AndersonAuto

Great to hear. Sounds like you're getting things rolling. Google reviews are a lot easier than we make them out to be in our heads. Kind of reminds me of a Jr high dance. There's always a girl you wanted to talk to, but were afraid of being rejected. The truth is that she wanted to talk to you too. Your customers are no different. We feel funny asking someone to say nice things about us, but our customers are already thinking nice things, they just need a little help knowing where to write them down. The more you ask, the easier it gets. Be sure you know exactly how to leave a google review, on both Android and Apple phones. Most people will need a little instruction. You don't necessarily need to keep "unprofitable" jobs out, just price them differently. I look at it this way: I can say no to a job, and not get the job. Or, I can price the job so it's profitable, and either not get the job (same outcome as saying no) or get the job at a profitable price. Granted, there are jobs that are just a "no win" but I think most loser jobs simply need to be priced correctly to turn them into money makers.

This thread started (actually I think may have been peeled off another thread) with you talking about closing your doors. We all go through ups and downs, and we've all been there, done that. It seems to me there are some really basic things you can do to steer things in the right direction. Here's what I would do. First and foremost, get your waiting room and write up area in order. You don't have to spend a lot of money on this, but clean and organized goes a long way toward customer confidence and their willingness to be back and tell their friends. SOAP, PAINT, LIGHT. You can buy an inexpensive service counter online, or you can make one from lumber, drywall, and a bit of countertop from home depot. Pick up some waiting room chairs on the cheap through craigslist or Govdeals.com and you're in business. If your shop isn't the cleanest shop in town, make it that way. Get rid of any "good" junk. It's just junk and technicians are notorious for hanging on to it as if the next car rolling in your door needs a "good" used steering gear with 200K on it. If you have that sort of junk laying around the shop, inside or out, get rid of it all. Get your web site redone. Focus on getting mom and dad to work, and minimize the performance work. You said 90% of your work is "regular" cars, make your web site reflect that. Take pictures of your happy customers standing next to their nice car, and get permission to put it on your web site. Get google reviews. The easiest way is to ask them to review you from their phone while they're standing at your counter. People would much rather do this on the spot than do it later after they get home. It's amazing how easy this is, and how much good it will do for your business. Become the biggest "yes man" you've ever met. Any time a customer needs something, you need to find a way to say yes. Say yes, then find a way to make it happen. Customers call you because they want to be in your shop NOW, not 2 weeks from now. But once you say yes, it's on you to make it happen. Figure out a way. It's been a long time since I've had a 2 bay shop, but these things have always served me well no matter what size the shop.

I spend about $400 a month with them. There's a flat fee, then a "points" scheme for the text messages. I do a lot of volume, so I spend a fair amount, your mileage may vary. I should also mention that they'll hound you for a while about using their full program. I only do the text messages and follow up emails with them. They do postcards and letters and gift cards as well. I have that handled through other services, so I stick with just their texts and emails. While their text system works fantastic, I've noticed a huge uptick in out google review generation from their follow up emails. We've added about 50 new positive reviews in the last 3 months with them. I couldn't be happier about that aspect.

I use it and it's wildly successful. But.... Much of what they do is text message based, and no one ignores a text message. This is obviously a good thing, but people also don't like their text messages ignored. A lot of the text responses we get don't need an answer because it's a "how the car doing?" type message that gets a "Doing great, Thanks!" type of response. However, some of the messages will need to be responded to, which means that you have to read them all, and you have to do it in a timely manner. For me, that means reading through 5-600 text messages a month. It's a lot to keep up with. It's a fantastic system, but be ready.

I figured you were going to say most of your work is daily drivers. I almost addressed it in my last post. I wonder then, why doesn't your web site reflect what you do? Your web site is dedicated at least 50% to the DIY performance crowd, not getting mom and dad to work. Why aren't you soliciting google reviews from those daily driver customers? Reviews are important, but when I read your reviews, it looked to me like they were from your performance customers. If 90% is daily drivers, then let your marketing and web presence reflect that. You're currently trying to draw in your least profitable customers, I suspect because you like doing performance work. I used to like it too, but I had to learn the hard way that it's a lot more fun to pay the bills and have money in the bank. Also, what does the inside of your shop look like? If it's clean and tidy with a decent customer waiting area, show it off. If it's not, make it that way. SOAP, PAINT, LIGHT.

Since this thread has been revived, I might as well chime in. 😉 Looking at your web site, reviews, competition, and demographics, it seems to me that you might want to change the focus of your operation. It looks like the focus is on performance, and catering to the DIY hot rod crowd. This can be profitable in the right market, but you're in a smaller town and I doubt you're going to see enough car count with enough GP to make life good. Your web page clearly markets to the DIY performance crowd. 3 of 4 panels on your home page market to them. 3 of the top 4 panels on your services page markets to them. Your entire customer gallery markets to them. Your google reviews also indicate that your DIY performance customers love your work when they need someone other than themselves or their buddies to work on it. Not what I'd call a recipe for steady car count and great profit. In my experience, the DIY performance crowd shops for parts on the internet constantly, and expect that you'll sell them the parts for very near the same price that they can get them online. They also do most of their own work, and as a result will undervalue your work. Even when they know the job is over their head, the simple fact that many of them believe an hour of your time is roughly equivalent to an hour of their time in the driveway is a real problem. I would try to shift the focus to daily drivers. People need to get to work every day, and if you can make sure they get there, they'll pay you enough to make it worth your while.

There are several ways to go. I think the RAP reflash technology is a bit young and they're having trouble with it. I got the DrewTech RAP box a while ago, and it's pretty limited on what it can do. They also bricked a PCM on a ford van. They stood behind it and bought a new PCM, but it put my customer out for a couple days waiting for the new PCM and for DrewTech to send us the Rotunda tool to program it. I'm confident they'll fix this issue, but it's not fixed yet. You can get a Snap On j-box for reasonable money, and a cheap laptop will run it. I think my laptop still has a "Made for Windows XP" sticker on it. The real problem is that you need to figure out how many flashes you do, and what the vehicle mix is. I've found that even though we see 400+ vehicles a month, we only do about 5-6 flashes a month. Spread that among lots of makes, and 6 technicians, and none of the techs will get any good at doing any of them, resulting in spending way too much time on them. Plus it seems that the software always needs to be updated, wasting another half hour before the flash can start. In short, it's a PITA. But, much like having an alignment rack, it's more convenience for the shop than taking (or towing) the car to another shop to get it done. BTW, yes, we charge full boat for it no matter what else we do.

Like Joe said, more info would be needed to make a full diagnosis, but there are a few things we can glean from your post. First, your labor rate on your master tech is low. If he's producing most of your hours, you need to base your labor rate on his pay. You should be targeting 70% GP on labor, so divide his pay rate by .3. Also, I would be looking at what your Effective Labor Rate is with your current sales mix. Divide your labor sales into the labor hours flagged. Divide your ELR into your door rate to determine what percentage you're off. If your ELR is 85% of your door rate, then when you adjust your door rate to reflect your desired labor GP, increase it by 15% more to compensate for your ELR. This will compensate for the low labor rate on flushes etc. You might find this a little strong for your taste, but get something, a few bucks goes a long way. Friends and family are a real problem. In my shop the only friends are my friends. And I mean friends. People I actually do things with on the weekend. I've found over the years that there are a lot of people who want to call themselves your friend when it's time to get their car fixed. Those are acquaintances, not friends. Your employees friends are not your friends. There's no reason for your employee's friends to get a discount from you. Family is family. Family includes your parents, and anyone who lives in your house. Cousins don't count. Sister in laws don't count. If they aren't your parents or they don't live in your house, they are extended family, and they get no discount. Been down that road way too many times. Hope this helps.

July has opened weak for me as well. But... When I compare to last year, which was a good July, we're ahead and not by a little. Like 45% ahead. You'd think I would remember last year starting out so weak. I need to go back and look at my daily sales from last year to find out when we came on strong.

There are those instances, but I've found they're pretty rare. I also get a 3-100 warranty with the reman that I don't get with a local rebuild. And I've had an almost zero warranty rate with the reman vs a much higher rate with local builders. In those few cases where the reman is sky high, I check with the dealer. In those cases the dealer is usually at or below the reman price. Then I can mark it up, and sell the value of a genuine part to the customer. I get the job more often than not. If I don't get the job because the local builder is cheaper, then so be it, but we don't lose many. People understand the value of the better warranty. Simply explaining that the transmission gets a test run on a dyno where they can monitor the shift patterns and quality goes a long way too. It makes people uncomfortable to know that at the local builder shop, their car is the test bed to see if the transmission is going to leave them walking.

I'm not. I used to belong to a Gary Gunn group 15 years ago. He was teaching a course based on the E-Myth book. It was good stuff, but I wasn't in a place in my business at the time that it was a good fit for me. It was very much a touchy-feely sort of methodology, and at the time I was in need of nuts and bolts. Still am I guess, because otherwise I would feel the need to go back and reference the materials from the course.

I didn't see any change in the customer base when I switched. I still get the same great customers I got with conventional oil. I'm not aware of any existing customers who have asked for the new customer discount although I'm sure someone has asked at some point. That said, my mailer also has a tiered discount on it that's got an equally good discount as the new customer discount on my web page. You probably also noticed that the oil change coupon on the web site is 34.95 instead of 29.95. We did that so we could easily see if they were a web site only new customer, or if they got the mailer. The web site and mailer used to be the same price, but then they all got lumped together in my shop management system. I thought it would help tracking a little, but I actually don't look at the web site coupon stats very much. They get used, but I have other methods of tracking my web site effectiveness.

Mostly correct. Meaning that I could retrieve it at any time I feel the need, but it's more work than "nothing". It's not just one piece of data. She would have to separate new from existing customers on our mailer tracking and calculate ARO for each category. The tracking sheet also doesn't have her record customer information outside of new or existing, so she would have to do that. Then she would need to compare that list to the new customer list generated through the back end of our web site, and of the customers that overlap, somehow assign them to either having come through the web site or the mailer. Or maybe they came from some other source + had the coupon in hand. I think that people rarely choose an auto repair shop based on a single piece of marketing. It's entirely possible (probable?) that someone got my mailer, asked their neighbor if they've used us and got a positive referral, looked up our google reviews, clicked the adwords link to our web site, set an appointment on the web site, and finally came in with coupon in hand. When asked how they heard of us, they could have given a number of answers, all of which are correct. How would you assign the percentage of influence each source had on their decision to come in? One big morale buster that I've learned over the years is to have your employees do work or gather data, then do nothing with it. Everyone hates busy work. Getting this level of detail would take her several hours a month, maybe more. I don't know since I've never had her do this, but it's not a couple minutes job. It's an ongoing job that would have to be kept up with every couple of days. I'm not going to waste her time with something I'm not going to use immediately. Your hearing is excellent! 😃

The tracking spreadsheet does tell me how many new customers are coming in from the mailer, it just doesn't separate the ARO on new vs existing. I can also tell you that 49 of my new customers came to me through the web site either by calling the tracking number or filling out an appointment request. I can't tell you how many of those 49 also had a mailer in hand. I can assure you there is overlap, but I don't know exactly how much. I do have a pretty good handle on where my customers come from. Not great, but good. I could do a better job with it, but I see it as another ROI problem. If I tie up my admin gal doing the work that I might need if things take a downturn, my ROI is zero if I don't do anything with that data. However, I think it's important that I know that I can put those numbers together quickly should I feel the need.

You're correct, I don't separate new/existing customers in my coupon tracking. June tracking is not complete yet, so I can't give you the specifics on what the mailer coupon did. However I can pull new customer data easily and tell you that the ARO for a new customer last month was $494. Overall ARO was $457. Total RO count was 489, with 114 of those being new customers. What I can't tell you is how many of those came in with mailer coupon in hand, new or existing. While it would be nice to have the tracking spreadsheet separate the new from existing, I guess I don't care all that much. I have plenty of new customers coming in, so I know my new customer acquisition efforts are working, and I have a good ARO. There are certainly some fine tuning that could be done by digging deeper into the data, but I currently have bigger fish to fry.

Nope, unless someone insists on it, which has never happened.

I fat fingered the control-enter keys. Repeatedly. This caused my comment to repeat post 4 times. Then I tried to fix it, and thought I lost it all. Re-wrote the whole thing, then found that it saved (or a mod saved) the post as I originally wrote it. It's ongoing for the last 5 years. The only thing that's changed is when we went to full synthetic at the first of the year, and the price went up 10 bucks. We do sell the synthetic oil change for 47.50 if the customer doesn't have a coupon. It's rare, but it happens.

What Wheeling said, and why on earth would you not buy a reman transmission and bolt it in yourself? Seems like a great way to give away some good labor revenue along with a few hundred in part markup.

I track overall conversion rates through the web site, but it doesn't break down phone call vs appointment request form. I'm willing to bet that someone who fills out the appointment request is more likely to show up, because they're committing to an appointment up front. But I certainly wouldn't want to omit my phone number from the web site, because the people who are calling are already unwilling to commit without more information, hence the phone call. Without the phone call option, I would guess a very low percentage of those people would come in.

Yup. We're down to fluids, filters, nuts, bolts, and wheel weights. And I have to keep on top of my filters to make sure I don't have 30 oil filters that fit one year of one model car. I just sent back the last of my brake pads and rotors. Wish I had never stocked them.

It would probably be a big let down. It's a nice shop and all, but I've seen a lot of really nice shops. There's nothing amazing or complicated about it. It's mostly a combination of getting great people, designing a pay plan that encourages them to do what you want them to do, and a 100% commitment to the marketing. There are other aspects of course, but that's the core of it. My friend Tommy in Texas just creams me on gross sales, and his net profit is crazy. I finally got to see his shop about a year ago. It was underwhelming to say the least. But it showed me without a doubt that if Tommy can get it done in his shop, I should be able to do it blind folded with one hand tied behind my back in mine. So far I'm not, but I'm catching up.

Well, hell. You'd think I could figure out a message board by now. I guess not.

Euro cars and anything diesel are not included with the oil change coupon. The house brand oil we use for the coupon oil changes doesn't fit euro cars. We also don't have a set euro oil change price because they all seem to be so different. We will discount a euro car's oil change by the same dollar amount that the coupon would take off the standard oil change price. In your case I would charge whatever the oil change would cost, less the coupon discount, then try to upsell the rest of the required services for $115. No, we never do. To me, it feels like bait and switch. The customer has a coupon for a full synthetic oil change, but now you're telling them they should buy something better? The question that would come to mind is "what kind of crap were you going to put in my car if I don't buy better oil?" The increased revenue would be minor, and the customer would rightfully distrust you. How's that brake job sale going to go after that? Oil change specials are something that takes time to develop. I think most shops try them once or twice, and don't do it again. They also don't do proper tracking. I can tell you that my mailers, which have an oil change coupon and a tiered discount, give me an ROI of 680%. That's $$ spent to Gross Revenue after discount, not net profit, just to be clear. My minimum ROI for any marketing to make it worth while is 300%. But it takes time to get there. You can't just do it once and decide it didn't work. We track every coupon or discount, every month, without fail. The key to it is knowing what you're actually getting out of it, instead of listening to your service advisor bitching about coupon LOF customers who don't spend a dime. One of my advisors who has been with me for almost 10 years used to complain non-stop about the coupon oil changes. He's on a 100% commission pay plan as are all my advisors and wanted to not include the coupon oil changes in his pay plan. He was absolutely sure they were killing his ARO and GP%. I just pulled out the tracking and offered to remove all the repair orders with mailer coupons for him. All $35,000 worth. He declined. Quality service advisors working on a properly structured 100% commission pay plan. A good advisor is very smart and can think on his or her feet, but also has a great personality that people like right away. The rest you can teach. The pay plan is very important because it keeps the advisor laser focused on what you want them to produce. In my case, GP Dollars, ARO, GP%, Parts GP%. It's also tiered to reward them for better gross sales. Your advisors need to do just that, advise. They don't need to be pushy, and certainly not lie to a customer. The average car we see is 120K and 10 years old. There's more than enough work needing to be done without trying to push them into something they don't need. It's also commitment. You have to be committed to the marketing plan. It's stupid expensive and it hurts to get started. When I kicked off my mailer program I was doing about 75K a month in gross sales. Over the next 12 months I spent almost 100K in marketing, mostly coupon mailers. You have to be committed to it, and give it time to develop. The key though is the inspection. The entire purpose of the oil change is to inspect the car. Unless you're jiffy lube with minimum wage guys and buying oil for half what I pay, the oil change is a loser no matter what. Your techs hate doing them, your advisors hate selling them, and the shop makes little to no money even at full price. But... if you do a proper inspection and properly present it to the customer, and make it easy for your customer to buy, you'll come out ahead. I've been told I don't know how many times that I need to remove current customers from my oil change marketing list. You've already got them as a customer, why continue to discount them? You wouldn't want to train them to just look for the coupon would you? I can't imagine a bigger mistake. I absolutely want to train my customers to look for the coupon oil change. It's the only service that every customer knows they need, and they have a sticker or a light to tell them when.There is no worn tie rod light. On most cars, there is no worn brake pads light. The only way my customer knows that these things are an issue is if someone tells them. The shop that tells them there's a problem is the shop that gets the work 90% of the time. And you can't tell them there's a problem until the car is in your shop. There's absolutely no getting around this fact. So, get the car in the shop. Simple, right? Convenience. Make it easy for the customer to do business with you. We're open early, and open late. 7a-7p six days a week. Full crew on Saturday too. No half day half crew garbage. If I have a Saturday waiter oil change that needs brakes and ball joints, I can give them a ride home, and have their car done by the end of the day. Techs make money, advisors make money, shop makes money, customer isn't out of a car on a work day. Everyone is happy.

First, the oil change coupon doesn't include European cars. Most of them take a Euro specific oil and my house brand doesn't work. We will give a discount off the Euro oil change, which I don't have a set price for as they all seem to be a bit different. If someone comes in with a Euro car and my mailer, I do discount their oil change by the same dollars off that the coupon would save them on a non-euro car. To the heart of the question, assuming that it's a domestic/asian car, we would do the oil change for the coupon price, but try to upsell the remains of the 15K (or whatever miles) service. In your example, we would do the oil change for the coupon, and try to sell the remains of the service for $115. We don't. To me, it feels like bait and switch. I think it would put off more customers than revenue it gained. If they have a coupon for an oil change, they have every right to believe that they'll get a quality oil change at that price. If they come to your shop and you try to upsell to a better oil and filter, you just told them that if they don't buy the better stuff, you'll be putting crap oil and crap filter on their car. That customer might buy the upgrade, but odds are they won't buy anything else, and they won't be back. You've got to have the very best advisors that money can buy at your front counter. This is not to say they have to be pushy salesmen, but they have to be smart and people have to genuinely like them. Thinking on their feet is a must. I also give my guys 100% authority to do whatever they think is right for the customer. If I wish they had done something different, we'll talk about it so they can improve next time. The LOF is not a Lube Oil & Filter. It's a Labor Opportunity for the Future. The point of the oil change is not the oil change. It's all about the inspection and proper presentation to the customer. Every single oil change is extremely valuable, but the only way you'll know how valuable is to track every single oil change coupon you get back. You have to know exactly what your ROI is on that mailer. I think a lot of shops don't track this stuff, and think the oil change coupons are a loser. If done correctly, they're definitely not a loser. I think a big part of it is the commitment to the marketing. Cheap oil change marketing takes time to develop, and it's expensive. You're going to see a lot of oil change only repair orders in the beginning. Stick with it. Eventually you'll train your customers to look for your coupon when they need an oil change. A lot of shop owners see this as a bad thing. I see it as essential. In order to service a car it MUST be in your shop. There's literally no two ways around this. I've trained my customers to come see me when they need an oil change, and they all know we do everything. When we present the findings of the inspection, they've already been in my shop a couple of times, and trust us to do the work. Besides, it's convenient. Speaking of convenience, we do everything we can to make it easy to do business with us. Open early, and open late. 7a to 7p 6 days a week with a full crew. Need ball joints and a brake job to go with your Saturday oil change? No problem. We can have it out before close. Need a ride home while we take care of that? No problem.

I typed out a lengthy response, and fat fingered it. Bad things happen when you hit CTRL-ENTER repeatedly. I can't find a way to delete the posts. Mods, do your thing.