DUFRESNES

We charge $139.99 plus freon and dye. Average ticket runs $190-$200. This year we require the customer to come back within 2 weeks for warranty purposes.

Joe, Have been in business 40 years and have had this same discussion. Everybody at my seminar said, you will make as much money working Mon-Fri as being open 6 days. I have tried it 2 times. Not true for us. I am a woman owner, never been a tech, have been a service writer. With 3 techs, 1 lube tech, 1 service writer, 1 marketing person and 1 customer relation, the techs work rotating schedule 4 days, 5 days and 6 days. My problem is my Service Writer works 5 days and I have to Service Write on Mondays. I am good at sellling, but hate making estimates. Everybody has to make their own decision based on facts and figures for their area and type of business. For us open on Saturday's sells work for Monday. We try to get everything checked out early on Sat so we can get parts. Most of our part suppliers are only open 1/2 days. We closed in February on Saturdays again and are opening in June working Sat. again. Our customers hate us being closed on Sat. Nancy

It doesn't matter what advertising you do, if you don't track the results to see if it is working. It must pay for itself or why do it. If money is the object, one can do a lot of marketing outside of the box, e-mail free, voice broad cast is cheap. We pay with movie tickets for referrals. They are the best new customers. They spend money because they already trust you. Your best marketing is to your own customers. We do monthly newsletters with coupons. Other marketing we use is Birthday cards with Free oil change to new customers, Car Care Club Cards, three step letters to new movers, three step letters to re-activate customers that haven't been in for a long time, Phone calls for thank you's to every customer that has been in. Phone calls to oil change people. We do something every month such as easter eggs. You must track your results very careful, I can't stress this enough. When we do val-pak at $415.00 per month, it must bring in at least that much or it is not worth it. You have to market, people move, die, change jobs etc. We all need new customers. Thank you for letting me sound off. Now is the time to take advantage of people keeping their vehicles.