Other than using a paper file (which I will not with all the technology out there), I want to have some type of file where I can look up a customer and on that screen, see when the last time a timing belt, trans flush, etc, etc, was done. I do know there are other management software programs that will do it but trying to acclomplish this without changing programs. I have been searching for some time and hoping that someone on here has something that I can use. Thank you and looking forward to being a part of this site. Tim A.

Over the past 1 1/2 to 2 years we have had a pretty large failure rate with aftermarket cats using 2 different companies. We have now mostly gone with O.E. for most applications or if the customer is really strapped we will offer them and aftermarket unit at their gamble. If the unit fails within our warranty, I will install a O.E. one for the difference in price of the converter and they are responsible for the labor again. ( I will return the aftermarket cat to my supplier to get credit for it) Most times the customers go with OE and have had no issues but now at least it gives them an option. If they are just trying to get thru an emission test and do not plan on keeping the car long (which we all have heard that), they a a less expensive option. That is our 2 cents, Tim