It’s a well-known fact in the auto-repair world that summer is the busiest time of the year. As the weather heats up and families start going on road-trips, more and more drivers bring their vehicles into the shop for maintenance.
Service advisors are an integral part of running your shop.
Not only do they have to greet every customer and learn what they need, but they also need to connect a lot of moving parts, whether that means sending repair orders to guests, making sure they’re getting approved, coordinating with technicians, or literally tracking down parts for repairs. that service advisors keep a cool head.
Making sure every job makes it through the repair process without fault while providing guests with kind and diligent service can be tough, but there are tools and habits that can make the job a breeze.
Here are a few actionable tactics you can start using immediately at your shop so service advisors can stay brisk in spite of the heat.
Get to Know Your Guests & Their Vehicles
When it comes to guests, the mileage may vary. Some guests are easier to work with than others. Some will throw you the keys and approve whatever work needs to be done. Others will only approve a small amount of work and call every few minutes to check on the job.
Service advisors may not be able to directly change how guests behave, but we are able to know what to expect. Customer notes are a great way for service advisors to know the attitudes, behaviors, and preferences of each individual guest. Taking detailed notes and checking them before or during a customer interaction can make it easier to work with even with the most difficult clients.
Leverage Your Shop's Information
In addition to customer notes, some shop management solutions offer customer metrics and other tools that help service advisors know even more about their customers.
1. Use Lifetime Stats: Percent Close Ratio
Shop management systems like Tekmetric can actually show you the lifetime stats of a customer, including how much they’ve spent at your garage and the percent of repairs they close on. Knowing the guest’s percent close ratio can help you know how much time you should spend attempting to sell a customer on jobs, especially when the shop gets busy.
2. Shared Customer History
CARFAX vehicle reports can also tell you a lot about the customer. For instance, if it says that the customer brings their vehicle in every 5,000 miles, they probably care about keeping their vehicle maintained and are more likely to approve work.
Master Your Workflow
When it comes to service advising, you have to be able to flow quickly between talking to guests, assembling repair orders, authorizing repair orders, working with technicians, ordering parts, answering the phone, and receiving payments.
It’s a lot to keep track of! Leveraging a digital job-board, or shop dashboard is probably the best way for service advisors to keep track of all the responsibilities they have to juggle.
A good shop dashboard will show you the status of every vehicle in the repair order process and send alerts to technicians, parts suppliers, and even the guest when it’s their turn to take action.
Repair order sent? The guest should get an alert to approve.
Did the part arrive? The technician should be alerted so they can get to work.
If your guest is in a hurry, you may want to make a note on their job in the shop dashboard and set the right expectation.
By glancing at the dashboard and seeing that you have a number of cars being worked on, are waiting on several parts, and have more cars in the queue, you should be able to let the guest know that they’re going to have to wait at least a couple of hours.
But if things are less busy, you can leave a note so that the technicians can be mindful that the guest needs to be somewhere, especially if their notes indicate that they’re a loyal, well-paying customer.
The Secret Lies in Good Shop Management Procedures
Shop management systems are a fundamental tool for service advisors, and a good one will allow you to easily take customer notes, track the repair process, and be an excellent service advisor.
Especially this summer when there’s a pandemic, a shop management system with text and email repair order approval and text-to-pay options will make offering curbside service simple and easy.
Make sure that you have the tools to get the job done, and have trained your service advisors before the heat kicks in.
Many shop owners believe that their Effective Labor Rate (ELR) is the ultimate way to measure shop performance. If you want to boost your ELR, you have two choices:
Pay your employees less
Improve your shop efficiency
Since your employees are the lifeblood of your company, team efficiency is the way to go. The more efficient your business is, the better your month-over-month performance will be, positively impacting not only your bottom line but also your peace of mind.
Here are 6 strategies that you can use to boost team efficiency and enhance your ELR.
It turns out that the shop owners, service writers, general managers, and technicians that rely on Tekmetric everyday chose us once again as the clear market leader on G2!
Okay, okay, we're sorry for another humble brag... But this is really more about you, the users than it is about us! If you're not familiar, G2 is a peer-to-peer review site. Users just like you can submit reviews and vote on the tools they use everyday, like Tekmetric.
Really, this is all thanks to all the amazing independent shops that do great work every day with Tekmetric. The shops that keep people's vehicles safe and reliable. The heroes that get their customers back on the road every single day!
We were just chosen because you all love us so much! 😳
But that's not all. Tekmetric was also chosen for how easy it is to get your shop up and running!
Most Implementable Fall 2023
Most Implementable Small Business Fall 2023
Fastest Implementation Fall 2023
Momentum Leader Fall 2023
Leader Fall 2023
We totally get it, the last thing you want is to have to pause everything you're doing and let the bills pile up, just to relearn how to run your own shop.
That's why we make it as easy as possible, handling all the heavy lifting so your shop can sit back, relax, and hit the ground running right away!
That kind of makes sense, considering Tekmetric was chosen as one of the easiest shop management systems to do business with.
Leader Fall 2023
Easiest To Do Business With Fall 2023
Easiest To Do Business With Small Business Fall 2023
Tekmetric comes from shop owners, advisors, technicians, and managers just like you. We live, breathe, and execute innovation, the kind of innovation your shops need to get even more value out of the work that shops like yours already do!
We're always working hard to make Tekmetric even better!
Thank you! Thank you for partnering with us, and thank you for helping us create the best possible solution for running an independent auto repair shop!
We're excited to be awarded and regarded so highly, and we strive to keep that level of excellence and support at every step in your shop.
Tekmetric is always being updated, and we’ll never stop working with and supporting shops to help them run efficiently and with fewer headaches, so you can focus on doing what you love!
As the world around us is constantly evolving, so is the auto repair industry.
An auto repair shop that stays stagnant and sticks to the status quo could be losing out on profits, reputation and valuable time.
Without a growth-focused mindset or the right forward-looking strategies, your shop could be missing out and fall behind others.
Fortunately, implementing a modern shop management system and standardizing your shop’s processes can help unlock your shop's full potential.
Break The Status Quo
Rapid advancements in technology are changing every industry around us, and because of this, customer expectations are higher than ever.
However, making changes to a process that you’ve had in your shop for years can seem like a daunting task.
These days, the best tool a shop can have in their back pocket is a shop management system. The right system should provide you with the tools to increase your bottom line, your reputation with customers and your overall productivity.
Implementing a quality shop management system can be a game-changer for shops when it comes to growing profits.
Systems such as Tekmetric help their users streamline processes, optimize workflow and enable shops to repair more vehicles in the same amount of time it was previously taking them.
Most importantly, the simple act of integrating a shop management system can increase your shop’s bottom line.
As a result, these shops are building a loyal customer base, leading to repeat business and positive word-of-mouth which promotes growth of the business.
Customer trust can lead directly to your shop's financial gain, so it's important to ensure you're using tools, like Tekmetric, to increase customer trust and loyalty.
Gain Back Time
Finally, it's important to recognize whether some of your most time-consuming tasks can take up less time in your day by being automated through a shop management system.
Think about the tasks that you spend the most time on in your shop.
By using a shop management system to automate tasks such as appointment scheduling, inventory management and invoicing, shop owners can reduce both the time their team spends doing simple tasks as well as manual errors.
When less time is being spent on these important yet time-consuming tasks, the time shops get back can be spent on repairs, putting more money in everyone’s pocket as a result.
Breaking the status quo and unlocking your shop's full potential by implementing a shop management system is made easy by systems like Tekmetric.
This, in turn, can increase your shop's revenue and efficiency, build customer trust and satisfaction and provide valuable time and cost savings.
Tekmetric is the perfect solution for shop owners looking to take their business to the next level.
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