Joe Marconi

Frustrated because your employees don’t have that “Sense of Urgency”? Many of our employee frustrations are sometimes the result of not communicating with them in times of crisis. We somehow expect our employees to magically know what needs to be done and we get frustrated by their lack of sense of urgency. For example, it’s Friday morning and you’re concerned that the cars that were promised by the weekend, may not get done. You see your techs walking out to the tool truck minutes after they had a coffee break and your blood pressure begins to creep into the unsafe zone. When a crisis is at hand, gather your people together and let them know the situation. Ask them for suggestions on how to get the work done. You may be surprised by their reaction when you include them in on the circumstances. Doing this will also help you cope and maintain morale.

You make a very valid piont. Too much blame for low productivity is due to smoking. I am not a smoker but I have techs that smoke and they are great producers. I may not agree with the habit, but it's their choice, not mine. Again, great point.

Please keep us informed. I like you idea of in-house training and setting guidelines. We do the same thing.

Understanding What the Customer Buys How we position ourselves in our market will determine how successful we are. Too often we offer services and products that we “hope” customers will buy. First we need to understand that the customer never buys a product, a customer buys the satisfaction of a want. And price is always a secondary consideration. In order to become successful in business, we need to understand what are customer perceive as being important to them. What is of value to them is what they want to buy. One mistake many businesses make is trying to guess what’s important to their customers. That can only be answered by your customers. If you don’t know what's important and most valuable to your customers, find out by asking them. If you do know, ask your customers if you are delivering.

Just curious, for my repair shop all alignments are menu priced with a range from front wheel, 4 wheel alignment and up to SUV, truck and performance alignment. But, for the few times I deal with an insurance company, I always us book time, which is more than my menu pricing. Doing a wheel alignment correctly for some vehicles should require charging book time. I don't just; "set the toe and go". Many tire shops and discounters use alignments as a lost leader. For what the equipment cost these days, we need to rethink our price structure. Thoughts? Body guys and repair shops...

I am not and don't know of many shops that are. I like the idea of conusmer education, I don't know how effective MAP as been as far as making a difference for us. What are your thoughts? DO think MAP has value that we need to explore?

Amazing how nuts some people are, right?

What a powerful story, I will never look at a Kia the same way anymore. Gonzo, your best work! You are amazing!

Honor Our Soldiers This Memorial Day Let us reflect upon and honor our brave soldiers who fought for this country and those that gave their life to preserve our freedom for this great nation. Let us also not forget our brave soldiers that fight each and everyday around the globe. USA, Still the Greatest Country in the World!

I need to tell everyone; I know I am one of the few shops around this country that services TPMS, but I have no problems selling the kits with each tire sale that has TPMS sensors. And we sell a lot of tires. My service people explain the system to the customer and warns them that due to the fragile design of the sensor, sometimes the sensor core is siezed or the sensor can be damaged during the mounting process. I don't agree with shops that stab the tire with a knife to let the air out because the core is seized or they don't want to touch the sensor. That's me, our process works. We SELLl tons of kits and SELL (NOT GIVE AWAY) lots of sensor.

Yes! Right on target....great job!

Gonzo, you can bet your paycheck that he got someone to solder that wire. Trust me, he did. I guess what disturbs me the most is his lack of respect for what we do. Who do these people think we are: A group of dummies that could not make it any other profession and had to settle for the simple life in Car Repair??? Let’s turn this around a bit with this scenario: I hurt my shoulder playing racquet ball. I go on the internet and research my injury and pain. I determine that I have a torn rotator cuff. I do more online research and find a relatively new procedure for repairing the tear in my shoulder. I download the paper work, bring it my doctor and say, “Here it is Doc, I did all the research, here’s my problem and here’s the solution. So Doc, let’s schedule that surgery based on these procedure.” Does this ever happen? I hope not! We see this too every day, and I am like you Gonzo; I’m the Car Doctor, I do the diagnosis, I recommend the repair. YOU the customer can say YES or NO. The End! (Boy Gonzo, you got my blood pressure up….Again)

Promote A/C Service Now! In many parts of the country spring has kicked in and the weather is warming up nicely. Start today to market you’re A/C service. You have a golden opportunity every time a vehicle is brought in for service. Ask each customer, in for service, if they have used their air conditioner yet and if they feel it’s working ok. Remind them that it’s better to spot problems now before that first hot day arrives. Create an “Air Conditioner Service Special” that’s priced just right and recommend it. Customers will be very thankful that you found an A/C problem before they found out while on the road.

Having my father and many family members who served in WWII, this is an honor. Great video! Every American needs to watch this!

I have been using Mitchell Manager for a very long time. My rep wants me to upgrade to the new Mitchell SE version. Has anyone have any information or feedback on this upgrade? I hear a lot of conflicting views. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

I'm finding the same thing. And, you are right about advertising. We need to spend the money for continued growth, but the balancing act of not enough work vs being overbooked is tough at times. It's as if people today are conditioned to get everything they want now. Years back, people were more understanding.

In order to expand our company and add another facility, I pushed the envelope a few years back to increase traffic and car counts by offering while-you-wait service. For a period of time we also advertised, “No appointment needed.” The trick was to retain quality and still offer speed of service. We found we could not do both. Our car counts did go up. In fact they went thru the roof, but we felt we were not giving each car the care that we wanted to give. We soon stopped advertising, “no appointment needed.” We still offer while you wait for certain services, but we book the appointment and allotted time. We only take walk-ins if we are absolutely sure that it will not negatively impact workflow. Our new plan is working, to a point. We still get a lot of people coming in asking for service with no appointment. The issue is there are a few tire stores in our area that take everything in, no appointment needed. There are also a few new car dealers that have quick lanes (all makes-all models). It’s a tough competitive world out there today. WAY BACK in the ancient times (you know, the 1980’s) we would actually laugh at someone who walked in without an appointment. But things have changed. How are other shops handling this situation? I know we have members with shops from 1 bay to 30plus, so any feedback would be appreciated.

Always here to help in any way I can. Conversation is key to learning.

Great tip and it's nice to see a parts company like CARQUEST hosting such an event. In our area (New York, Conn and Long Island) CARQUEST hosted three shop owner/tech conferences. They had guest speakers, tools and equipment on display, food, raffles and lot's more. We need partners in our industry, aligning ourselves with companies that understand the relationshiop of part supplier to independent repair shops.

I have a Robinair and a Snap On...buy a Robinair

The car makers are removing more and more services from the owner’s manual and are extending the required oil change interval. For some fluids, there is no recommended service recommendation. This is ridiculous on the part of the car maker. Car manufacturers are in the “CAR SALES” business, not the car service business. They also want to paint a picture that their car model needs very little maintenance. Well if that were the true then why don’t they warranty the car for life? If they never require replacing the transmission fluid, or brake fluid or whatever fluid, then why don’t the car manufacturers warranty the component, (that the fluid is protecting), for life? We all know the real reason… We had Mercedes (AWD) in the other day with a harsh moaning noise from the rear on sharp turns. The car had 150k on the clock. We recommended a driveline service, which solved the problem. THE BATTLE was to convince the car owner...he kept on saying, " Service the fluids?, it's not in the book". Finally I said to him, if you are referring to the owners manual, it does not state to replace brakes, wipers, tires or put gas in the tank either!