More than anything, partnerships should be mutually beneficial to everyone involved. When good partnerships are formed, the whole should be worth more than the sum of its parts.
Why Should Your Auto Business Partner with Other Brands?
For example, McDonald’s burgers make you thirsty enough to want a Coca-Cola, and sodas have a high margin. By partnering up, McDonald’s can lock in their costs on soda and improve their profit margins for the long term.
On the other hand, not all partnerships are beneficial. Partnerships can expand your opportunities but can also force you into making decisions you never intended to make. When McDonald’s decided to partner with Coca-Cola, they had to exclude other soda brands from their locations.
This exclusivity may have been worth it, but it meant removing options from customers, such as Dr. Pepper and Pepsi products. What may have made the partnership intriguing for McDonald’s is the fact that Coca-Cola owns a variety of beverages, including Diet Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Powerade, Minute Maid and Pibb Xtra.
Thanks to a variety of options, McDonald’s is able to satisfy most customers who ask for a Dr. Pepper by saying, “Will Pibb Xtra be okay?”
Partnerships in the Auto Repair Industry
In the auto repair industry, we face similar challenges when it comes to partnering with other businesses and brands.
Potential partnerships may include teaming up with parts suppliers, software companies, marketing and trade show affiliates, and any other service, resource or tool that could potentially improve your shop. In some cases, these partnerships will help shop owners enhance performance, save costs and drive revenue.
Other times, auto partnerships may bind you to an agreement that doesn’t pay off.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to determine whether a partnership is mutually beneficial or if they’re asking you for more than you’re getting in return.
1. Are You Free to Choose the Tools and Solutions You Want?
One sign of a bad partnership is being forced to do something you don’t want to do. If partnering with another company means taking valuable options off the table, then you may be at a disadvantage.
If your partner implies or directs you not to do business with their competitors because they would like for you to instead use their services or their partner’s services, think it through.
Before officially entering a partnership, imagine your shop one year, five years and ten years down the road. Where will it be then? What will happen if your shop grows? What if innovation has slowed down with your partner? Will you be allowed to innovate your business by using new tools and solutions that become available in the future?
If you’re restricted in a way that prevents you from innovating or adapting to market conditions by testing other products, tools, solutions, and software, you may be handcuffed and unable to compete with other shops.
2. What’s Your Time and Resource Commitment?
A good partnership, like any good relationship, takes time and commitment. Effective collaboration means spending some time up-front so that everyone can get on the same page. But your time is valuable, and the time you put in up-front may not always be worth it on the back end.
Some programs may require significant time dedicated to training, process adjustments or brand initiatives that don’t fit into your current business model. That time could be spent pursuing changes that truly enhance your business performance and align with your goals.
If it feels like you have to change your ways to be a member of an exclusive partnership program, you may be sacrificing more control for the benefit of your partner without an equal return.
Look back at our own BG Canned jobs -- there's no extra work on your end to include these products in your repair order process, making it a seamless and simple way to boost repair order value for both your business, and your partner.
3. Will Your Guests Care?
If your guests get something out of the partnership—whether it’s convenience, savings, or confidence in your products or services—then you may be getting real value out of the relationship as a shop owner. After all, a good relationship with guests is a critical factor when it comes to improving your bottom line.
Sometimes, partnerships such as parts programs can appear more powerful than they are because shop owners may see them as a seal of approval. A banner with a logo from a well-known brand in front of your shop may make you and your employees feel confident, but consider if it really impacts your guest experience.
We see this dynamic play out in gas stations and convenience stores.
It may make gas station owners feel good to have a big Phillips 66 sign or a Chevron logo above their pumps, but most drivers could care less and just need to top off their tanks. Partnerships that require certifications for auto repair shops may give you a feeling of officialdom or accomplishment, but the guest simply needs their car fixed at an affordable price and by a trustworthy crew.
If the majority of customers see no value in a branded partnership, and there are no direct enhancements or savings that can be passed on to them, the program may be lacking and not worth your time or resources.
4. Will Your Auto Partner Truly Care About Your Success?
When assessing a partnership, part of the analysis rests on the bottom line. Will your metrics improve thanks to the partnership? Or will your performance be negatively affected by the program?
A good partnership is based on trust and a mutual commitment to success. You can usually tell right away if your partner is truly committed to your shop or if your shop is just another tally in their sales ledger.
If a partner implies that it’s on you to reach a certain standard before they’re willing to consider working with you, or threatens to end the relationship without trying to help you overcome a hurdle, it might be in your best interest to reconsider or renegotiate partnership terms.
Auto Partnerships Support Your Success
In 2019, Tekmetric was selected by Christian Brothers Automotive to be their shop management system for all their locations. Christian Brothers took partnerships very seriously. After a grueling assessment of the top management systems, Tekmetric was selected.
When our team asked what helps them finalize their decision, they said it came down to this notion that they felt Tekmetric truly cared about their success.
Take it from the Christian Brothers Director of Strategy and Innovation:
Every time we walked away after talking to the people at Tekmetric, we would just say, ‘Man, this is awesome.’ We never had that with a lot of the vendors we worked with in the past
Learn More About Repair Shop Success
As an auto repair shop management solution, Tekmetric has long realized the importance of mutually beneficial partnerships.
We strive to give shop owners the freedom to integrate their marketing, communication, parts ordering tools and more directly into one management system because that makes it easier and more efficient for shop owners to run their businesses.
Tekmerchant now includes the industry’sfirst “buy now, pay later” feature, allowing customers to complete vehicle repairs and pay over time with no risk to your shop!
The Tekmerchant platform offers flexible, forward thinking solutions that allow shops to save time and effort when managing funds and customer payments.
Shop owners can share invoices and accept payments via text and email, enabling the customer to pay directly from their smartphone and pick up the vehicle when it is convenient for them.
Additionally, customers can leverage Tekmerchant’s “buy now, pay later” feature using Affirm and Klarna. This is an industry-first solution that is familiar to customers who use it in other industries.
Concurrently, Tekmerchant improves shop owner accounting processes by automatically integrating all partial and complete payments into the point-of-sale.
This feature, added by popular request from shop owners, integrates with Tekmetric’s existing payments reports for real-time tracking and reporting.
Your auto repair labor revenue and parts margins are critical for enhancing your shop’s profitability. Adjusting your pricing on parts to make a profit is pretty straightforward.
But when it comes to labor times for auto repair shops…that’s where things can get a bit tricky.
Yes, you need competitive labor rates, but you also need to keep those rates reasonable so you don’t scare off your customers with sky-high prices.
3 ways your shop can make more money on labor:
By using a labor matrix
By creating custom labor rates
By applying a labor guide markup
Before we dive into the differences between these three methods for setting the best labor times at your shop, here’s a quick refresher on the one thing these methods have in common: the labor guide.
What is a Labor Guide?
A labor guide is like the gospel of labor times for auto repair shops. It tells you how long, on average, it takes to complete different types of repair work.
Remember that the times listed in auto repair labor guides are averages, so it’s best to treat them as a starting point.
HOUSTON – October 18, 2023 – Tekmetric, the leading automotive repair software company, has announced the appointment of Clare Corriveau as the company's new Vice President of Marketing. With an extensive background in the software industry, Corriveau brings a wealth of experience and strategic vision to the Tekmetric team.
“Clare's depth of experience and strategic acumen in the technology sector will be instrumental in driving our marketing efforts and advancing our position in the market,” said Sunil Patel, CEO of Tekmetric. “With her leadership, we look forward to reaching new milestones in our top-tier customer service and innovative solutions.”
Corriveau's professional journey spans 17 years across a variety of brands and products in B2B technology. Her proven track record in demand generation, marketing strategy, product positioning and brand development underscores her significant role in Tekmetric’s continued growth. In her new position, Clare will be instrumental in guiding Tekmetric’s marketing initiatives and brand development. Her responsibilities encompass enhancing brand visibility, devising and implementing marketing strategies and bolstering the company's foothold in the automotive repair software market.
Before joining Tekmetric, Corriveau was the Senior Director, Growth Marketing at cybersecurity startup Cobalt, where she led the demand generation team to drive revenue growth along every stage of the buyer and customer journeys. Prior to Cobalt, Corriveau served in several director- and manager-level roles with OneTouchPoint, Gotransverse, Blackbaud and more.
“I am thrilled to join Tekmetric, a pioneering force in automotive shop management solutions. Their commitment to revolutionizing the industry and empowering automotive professionals aligns perfectly with my own passion for innovation and customer-centricity,” said Corriveau. “I look forward to contributing to Tekmetric’s journey of empowering auto repair shop owners to increase efficiency in their operations and ultimately grow their business.”
About Tekmetric
Tekmetric, a Houston-based auto repair technology company, offers a cloud-based platform that enables auto repair shop owners to enhance productivity and increase profitability through its streamlined workflow management processes.
Designed by a former shop owner, Tekmetric’s platform drives shop efficiency through real-time data, a customizable user interface and customer-centric communication tools. Since its launch in 2016, Tekmetric has disrupted the industry with its robust fully-integrated system, developed with an emphasis on customer transparency and user collaboration. For more information, visit www.tekmetric.com.
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