daves auto service

I agree with Joe Marconi and Tyrguy for what causes the slow done. January and February has always been very slow months for us also. I send monthly newsletters to my customers and I will have a coupon insert for oil changes and other services. Any customer who hasn't been in over 6 months, we send them a oversize postcard with a $25 coupon good for any repairs and services. And of course we check and double check for other repairs and services needed when the car is on the lift and send then a picture and video of the problem. What had also helped us at times is we will post something on Facebook stating why service / maintenance is important and we will boost it for $10. We had people call us after seeing the post, ask questions, and we got them to make a appointment. And we currently have a mailer going out in the mail to a new customer list. My thought has always been to try something to get the phone to ring, than it is to wonder why the phone isn't ringing and do nothing about it. The person who received our newsletter or mailer in the mail may not respond, but that newsletter / mailer may sit on the kitchen or dinning room table for a couple weeks, and they may look at it again and think," I do need to get my car in for a service". And it does happen. Why? Because I have done the same thing. But there will be times no matter what you do, the phone just doesn't ring.

I also loose 13mm sockets. I had tried putting different color finger nail polish on them, but no good, they still went missing. 😒

Glad to hear it isn't just my area that is slow. I am a small shop with 2 techs and my wife running the front office. My gross sales have always been around $575,000. But the pass two years has been down hill. My sales for this year to date compared to last year is down $32,000 and compared to 2014 is down $42,000. We have been spending more money on marketing then ever. And from my research I have done, we are the only shop in town sending out newsletters with a coupon insert to our customers, one of two shops sending out reminder's ( not counting dealerships ), weekly posting on social media, and much more. It just seems like nobody wants to spend money on their car for any services, only on what needs to be done. One of the biggest problem's that I think is causing this problem in my area is property and school taxes are out of control. When the average gross pay for most resident's is $575 to $650, then what they are left with after taxes are taken out and about $125 of that has to go towards their property and schools taxes, that doesn't leave them much for everything else. We have had customers tell us that car repairs / services is not as important as paying their electric, heat, food, car and health insurance, baby sitters, and so on. But they think we don't have the same issue's. Because some of our customers made the comment " But you don't have those worries because you own your own business". REALLY! Do they think when we unlock our doors in the morning, there is a box of money waiting for us? LOL

We also text message using Google Voice. What we also do with Google Voice is we send out a group message to the customers who had their cars worked on the day before. We thank them for their trust for allowing us to fix their car and if they have any questions please give us a call or text. Then after that, we send a group text to the customers reminding them about their appointment the following day. When they received the text, they cant tell it was sent as a group text and they think it was a personal text just to them that makes it more personal. We have had less " no shows " and if they cant make their appointment, they reply back asking to be rescheduled.

We have done it both cold and hot. But mostly cold.

What we do in our shop to remove the spark plugs from a 3 valve ford triton engine is we do a fuel / air induction service. Leave it sit overnight. Then the following day, remove the ignition coils, and using a 1/2 drive impact gun, remove the spark plugs. When they start turning, don't leave up on the gun until they are out. This has work every time for us.