mspecperformance

Awesome Jeff!

FYI. Review sites such as yelp and google track where the reviews are made from. Therefore if all reviews are made from the same IP they will not register.

This is a GREAT question. I'd love to hear some input on this. To start with what I would like to implement into our inspection process an alignment quick check. Of course this can only happen if I have an aligner capable of performing a quick check in a QUICK amount of time lol.

I dont know what I would do in that situation but food for thought... If it was exactly the terms you had agreed on next time print it on your repair order/invoice and have the customer sign it.

Elon, I think a fair answer would be all of the above. Seems like that would be the answer for practically everyone minus those whom already have healthy alignment business.

They are all essentially the same technology. The hunter hawk eye elite looks super fast though.

What is that u don't like about Mitchell manager?

Bumping this up

I have to agree seems like you are being taken advantage. She might think in her mind she is right but let's be honest here... She probably has no idea what her car looks like on a week to week basis let alone day to day. If I were you I would probably explain that you were honest enough to admit to the windshield however you feel like you are being taken advantage of. I know it's a hard situation and I feel like you are probably leaning toward caving in. Best of luck to you.

For my market online reviews are immensely important. Once you have a great online reputation you can see how many people walk in and comment on how great your reviews are and that being a major driving force.

DemandForce is customer retention marketing and not new customer marketing. You can set a lot of your CRM marketing to be "automated" but it still does require a lot to set up properly and you still have to monitor it.

Hi James welcome to the forum. This is a great place with a lot of positive people and knowledge. Some quick questions, is it a general repair shop? Do you have any experience in the automotive field? Are you taking over just the business? Is there property involved? Business currently functioning? Any techs? What kind of shop management is currently being used? Do you have access to a listing of your customers contact information? emails and addresses?

Mike, doesn't bolt on work with RO Writer as well? Used, any particular reason you are moving over to Maxx Traxx? I used to be with RO Writer. That was a fairly decent program however the way they have their system set up is that you buy the software outright whilst other shop management software you pay a subscription fee. I did not stay with RO Writer because there were option I had to upgrade for and it would have cost me an upfront cost of thousands of dollars. I have heard MaxxTraxx is nice because it is fairly affordable however the reason why I didn't look into further was that there was no integration with a digital inspection service. That for me was the deal breaker. Moving forward I knew I wanted to perform digital inspections and use them as a tool for increased profitability. So far I have been using Mitchell and Bolt On. Any SMS is never going to be perfect but so far Mitchell has everything i have needed in a management system and I have no complaints. The revisions tab is especially useful for service writing.

Great post Joe! Just the words I like to read considering my December was less than stellar. Looking forward to an awesome 2015!

Used message me if u need advice on bolt on

Great posts thsnks used and joe! Right now i have a bosch machine which takes forever and has been giving us problems. Any alignments we have to redo kills productivity and profitability. Our rack is also positioned in a bad spot. Anyway keep those answers coming!

I am trying to do some research on the impact of the alignment service is to repairs shops. If you sell a lot of tires, alignments are important. It also drives a lot of front end work. Its also a service you provide to be a complete provider of everything your customers need when it comes to car care. It is also probably the most expensive equipment you will ever have to purchase. If you guys have alignment racks, or send out your alignments please answer the follow questions and hopefully we can build a healthy discussion on this topic! 1. Do you have an alignment machine? What kind of alignment system do you have (please be specific)?Do you sublet your alignments? If you sublet your alignments what is the price you pay and the price you charge? If you perform in house alignments how much do you charge? How many hours do you pay your technician? 2. How efficient and productive are your alignments? How long does it take your technician to perform alignments? Are you doing predominantly 2 wheel or 4 wheel alignments? What are the times for both? Do you have to redo any comeback alignments? If so what are the return rates? 3. What percentage of your car count do you offer alignments to? What percentage do you actually align? What percentage do you also perform suspension work with alignments? What percentage do you perform tire work? 4. What is your sales process for alignments? Do you perform an alignment check with your machine? How long does it take for you check the alignment and give a print out to your customer? Do you find this method effective? What percentage do you close alignments with this method? If you have another method or sales process please explain. 5. If you have an alignment machine and rack, what was your ROI on the equipment? How long did it take you to pay it back? Did you finance? lease? pay outright? 6. How much do you advertise/market your alignment services? What have you found to be effective? 7. Do you do pre alignment inspections to check the steering/suspension? Do you charge for this if the person opts not perform an alignment? 8. Do you perform wholesale alignments for other shops? What price do you charge them? What is your retail price? How many cars do you see for this service? Please be as specific as possible. Unless you a serious micro manager I am guessing you may not have the figures for the alignment percentages. If you have a guesstimate PLEASE note that it is a guess opposed to actual figures you are tracking. I think this will be a great topic of discussion!

I am guessing you are referring to rear wheel drive vehicles?

You should look at your numbers and see how much time you actually spend on the job especially during the verification of repair part. This is very important as a possible area you are leaking billable hours. Of course whenever you increase the cost of a job you have in increase VALUE. the value you should be adding is the additional testing and verification of the repair which should be presented to your customer has a benefit and noted on their invoice.

Last 2.5 weeks have been CRAP for me. All I'll be thinking about is how to make 2015 the best year. Its going to drive me NUTS!

I only have one I built via our digital inspections. Come to think of it I have to revamp it for 2015.

Offering discounts is a business model in which I do not subscribe to. Since I am charging a "premium" price for an alignment my next project is to come up with a benefits list of our alignments. Hopefully if I revamp my approach I will not get the same push back.

Unfortunately this is the America we live in.

Mario, I've been there and I have a lot of very nice customers from my old ways of doing business. I have however since looked at my numbers and I was not making the Gross Profit Margins I wanted. Referrals from these customers are fine and good however from my experience a lot of these referrals can bring on customers just like them. We have since weeded out some of our customers and focused on the great ones. My car count has gone down however my ARO and Gross sales monthly has seen a BIG jump. I have not had to deal with a lot of annoying phone shoppers in the last 6 months but these past 2 weeks have been atrocious.

Alfred, we had been in those situations before so we started not doing alignment we knew were going to come out like crap. It saves us time from actually performing the alignment. Unfortunately these deranged people have other thoughts in mind after I show and tell.