mspecperformance

There is a fine line between what we want and what will drive a customer away. Customers are already very tenative and have high anxiety when it comes to car repairs. The last thing I want to do is present them with an obstacle in using something they paid thousands of dollars for (aftermarket warranty). I just have to find a way to ease my pain whilst not putting myself out of the competition for a customer's dollars.

 

I feel that adding an administrative cost on their RO will drive a wedge in between the relationship since customers don't understand that it takes a ridiculously long time to get this process done compared to the 2 seconds it takes a customer to say yes for us to begin work.

These F'ing things are the bane of my existence. They keep you on the phone forever, you have to wait for inspectors, they always want to short change you on repair costs and also deny claims. My biggest problem is the time. What kind of policies do you have against this. If it takes 45 minutes to clear an estimate over the phone thats 45 minutes of wasted time. Not including the time it takes for these guys to come out and inspect and then the follow up call.

Hit the road special that is an interesting concept!

That's just plain ignorant lol

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Ditto. Dont know what your problem is Gene. We are all here to learn and grow. Find better methods of doing business. You are obviously not here for the right reasons.

If you are even entertaining the notion you are negative you should have gotten a job working at the DMV

He didn't ask me to do any diagnostics. Just The battery. So I gave him what he wanted. Iam in the service business I am not his mother.

"I believe as auto care professionals it is our duty to look out for our customers" I think you live in a fantasy world.

I gave up on that idea decades ego.

I have three other shops next to me. If I dont make the customer happy , the other shops will be more than happy to do it.

Gene

 

We all thought you were trolling but i guess you are a real person lol

 

If you dont subscribe to our "fantasy world" thats perfectly fine Gene but i dont think all the successful shop owners i know are wrong in their business philosophy. I think its time for you to wake up and smell the... Ill let you finish that line

There is a method of thinking that says saying YES to every customer and offering extended hours is a road to success. Gary Gunn and his company the Turn Around Tour promote this heavily. Also Greg Sands of Mudlick Mail talks about this here:

 

http://www.ratchetandwrench.com/RatchetWrench/January-2015/The-Road-to-a-Better-2015/

 

 

I don't neccessarily subscribe to this way however it may work for you. I wish I had more advice for you. I don't know what it looks like in your market. If you are on a budget then certainly grassroots method of marketing is probably best. Set a quota for the amount of cards you want to hand out in your community a week and make sure you do it. Stuff like that. Also stay on top of and mine your Customer Database. This is probably the cheapest and most effective way to boost your sales in the immediate if you are not already doing so.

2 concerns are can you effectively sell it to your customers and #2 techs hate using a lathe, can you effectively get your techs to use the lathe.

Before you start flaming him for no recommendations you should randonly audit his cars. Especially ones that head s no recs for. It could be a situation where he doesnt know what to look for or what the shop standards are. If you randomly audit youll get a better picture. Actually even before then id run him though several cars to train him on what to look for and what your shop considers severe enough for a rec.

Profit is what matters most.

 

Very true however car count and ARO are vital metrics to follow. To gain your desired net profit % you need to know all the numbers, ratios, percentages that need to be met to make your target net profit goal.

The RO Writer scheduler is pretty good, the one of the Pro version. Wish mitchell would upgrade theirs

Sometimes you just need another person to ease the tension.

Shums, nice shop view on ratchet and wrench!

NOTE: As a primer I do want to say that I am currently an Elite coaching client and I am very happy with their services. I will try to be as objective as possible with this review and no I am not getting any incentives to write this LOL

 

 

For those whom don't know Elite is a auto shop management coaching company that has various services including one on one coaching, 20 groups which they call Pro Service, and they also run classes year round with their Fly with the Eagle II course as their most comprehensive. They are an ethics based company with the motto that they will never put money ahead of people. Great words to live by.

 

Anyway I attended this course a few weeks ago held in San Diego. You don't have to be an Elite member to attend this class however it was packaged together with my coaching program. I had been looking forward to this for 2 months. Partially because I'm from NYC and it would be a great little getaway from the cold. Who doesn't want to visit San Diego right?

 

Day 1 was all about financials. Our very own Joe Marconi was the facilitator for this event. It was the second time being in a class with Joe and he's a really great guy. I hope all of you forum folks get to meet him someday. For anyone who has not had any formal business training on how to read financial statements and also the key metrics that a shop owner needs to know and be aware of this would be a great day. I had previously taken RLO's Guerrilla Shop Management course so I was very familiar with the material that was being taught however what was presented in the class was very comprehensive and all the right stuff. Topics such as cost control, break even projections, setting target percentages within your budget, reading P&L statements, and controlling part and labor costs are discussed. As was said during the class, numbers are the foundation and building blocks of any business so you need to know them and how to effectively use them.

 

 

Day 2 was all about finding and hiring the superstars. This is where I think the Elite course starts to make its bones. For me to get into how valuable this day is I would have to sit and talk to each one of you for hours. This is where I believe the course starts to change the way you think about your business entirely. Our businesses are not really about auto repair. It is not about selling parts. It is about people. Your external customers and internal customers (employees). One of the biggest problems we all have is staffing. Hiring the right people and also finding the best possible people when that star tech decides to leave. This day is all about techniques, strategies and changing your philosophy on how to look for talent, how to hire and what you need to look for in every applicant. Biggest take aways for this day is to be CONSTANTLY recruiting. Keep a portfolio of possible techs and service advisors. Keep in contact with them. Build your business culturally where people will WANT to work for you. Make the hiring process long. Feel out your potential hire over many meetings and interviews. There is so much to be said about this day I wouldn't know where to start.

 

 

Day 3 is about managing your current staff and turn them into superstars. This is pretty much a continuation or really the second part to Day 2. That being said this is also a super valuable day. Between Day 2 and 3 they really make you change the way you think about the culture of your shop and how you want your business to be perceived. The heart of managing people is right here. As the leader of your business anything that goes wrong within it you only have one person to blame. Yourself. Joe said which is a very good point, all you have to do is take out a mirror and you'll see who to blame. Biggest takeaway from this day is to properly establish metrics of productivity and efficiency to gauge your employees. This is the baseline you need to conduct regular employee reviews and to monitor how well they are doing. Regular meetings and reviews become a necessity and this day teaches you how to effectively run and schedule them as well as how it will change the culture of your shop. How to empower your employees and give them the right tools to succeed. A lot more can be said about this day and there is a lot more valuable information here as well.

 

 

Day 4 is marketing. The constant struggle from all of us is finding our target customers and getting enough of them through the door. There were 2 guest speakers on this day, both are also elite coaches. Both employ a marketing technique called brand awareness. Brian Bowersock is the first and he is a local in San Diego. What made the most impression on me was that in over 20 years Brian has been in business he has never sent out a loss leader marketing piece. Never one oil change special, never a discount piece, nothing. Brian established himself and his shop as the leader of his market in San Diego. He did this by becoming the auto guy on the local news network and running his own radio show on saturday mornings. He also paid for ads on the back of buses and such. Always keeping his shop in front of potential customers and always attracting the right customers.

The second speaker was Servando Orozsco. This guy's story is incredible, I suggest everyone to look him up. Servando also uses brand awareness marketing for his 3 shops albeit in a different way. Servando is all about fundraising and community involvement. He is so well known in his community for all he good will he does that driving customers to his shops is just a by product. If anyone was ever thinking about reaching out into the community to promote their business on a grassroots level this would be THE guy to model after.

This day was packed full of valuable info. Both guys have articles on ratchet and wrench or shopownermag written about them. I suggest you check them out.

 

 

Day 5 was tips on implementation. All 4 days were filled with great info but implementation is really the white elephant in the room. I know I personally struggle with the day to day operations so much so that I forget what is really important. The importance of what you as a shop owner needs to focus on cannot be minimized. Above all else a shop owner's responsibility is to ensure the success of the company. That means as the leader of the business you have to establish systems and processes, take time to work on your management skills through training, work on marketing, and making sure your team has every possible tool they need to succeed. Some time was spent speaking about time management which I know I lack. Budgeting a certain amount of time during the week to work on the real important things.

 

 

For me it was a great opportunity to network with other shop owners. Talk shop and business and relate to people who have the same every day struggles. Also the opportunity to meet the coaches was also really great. Seeing how passionate they are about helping the members in the room really was great to see. These are all guys whom have had great success running their own shops and made tons of money. They didn't need to be there and the money they make from their coaching clients is really peanuts. Point being is I came to a clear conclusion that these guys were not doing it for the money. They were helping people because it made them feel good to help others that have been in the same place they have been.

 

It is was really positive experience for myself. I think it is worth every bit of the time and money investment. I will also say this... it has also been a rather frustrating experience the week I was back into my shop. All the problems and the holes became mega expanded in my eyes because now i was so much more aware of the problems I was facing.

 

If anyone has any questions feel free to post or send me a message.

We definitely believe in "Upselling!!!" BUT, you've gotta have a car on the lift to sell 'em anything. We get 'em on the lift with ads for low-priced oil change service WITH tire rotation and WITH Complimentary free safety inspection. If a car has never been in before, we advise the client (we don't use the term "customer") what the car needs, price it, and sell it. Our attitude is that they will DO IT NOW, DO IT LATER, or NOT DO IT. We give them a choice, and ask them if they want us to go ahead and take care of it. And WAIT for the answer. There are so many cars that need a lot of work. We just gotta get 'em in to get 'em done!!

 

P.S. We always give them a print-out of the estimate for any work suggested but not performed. We have had these estimates brought in up to 2 years later wanting to get it done.

 

In my opinion it depends on what kind of biz you run. For me i am looking for as close to my target customer for everyone we accept as an appointment. I need quality over quantity. High ARO lower car count. Most of my work orders and even individual jobs are not something the customer can wait for. Cheap oil changes dont do it for me. If your shop is more general repair with a lot of bays/techs/writers than it certainly makes more sense to get in tons of cars to give yourself and opportunity to upsell. Just my 2c

Are you able to get most of your Euro parts through them?

 

 

Yes we do a lot of business with them. I would say they have about 85-90% of the parts WorldPac has and SOMETIMES even stuff WP doesn't have. Message me and I'll send u my rep's # and stuff.

xrac, I have northside local to me however if you want to open an account with them I can put you through with my rep. I know they do a lot of mail order accounts. SSF I have never dealt with but I know they are very popular on the west coast.

If you don't mind a company shipping parts to you check out Northside Imports, SSF, Brinson Co.

Nice job Ken. I really like their company and they do a great job for me. Hope you have similar results.

I should change the title of the thread to Big FU to the Customer LOL

I just checked on repairpal and punched in all info for my location and the average is $199-$262 which puts my price right outside the "average" which isn't too bad. I guess the customer either punched in the wrong info or a lying sack of crap. Not too uncommon in these parts

It was rear brake pads on a 2001 740iL. I charged the 1 hour Mitchell allots for the job and list on the brake pads and sensor. I came in at $271 or so after taxes and fees. I believe the customer had looked up $254 for all around brake pads. Without looking at his phone I explained to him the difference in a blind "national" average and our service. We use the highest quality parts, best technicians, backed by industry leading warranty etc. The responses I got were, "but online its this much why are you so high" and "I don't need warranty." Yeah definitely not a customer that I wanted. Certainly didn't see the value is coming to a shop with high standards let alone a German Car specialist. I guess I took offense to it more or less because I don't get price shopped so blatantly very often. Most of the people even they don't use know the value of a higher quality shop and a specialist. Yes they are brakes I get it, its been beaten into us brakes are something yourself and pick up the parts at autozone. I'm still not going stand being compared to the guy down the block that hardly know what hes doing and ships his cars over to me most of the time because he doesn't have the capabilities to work on them.

 

Besides that "national average" takes into account many markets that cost of living is a lot lower. I'm in New York City which is a very expensive place to live. Therefore products and services tend to be more expensive than almost anywhere else.

M-spec, like ncauto said, I've found Repair Pals pricing to be pretty accurate for real world pricing. Did you actual see prices on Repair Pals site? Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending all of the issues that Repair Pals site raises, but I've always found my prices are within the ranges that Repair Pals site give.

 

To be honest I didnt. The customer wanted to show me the prices on his phone but at that point since he didnt really want to listen to any reason i didnt feel the need to feed into justifying his point of view. I very politely apologized that we couldnt help him but would be more than happy to do anything we could for him in the future. Killed with kindness to stave off a potential bad review.

 

This has been my fear from the start. How can a website take the place of what we do when we engage customers. And what in the world is "national average?" This sends the wrong message to the consumer. A business that promotes price only will die by price.

 

What separates one business from an other is more than price. Just look at Starbucks or Nordstroms or Ruth Chris Steak House. I will bet a year's salary their customers do not choose them for any "national average"

 

I am sorry to hear, we have enough issues to overcome.

 

Question: Will RepairPal and others like them paint us all with same brush and make us compete on a level that unsustainable?

 

 

I tried explaining to the customer that we are a different service. We have higher standards, better warranty, superior parts, best techs etc. The guy literally shook his head. I really hope programs like RepairPal don't catch on.

they create websites for you. you can check out mine. It is in some need of updating which I have plans for but its a decent template.

 

www.mspecperformance.com

 

you can also check out Jack's website www.integrityonwaters.com which is far better looking than mine. both created by kukui.