DUFRESNES

How do you track the Internet customers for new customers? We always ask each customer how they heard about us? What else are you paying for beside the updated website. We also updated ours and can track where people come from to it and how long they stay on each page. Sounds like you have a good program working for you.

I agree when marketing to your own customer base, you can immediately tell if it works or not. We track every piece of marketing. If it breaks even or better, we keep doing it. For new customers, we buy a list of new movers in our area, then cleanse it against our regular data base. We send a 1st letter with a magnet. Two weeks later our 2nd letter goes out and then 2 weeks later our 3rd letter goes out. You must create urgency. With our 2nd letter, we also send a coupon page with12 coupons with a little longer expiration date. They must bring in the letter to claim their service. We can then track how many came in each month and how much they spent. We have been doing the same letter with different inserts for about 7 years. Very few come in on the 1st letter, more on the 2nd letter and most come in on the 3rd letter and sometimes we send a newsletter for the 4th. You have to track your numbers to see if it works. If we should have a slow day starting out, we shoot an e-mail for that day a low ball offer oil change and immediately fill up the bays. You can control how long it will run or like we do just 1 day, the next day a little more and then something for the next 10 days. You control the schedule.

If you are thinking of this person when you go to bed and when you wake up. It is time to make a change. You need to confront him with these words, When you ________________ I feel____________________ I would prefer ________________________, If you don't ______________ I will _____________________. This deals with feelings instead of confrontation. There is nothing that is worse than shop moral. Everybody has been in your shoes. Once you make up your mind and do it, you will wonder why it took you so long. I had to make a decision about an employee that had been with me forever. Afterwards it was a miracle.

Here in Oregon, I finally got smart on Liens. Yes, I had done all the work, court house and putting in the paper etc. Now, I just call Oregon Lien, send them the work order. They do all the rest. They call you and tell you when the auction is and it is done. Much easier. If it is a junk vehicle, donate it and you can take the amount owed if it is more than what is worth.

I agree whole heartedly. We went from a DOS program to RO Writer just because of this. I liked my dos program for the whole picture much better than RO Writer dumps into QB. Once you have the vin in, you can shop and compare if need be to see who has the part and price. Order from there and it puts it on the work order. Tracks everything. We still have to make phone calls if a dealership part is needed. After making the whole estimate for everything, call the customer and he picks and chooses what he wants, then all we have to do is decline it for what he doesn't want. The next time in, it brings it up to remind you to ask the customer if he wants to do what he passed on the time before. Estimate done for you.

Joe, When you added the 2nd Service Writer. How did you pay him. We now pay to #1 Service Writer 8% of all sales of the techs.

We have 3 master techs and 1 lube tech. What I see is happening is 4 cars are worked on right away, diagnosing and etc. Then they bring the work order to the Service Writer and he has to estimate the work, call the customer and get an OK, then order parts. There is too much standing around. Yes, they grab another car and the circle continues, finally catching up later. If anybody has a suggestion, I would love to hear it. We also have 2 people that answer the phone and make appointments. The service writer is working on his 4 techs

I understand the ones that voted for it didn't even know what all it contained. How could they with that many pages. The only way I see to change our government is to let them know we will not vote for them again. It is time we all made our vote count and that is the only way

No idea what they are. Are they bags used to store tires for summer or winter?

Have any of you heard of the company FLEETS PLUS. John from there called, basically they will get you 3 fleet accounts for $25.00 each or $75.00. They interview companies that are not already using a repair shop. They range from fleets that include 9-15 vehicles. They offer a private offer of a FREE OIL Change. Set up fee is $95.00 and they ask for 3 months. You could also do 6 or nine companies with a discount. Anybody had any dealings with this company? If anybody has dealings with this company, what have the results been?

Well here goes! We pay on performance. We pay flat rate from $28.00 to $35.00 flat rate to our ASE TECHS. Our Lube techs and minor repairs are paid $12-$15.40 per hour with a 5% commission on parts and labor. They are ASE in a few fields. All of our staff and techs work for a bonus each month. It is a group bonus based on the best previous same month equals March for any other March etc. We post our stats on the our back refer. It ranges from $50-$500 per month per person. One half is paid on their check and one half is paid into their 401K. This seems to work very well. Our fellows really seem to like the system. We pay more than most. We have excellent employess. One has been here 25 years. We have a marketing manager. It is her job to see that we have the cars to work on. It is the techs job to inspect and let the Service Writer know what is needed and then it is the SW job to sell. If the business is slow, then it is time to do a quick e-mail and fill the bays. When business is down we all share including myself, the owner.

Joe, We got it the end of November. We paid for the enhanced with everthing including the Euro $2399.00 and a Toshiba lap top $349.99. Our European Tech says it does everything with Volvo control module. He has not used it yet for Trac control. We purchased it because our Bosch didn't seem to have everything for Euro cars. When I talked to Autoenginuity they said they get the same info that VW has. So far, we really like it. We were going to buy the Snap on Verus, but there was so much bad feed back on it. Also, the fellow that turned me on to the Autoenginuity had the Verus and was very unhappy. Hope this helps someone. N

We have several scanners. We have the Bosch, OTC Evolution, OTC Genusys, Interro, OTC 4000 and our newest one is the Autoenginuity. The Autoenginuity is by far the less expensive, but you do have to purchase a laptop to go with it. We were going to go with Snap On's but decided on the Autoenginuity after talking to dealers that had both. Hope this helps.

Yes, we use Facebook fan page. From our web site, we have a link to face book. We also used a coupon if a customer became a fan, we gave them $20.00 coupon. We just started this, so can't tell you how well it is doing yet. There is a dealer in a neighboring town that uses it for the business and he has lots of interaction with his customers. It's going to be the wave of the future, starting now.

We don't usually have a problem with our regular customers, but new customers sometimes have a problem with it. We must educate them. I just had a fellow call up and used your anology about teaching a monkey to read codes, but that wouldn't fix their car. We have had several customers have their codes read, went and purchased the part it saId and then brought it to us because it didn't fix their car. That made a believer out of them. We have to take the time to explain and educate each customer.

I printed their website. What we tell customers: Anybody with a scan tool can read codes. Doesn't mean anything. 1st of all we charge $49.99 to read the codes. We charge 135.99 for pin point tests. We draw a picture with each code then like a tree off of that code into 4 or 5 tests for each code. We explain also, we have to have the right tools (several scan tools) the knowledge to interrupte and to be able to fix their vehicle.

With 3 techs and 1 lube tech, we did $23,149.36 off Dec Free Brakes with the Oregon Food Bank. We had 27 new customers for that month, not necssarily included in the Free Brake Special. We track all marketing, but it doesn't show what they purchased; whether it was oil changes or repair work.

This will be our 6th year of partnering with the Oregon Food Bank. Free Brake pads or shoes with a minimum of 6 cans of food. We market it to our customers through our newsletter insert. We have before been on TV for it. It makes December really a good month. It always has to go 1 week into January. We live in the hills so we only use top of the line brake parts.

Joe, It is the difference between a good month and a great month. Yes, we do a lot of oil changes on Saturday, but with our 70 point inspection, we can schedule for the week and it helps for Mondays. When you are open Monday through Friday, jobs have to be completed on Friday or held over to Monday; makes for happier customers spending all that money. Nancy

UPDATE: We just went back to Saturdays in June 09, June was good and July was the best July we have ever had. August is set to be a record also. We have 4 techs. Two work Tuesday through Sat. and 2 work Mon-Friday. The only bad part is I have to service write on Mondays. With our new program RO Writer it is working out. Just thought I would let you know. The last time we did it, the techs rotated working 4 days then 5 then 6 days. What ever works. Nancy