mspecperformance

M-Spec, I don't know if I really want to calculate the ratio...the time wasters have already wasted enough of my time. I had a lady to come in for the special oil service today, declined any extra work, but said she's bringing her husband's car tomorrow for an alignment. I asked what kind of car...she said a Blazer. I asked if she meant Trailblazer, and she said no...it's a 2000 S-10 Blazer. Guaranteed it's a POS with a worn-out front end. But have plenty of good work lined up for tomorrow and Friday. It's warming up a little here. Was 67 today and had all the shop doors open and we were washing cars. I hope business picks up a lot for all of us! I wish you and your shop well, M-Spec!!!

Thanks carolinahigear! I wish you the same too! Right now we are looking at anothe 6-8 inches of snow. I'm with Joe on this now, this winter is a DRAGGGG!

A good customer will want to come to your shop because you are approachable, have a great reputation, treat them fairly and honesty and overall just like you. The value of your expertise, being able to talk to their technician, shuttle service, market leading warranty and keeping up with their expectation is where you will win. Customers that you have to motivate with freebies and discounts are not the type you typically want unless you are looking for a low ARO and high car count business model.

Joe, we are complaining about our weather and look at John Pearson! Us Northeasterners look like a bunch of sissies comparatively.

** Case Study **

 

This is an actual case study from Feb. 25-27, 2015.

 

Free rotations ** Free rotations ** Free rotations!! This is like exploratory surgery!! You can't see "nuttin" til you get the car on a lift, take the tires off and do some exploring. A lady came in Wednesday afternoon around 4:30 (we close at 6) with a coupon for an oil change service with tire rotation and inspection for $22.95. The vehicle was a 2001 Explorer AWD. She said she also had a "clanging" noise under the car, and to be sure to check the anti-freeze. I asked if she had owned the car for long and she told me "10 years." We drove it in the parking lot and heard a hell of a noise and brought it in the shop. I told her that it was unsafe to drive because it had a drivetrain problem that we would check out the next morning, and that I would provide her a complimentary rental car. She was good with that. After inspection yesterday, we found that the noise was from the front propeller shaft CV joint. During the full inspection, we found that the SUV also needed front brakes, front left hub bearing, rear brakes, brake fluid service, throttle body cleaning w/ fuel service, and a new radiator. I called her and told her of my findings, and told her the price (almost $2,000) and that I could have it ready Friday. She said to make sure there was nothing else that was needed and to please go ahead with the repairs. She got the car yesterday afternoon, and said she was very pleased with the fast service and the rental car, and I please because I gained a new client!

 

This is why I use coupons and why I offer free rotations (Or part of the package rotations.)

This is a wonderful success story. I would like to see though the ratio of coupon customers that you close out on big tickets like this in ratio to the time wasters. In a perfect world all these coupon customers can be converted however thats not the case.

Agreed!

Welcome to the site, I hate to argue with you but I believe it is absolutely bait and switch marketing. It is also the type of marketing that attracts the low price shoppers. I understand there are a lot of stores that have this type of business strategy which certainly can work (obviously box stores, franchises etc) however their success is driven on a high car count and probably not much in the satisfaction department. I guess it really does depend on how you want your business to look. I'd rather not compete on bait and switch tactics and getting a million cars through my door.

 

I'm dealing with EXACTLY the same issue. New guy, great attitude, good at his job. However, extremely slow. He is also on salary (hourly). I'm contemplating doing the same thing ... moving him to flat rate.

I'd certainly have a conversation with him about it. It may be the spark he needs OR it could push him out of the shop fast. Either way, I would suggest to have someone quality check his work until he is up to standard.

put him on flat rate and watch him move his ass lol

Scary!

Same here as ATL, we have SPOA10 from Rotary and those have served our purposes well. I am not sure if I would invest in the shockwave unless I had a high daily car count where seconds matter

The CRM portion is set to ask for any closed RO for a review. The reviews are sorted differently than other CRM programs. They are used exclusively for the website. Unlike DemandForce or Social CRM the reviews are 100% controllable. If you want only 5 star reviews to show on your website then that is what will show up. The downside is that it is not on a separate review site which does not necessarily aid SEO. Where it does help is many customers have complimented our great reviews on our website and have said that was a major contributing factor into walking through our door.

Quickbooks solves a lot of your book keeping needs and if you are savvy you can track a lot of useful data and metrics through it HOWEVER even though a lot of shop management software is generally archaic in design to most everything out there it still is very industry specific. I have experience with 2 shop management softwares in particular. Mitchell and RO Writer. The Reporting that both programs have can be duplicated to a certain degree in quickbooks however it would really take you a lot of hours of thought into creating a system of logging all the correct information you need.

I would agree with alfredauto that a dedicated shop management software is probably your best bet. It makes life a lot easier.

What I have learned is vanity is not what makes money. We all want nice looking websites and to be honest the website they create for you most likely will be a lot nicer than what 95% of the other shops have out there. The key thing though is that the website works in terms of high ranking SEO and boosting your exposure and online reputation. The name of the game is get more customers = make more money. They do that for you.

Sometimes we have to take care of our customers, the good ones that have been there when we were counting pennies and praying we had enough money for the rent the same month. Those same customers that have come back time and time again.

Had an incident somewhat related to this topic. I am in the middle of trying to transition my technicians to flat rate from salary (Joe probably knows lol) and my slower technician in terms of hours weekly and I had a bit of an argument today about certain services. He was taught in tech school that everything he puts his hands on he should get paid for. I agreed with him however the subject of wiper blades is what we were talking about. My policy is we install wiper blades complimentary for our customers. It takes a tech 2 minutes to do so and it builds a lot of good will with our customers. I was explaining to him that we are going to always get paid for work that we do however certain things we do for our great customers (all of our customers are great or else they aren't OUR customers) such as wiper blades, tire fill, safety inspections (visual) will almost always be complimentary. It is part of the value we bring to the table that sets us apart from our competition both independent and dealer.

Another question is do you have enough hours to go around for 2 technicians?

I have heard the Y- lift is pretty good. Assuming it is the rotary alignment lift we are talking about

I have been using kukui for over a year with great success. Feel free to message me with any wuestions you may have.

I'd like to. Once my Gross Sales is over my target number you bet your ass im charging to deal with their BS

Experts will tell you not to prejudge. Certainly sound advice and something I would tell my employees. With my experience however if I its a kid on the other end of the phone or in person asking all these nonesense forum questions I always tell them we are at least 3 weeks booked.

Elon what happened to your video

You'd guys might appreciate this. So I was pretty upset over my situation and if the car was going to going out of the shop I figured it only be right to warn some of the shops nearby that there might be a trouble customer coming their way. The response I got was immense, lots of laughing and thank yous. One guy said he wished more people in our industry would do that. One other shop called today to let me know of a particular customer he had that had been to 4 other shops. He also went as far to suggest we start a closed private forum for local shop owners to report against these customers. to paraphrase he said, "These people have Review sites and Yelp to talk crap about us, we should have something too." I thought it was an interesting proposition but it would have to be a totally private site/message board. A site to review customers. What a novel idea ha!

I got a call from a customer this past Sunday. Conversation follows from the customer.

 

"Hey, I'm at the dealer, and they're saying I need a new computer for my car. Can I get my car towed to yall to look at the fuel injector on cylinder 2?"

 

"We would love to serve you. Can you give us a bit of background on the issue?"

 

"Yeah...uh, my car's been misfiring a lot, and I'm getting a cylinder 2 misfire code. I took at to 2 different shops in the area and now the dealer. They all said I need a new computer, but I think my fuel injector on cylinder 2 just has a lot of carbon on it. I want you to look at it and clean the injectors."

 

"Ok, that is a valid complaint. Injectors can get carbon built up on them sometimes. Have the other shops inspected the injectors for you already?"

 

"No, they refuse to inspect them, that's what's ridiculous!! They say it's the computer, but I know it cannot be the computer causing the misfire. I'm pretty sure the injectors are just covered in carbon."

 

"Ok, well, if 3 shops have all made the same conclusion, it is likely an issue with the signal from the computer not reaching the injector. We can certainly clean the injectors for you, but I'm going to put my bets on this not fixing the issue."

 

"How much is it? I just watched a YouTube video on this, and the injectors are just right under the manifold. It's only a few bolts."

 

"I'm not in front of the computer right now, but why don't you call back Monday, and I can get you a price."

 

Never heard back. Some of these conversations just leave you absolutely bewildered....

You just wasted 5 minutes of your life that you will never get back. Be thankful you didn't book him for an appointment.

Will being seeing the customer tomorrow. Ill let you guys all know what happens

My new policy is if a customer says he just came from another shop I want to know what shop, how long it was there for and what it was there for. Then I will give that shop a call and see if the story checks out.

Dealing with a situation with a RIDICULOUS customer that I come to find out was pushed out by 2 other shops.

I agree. I have OE tools but I also have a Snap on Verus Pro. I like the tool but since we only work on Euros its very limited for us. We use it mainly for scoping and some PID views. I had the old Autel DS708 which was decent for the price. I'm sure the new Autel retain much of the functions. I've heard from a few shop owners that the Euro coverage on the Autel is pretty good. I guess its also expectations are lower because of the price tag. Remember there is no way you can truly say you are a dealer alternative without having the proper tools. A multi scan tool is not going to cut the mustard. You need the OE tools.

There is a vendor on here that sells some OE tools, I would talk to him if you guys really wanted a make specific scanner.