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We use Autovitals and are very happy with it. I documented our startup in a thread on this forum. Biggest problem - they are a West Coast company and it took them a while to understand that somebody needed to be on the other end of the phone when we call at 8 AM Eastern if something isn't working. The program creates great digital vehicle inspections that are easy to sell from.

I would advise that you immediately sign on with a capable coaching organization and use them to augment your skills and experience. Don't try and go it alone. Everybody needs a coach. It will pay for itself.

We get a signature at drop-off on a boilerplate release form, but not on the estimate. Hasn't been a problem for us, but I can see that it could happen. One problem is that the scope of the job often changes and you are calling the customer to authorize additional work. Gonna get a signature every time?

We tell them to come back if the system fails. I don't want/need to look at it if it's working OK. As a side note, our techs are required to soap test the ports after servicing. It's amazing how often you create a leak just by putting your hoses on the ports.

PAPShop is correct about Terry Mann being the go-to guy. I bet if you want to be autocare and you qualify, he will make it happen.

Great post. We have been NAPA Autocare for about ten years. I don't know how close that other Autocare center is to you, but I think I would go over the store owner/manager and inquire with NAPA corporate. They really want to expand the reach of Autocare and I can't believe they would deny the brand and association to a shop that qualifies. I can provide points of contact at NAPA corporate if you continue to get resistance.

We've been NAPA Autocare for about ten years. The range of support services they provide is amazing. Our NAPA stores are privately owned by people who provide great service. They provide good tech training at reasonable prices, promotional programs, etc. In addition we are members of our local NAPA business development group. I was chairman for about three years with about seventeen local shops participating. It's partly social, but we created an endowed scholarship at our local community college and we do shared advertising, like our group web page at napafinder.com. When you get access to the member section of napaautocare.com, you are faced with an overwhelming array of benefits, programs, advertising support, discounts, plus and in-depth management program of in-house training development. They definitely have the strongest brand-recognition nationwide. Their parts and labor warranty is well documented and reliable. They just did a national expo in Las Vegas. If you just look for the guys with the cheapest parts, you will be short-changing yourself.

Just got my dealer license last year in Virginia. It's hard. To do it legally, you have to have a lot and in Virginia Beach, lots zoned for used cars are premium property. You have to pass a formal dealer training class. Very heavily regulated by VA MVDB part of DMV. You will have to have a personal bond for the first three years. You will have to prove you have insurance coverage for your lot and inventory. The auction environment is brutal to newcomers and I have learned that there is a reason that every one of those cars is in the auction, you just haven't figured out what it is yet. Learned an interesting saying the other day - "the profit is in the buy." If you pay too much for the car it's very difficult to make it up by raising the retail price. If you don't have a lot of capital, it's hard to do the really profitable stuff like financing, especially buy-here-pay-here. If you dive in, join VIADA - great support group. If you have decent credit you can sign up with a floorplan company and use OPM - other people's money - to obtain inventory, but that cuts into profit. I use NextGear and it has been great for us. They do wholesale valuation for us, too. Average time on the lot for the best selling cars is around 49 days, for stinkers, much longer, so don't expect to turn over a lot of cars in a hurry. We have found 5-8k to be a good price range for starters. You will chew your fingernails when nobody buys a car for weeks and then suddenly you sell three Priuses in one weekend. I have bought cars back and done expensive repairs gratis after the sale just for good will, but the majority of sales go well. If you have an established repair shop, you will be the envy of other car dealers. Get with me via email if you have questions.

Thomas Jefferson advised us to "avoid entangling alliances." When the time comes to let somebody go, I don't want to worry about whether it's going to destroy my working relationship with their spouse or their brother or their Dad. Keep it simple and professional.

At the Virginia Automotive Association convention last weekend, Todd Westerlund, the owner of Kukui was kind enough to take us out to a great restaurant in Williamsburg. I can't tell you how impressed I was with this guy. Former wrench turner, studied marketing, went to work for Demandforce and then set out on his own. I consider myself to be pretty knowledgeable about Internet presence and SEO, but he was blowing my mind when he started talking about attracting searchers to our website and converting them to appointments. Gave me a great deal of confidence in our business relationship.

We have had problems with aftermarket converters. We prefer to go OE.

You have to figure loaded pay - pay plus benefits, taxes, uniforms etc. We shoot for 8% of sales, but we have a senior advisor and assistant at each shop. Their daily sales range from 3 to 7k per day. They are on a matrix base on sales and GP.

Look at our Thoroughgood shop on Google maps. We are at the end of a dead end street. It's definitely tougher to draw a crowd when you are off the main drag, but if you advertise and bring them in and MAKE THEM COME BACK by being the best in town, you can be successful. I know a lot of great shops that are in miserable locations.

I would prefer if you would sign up to exhibit at the upcoming Virginia Automotive Association convention trade show and introduce your product to shops from all over Virginia. The show is 24-26 April in Williamsburg. Any vendors that are interested should call the Executive Director, Steve Akridge at (804)467-5556 - soon.

Virginia Beach clamped down on them a few years ago. Don't think I could do one, but I like the idea.

How about without the telephone pole?

Three of our four Service Advisors are female. They are sharp as hell and they don't intimidate customers - male or female. More and more, women are playing lead roles in both sides of the auto service transaction. Good article.

At the request of a business associate, we sat through a demo of Autosense1 today. Similar in concept to Autovitals, but not as fully developed. they have a similar workflow screen for SAs. Techs use tablets to generate vehicle inspections and can take photos and movies of the vehicle. They have a collection of tailored inspections, but you can't create/edit your own inspections. Also, it does not display vehicle history from your management system. They do have a cool function that lets the SA conduct a meeting with the customer online to review findings. You can print the inspection, but they really don't emphasize it and they expect you to review it on a computer screen with the customer. Cumbersome. Price is competitive. If you are thinking about jumping into digital visual inspections, you should take a look at this alongside Autovitals.

Interesting. I don't want my techs to have a personal relationship with customers. It's not part of their skill set. Our Service Advisors are hired and trained to do customer service. When too many folks are interacting with a broad array of customer personalities there is too much chance of misunderstanding or just botched communication. The next problem is the customer who says "I want Joe to work on my car." No - you don't get to pick your tech. You don't ask who built your new Ford pickup, you just trust in the processes and materials that went into building it. Finally, when that tech moves on, do you want him/her taking a following of customers with him/her? Customers should be loyal to your shop and the value it provides, not to a tech.

Bstewart - that is a great question and one I would like to be able to answer, but we have a number of ongoing efforts to increase ARO, sales, and GP, so it is probably impossible to attribute improvement to any one piece of it. Like any job you take on, you want the best tool to handle that job, and SO FAR, AV appears to be a great tool for digital inspections and shop workflow. What has had more impact on ARO and sales has been our emphasis on selling maintenance by mileage including "catch-up" maintenance. We use every tool in our arsenal to insure that each customer leaves with a total picture of the condition of their vehicle. We are also stressing training on sales presentation both over the phone and over the counter. We have a part-time sales consultant who trains and monitors our advisors. You might be thinking that this results in a very hardcore experience for our customers, but we put equal emphasis on making our customers' experience a pleasant one and our reviews reflect that. It's a tough balancing act, but a rewarding one. But your question has reminded me that I need to poll my techs and advisors on their individual impressions of the system. More to follow.

At last week's ATI Superconference, my daughter-in-law won "Best 20 Group Member." Considering ATI runs about twenty of these groups, many of which have been going strong for years, this is quite an accomplishment. Her group was formed just a couple of years ago and this year the group won "Best Gross Profit." I can't overstate how valuable our participation in this group has been - twenty shops bolstering each others' performance, comparing notes and striving doggedly to be the best. Lead by a great coach, the group has accomplished great things. Best of all, I know that she and my son can independently carry this business into the future with confidence. Like they say - priceless.

All is going well with our Autovitals effort. The tablets (4 Ipad minis) are holding up well in the shop. We took a chance on a no-name android tablet that was $79.95 at Sam's club and it works fine, but there is no protective cover that fits it well. One of our Service Advisors has become totally dependent on the desktop workflow display. Our other shop has been slow to embrace it. We are now e-mailing digital inspection reports directly to the customers as soon as the techs submit them. We perform the inspections on about 80% of our car count. The techs really like being able to take pictures of broken stuff on the cars. As soon as the SA completes the estimate, it is e-mailed as well. There were some problems with the program being slow and unresponsive, but something they did up-line recently solved the problem. We haven't needed much customer support, but when we do our dedicated support guy is right there to help.

This week at our NAPA Autocare Business Development Group meeting we were told that Mudlick has teamed up with NAPA and is offering discounted services to NAPA Autocare centers.

I serve on the board of directors of the Virginia Automotive Association (VAA). The primary purpose of this organization is to lobby the state legislature to try and keep them from passing laws and regulations that are harmful to our industry. Membership includes about 170 shop and industry sponsors. Every year VAA has a convention that includes speakers, training round table discussion and a trade show. This year's convention is being held at the Williamsburg Lodge in famous Colonial Williamsburg Virginia 24-26 April. We expect about 300 attendees. Keynote speakers include Chubby Fredericks from ATI, Dave Crawford of The Hybrid Shop and others. You don't have to be a member to attend. The agenda leaves time to enjoy the colonial area, so you can bring your family and turn it into a vacation.You can get more info about the convention at the VAA website.

We use Royalty Rewards. It integrates with RO Writer. We currently have about 400 active members and I think I can truly say they love the program. They get a free oil change for signing up and then they get a $20 voucher for every $400 they have spent with us, so it's like a 5% discount for being loyal. They do e-mails and will do postcards as well. There's a reason all of the grocery chains, restaurant chains, etc do loyalty programs. Your customers may love you but your competition is trying to lure them away with loss leader specials. The loyalty program is just one more tool to encourage them to come back to you.