5 Star Auto Spa

Hey Joe, How are you currently tracking technician productivity? Do you just divide book time hours by clocked in hours? When it is slow and you technicians are doing other tasks not fixing a car/auto repair related (cleaning the shop, etc.), do you add this time to productivity hours?

I wanted to start an incentive plan for my technicians to try and light a little fire behind them to WANT to try and get the jobs done quickly (my shop currently pays hourly - no flat rate). Does anyone have a good incentive plan that they have used or are using currently at their shop? Any assistance or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Joe it sounds like you have really built up a loyal group of customers that truly trust you....that's great! We have only been in business now going on 3 years and sometimes it feels like its a real uphill battle convincing customers that we are just as and even sometimes more trustworthy and skilled to service their vehicles. For your FREE safety inspection, what were you planning on including in this......the 24 point oil change inspection?

Does anyone know what a good labor percentage of gross sales should be for an auto repair facility? We currently pay hourly for all of our techs as well as our CSA's and would like to get an idea of what an optimal labor percentage should be for our auto repair profit center. We are a 5 bay garage with 3 full time techs, 1 GS/helper and 2 CSA's. We are averaging around 17 cars a day. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

Hey Joe, Do you happen to know what some of the payment methods that hourly shops do in these types of situations? I understand in a flate rate shop that the mechanic is just given the job again and the shop may not give the mechanic hours for the come back but in an hourly shop, what do they do (clock the mechanic out so he does not receive hourly pay during the repair)?

I just had a quick question I wanted to ask some other shop owners. Just a little background but we are a mechanic shop that pays hourly and not flat rate. If your mechanic diagnoses a vehicle for problem X and after the customer approves and the repair is completed, problem X is not fixed but additional parts and labor are needed to fix the problem, how do you all proceed? Does the wrongly diagnosed parts or labor or both get taken out of the mechanics pay? Also, if a mechanic breaks something on the vehicle while doing the repair, does the mechanic pay for it or the shop owner? I wanted to get a better understanding of how other shops are handeling these 2 situations.

Hello All, I am a shop owner that does not come from an automotive service/mechanic background. Its quite a long story on how I got into this business so I'll go into that in another thread. We currently have 4 mechanics at my shop. We have one ASE Master Mechanic, one State Inspector, and 2 B Level Mechanics. We pay our techs hourly and not flat rate. The dilemma I'm having is what responsibilities do you all put on your Lead Tech? Like any other shop, we have our busy times and we have our slow times. Obviously during the busy times the lead tech is busy servicing vehicles. Its the slow times that I'm looking for in terms of responsibilities you all put on your Lead Tech. I expect my Lead Tech to train jr. techs, create processes other jr. techs should follow, clean/maintenance of shop, think of coupons/marketing to generate additional customers, etc. Is this asking the Lead Tech for too much? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! PS.....this site is really great!