Jay Huh

Hey! Welcome to the forums. I am pretty new myself but I have grown considerably since joining and getting help from these seasoned professionals. I just opened my second location and I thought I was nuts as well- been in business for 2 years. In the works of opening a third, suppose to hear back from the landlord tomorrow. Risky but you only live once. Hope all works out! I'd say go for it

Yes! THis is so true! I read that Sam Walton drove a old pick up truck at the time of being name the richest man in the US

Thank you for the detailed response. I will save this for the future when I seriously consider having loaners as part of my business

Call Matt with Campbell Oil Company 9109643012 - free when I order oil from them

I just use Idnetifix and not the Direct hit shop. For SMS I use shopboss.com- best sms out there in my opinion and low cost too

Did you buy the cars to serve as loaner vehicles or were they abandoned vehicles that you picked up? License plate wise, are they registered under business name? THe idea of loaner vehicles would take my business to the next level. I can see a lot of benefits of having them but the cost associated with it would be astronomical

I like your view of the discounts and I agree. I sent out an email blast to every single customer for a steeply discounted oil change to get people into my new location. I got several appointment within a few hours but the ones that came were interested only in the oil change which is a loss for us.

Nice, that's not too far from me. Love the look of your shop btw

You can haggle Identifix down to $139/mo. I think it's $189 otherwise. When your account rep for Oreilly sets you up- it will have an online portion where you login and order parts. It'll tell you if they have part in stock or is in the district. We have Advance Auto, Oreilly and Napa up at all times to look up parts that way. My SMS has an integrated feature that looks up all the parts at once but I just do it this way

O wow. so many lol. How does the loaner car work out? Is it a headache? I'm sure customers try and bring it back without gas. I'd like to offer loaners cars one day but the cost of it is daunting

Nvm, I saw it on your profile. Vovlos! nice! I like the website too. Where did you get the license plate frames made and cost?

Wow! You have quite an operation! Do you have a website? I'd like to check out your business if you don't mind that is

Name a feature on Mitchell and RO Writer and I'll let you know if Shopboss has it or not. Here is what I do with Shopboss- I manage RO's from home, employees clock in and clock out, keep track of technician hours, VIN scan with iPad and uploads automatically, send email quotes, 5 day 60 day 90 day automatic followup email, keeps track of GP, cores, writer stats, etc, it sends text message to customers and they can approve work on their phone, integrated scheduler- my "schedule appointment" on my website is from shopboss and loads directly into shopboss, there is a chat feature where I can chat with any one of my 9 employees at 2 different locations, each employee has their own login, integrated parts ordering, QB integration. I mean it's just too much list out. Im not affiliated with them but I should be with all the referals I've given them lol

I've been using shopboss since 2014. Best decision ever. price has gone up but I dont mind. Seriously go with shopboss and dont look back

i like the new like feature where it shows you liked the post.

He's a Matt lol

That is the reality today. It's an instant gratification world out there with gigabit internet speeds (which I am on right now). The auto industry is starting to take that trend too, I see "Take 5 Oil Change" franchise stores popping up on every corner. 5 Min oil change... really? I think customer pulls in and doesn't even get out of the vehicle. For those who have owned your shop for a while, you guys still have your old customers. For people like me, 90% of my customers are new (only been in business 2 years). On top of that, my shop is in the Raleigh Triangle Park (RTP) where companies like Cisco, IBM and SAS are headquartered. Busy people with busy lives expecting fast service. I try and get people in and out as quick as possible but I learned the hard way that it really hurts me, my techs and my business when I take orders from the customer. The last few months my ARO doubled as I have been more focused on taking time and doing more thorough inspections. All I can do is promise the customer that I'll do my absolute best and give them my best. We won't make every customer happy but I'll sure as hell try. Unfortunate reality is that the customer is king- I didn't realize this before but if you have 1 unhappy customer that leaves.... Let's say average customer comes in twice a year and spends $229 (this months average RO so far). Average customer will refer 2 friends. With having 1 unhappy customer- that's potentially $6,870 loss in 5 years. This is why I focus so hard on customer service. I am really unhappy with my 4.9 star rating on google with 85 reviews because I have 2 1 stars on there. And don't even get me started on my 4.5 rating on Yelp, that is abysmal. I have went to customers houses to try and get those ratings changed and showed them customer service you wouldn't believe. I think we have to find the solution to objections in this day and age. If they don't have time to wait for a water pump- set an appointment and have them drop it off or shuttle them home. I strongly encourage my customers to drop off for any ticket that's 3 hours or above. We get oil changes and scheduled brake jobs in right away. Unfortunately where I live, there's too much competition and every customer counts. Myself and the rest of my team have to be willing to go the extra mile to retain all our customers and wow new ones

After reading your post I thought: "Just let him go!" But I am in the same predicament! It's always easier said then done. I have a "tech" that is not really good. Probably a C tech-GS level. Have had several comebacks- one being loose caliper bracket bolt (actually missing when he came back) and no oil cap after oil change. Hanging onto him because he was diagnosed with lung cancer after his wife and 2 yr old son died in a car crash last year and he was the lone survivor.

Knowing what you know now, how much would you have paid to know all this information when first starting out? I would have gladly shelled out $1000-$2000 and I was broke in the beginning! I would have saved a lot of money too by not making the mistakes I've made

I just remembered, when I first started out and before I had a commercial account, I was getting 20% off..... I bought everything on AAP website with their 20% off code. I stood in line at the store, bought on my phone and they would pull it for me lol. In fact, I even did this after I got a physical location for a while. Commercial manager just ended up giving me ridiculous deals so that he wouldn't lose to the online store. Believe it or not, the store doesn't get credit for online orders, completely separate part of the company

Also I definitely understand being on a shoestring budget.... really really do because I was there about a year and a half ago. I also started out with no capital and mobile. I strongly strongly strongly recommend that you get Identifix if you have more than 3 customers a week. If it's only like 1 customer a week, it'll be hard to get. Identifix has labor times along with factory service manuals. Has all the info you need. Chilton labor time is what they use and generally higher than mitchcell or alldata. The BEST feature of identifix is the common fixes- this will save you A LOT OF TIME. We still diagnose but 90% of the time, it ends up being what people on Identifix has found to be the common problem. PM me if you have any specific questions. Not sure how many people have been mobile on this site but there are distinct situations of being mobile that a shop owner would not understand

I have never heard of Auto Value. I can't even begin to imagine your struggle with not having any parts stores nearby. We have 4-5 stores at both locations that deliver within 15min. When I was mobile, I used to pick up parts on the way to the appointment. Problem with that is sometimes, customer tells you it's brakes but it's something else. Or doing brakes and caliper is seized... It might have to be a 2 trip repair... one day to diag and another day to install. Amazon.com has amazing prices and bc they are so cheap, you can mark them up quite a bit. I personally would love to use amazon for parts but 95% of our repairs are same day. Oreilly delivers so make a commercial account and wherever your hub is (your house) have them deliver there. When I started out with mobile, I put my home address as the shop address. Even after opening a physical location, they keep coming to my house! Apparently it's a pain to change it in the system and they have to remember to take it to my shop address lol

You are correct. We should've done a battery test and sold a battery. Customer wouldn't have been inconvenienced and we wouldve made money instead of giving autozone the business