In the 17 years since Bill Hill and his significant other, Leigh Anne Best, have owned Ohio-based Mighty Auto Pro, the couple has “seen it all” in terms of shop management systems and add-on software programs.

“There are so many programs,” said Leigh Anne. “One program will do this and another will do that.”

But, the couple had not found a software solution for everything at their 17-bay repair shop until recently: BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY’s™ suite of automotive software solutions.

“Nothing has really been as all-encompassing as this,” she said. “They’ve got some great stuff going on.”

Deemed by the business owners as a one-stop software shop for the automotive repair industry, Leigh Anne said Bill favors the VIN scanning functionality and digital multi-point inspections made possible with Mobile Manager Pro.

“We have always done a 51-point safety inspection. Prior to this we hand wrote them,” she said, adding that digital inspections and VIN decoding saves 10 to 15 minutes per vehicle on average. “We toyed around with putting them on the computer for some time.”

Now, instead of trying to figure out how to digitize repair orders and inspection reports, Mighty Auto Pro-which Ratchet and Wrench magazine named a 2013 All-Star-use tablets to carry out these functions using Bolt On’s popular signature software solution.

In terms of expanding the shop’s 450-car-per-month bottom line, Leigh Anne said the application’s ability to take and text photos of customer vehicles has helped up repair orders by 30 percent. Prior to Mobile Manager Pro, she said the shop took its own photos. As part of a week-long test, she said some techs were tasked with taking photos of vehicle conditions to share with customers, while the rest were told not to take photos.

“They were up about 30 percent, the people with pictures versus without,” she said. “Resoundingly the results were so much better with sales.”

Besides boosting sales and saving time, Bill said he likes the fact that technicians are able to zero in on their customers.

“Bill likes that the only thing they’re seeing is their vehicles, not the entire shop’s vehicles,” Leigh Anne said. “Instead of looking at the entire work in progress screen it’s individualized.”

For Leigh Anne, text message customer reminders via Message Manager Pro, as well as the easy compilation of marketing data using the report-generating software wizard that is Report Pro “has been a huge thing.”

For more information on BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY’s suite of automotive software solutions visit www.boltontechnology.com or call 610-400-1019.