Cars are expensive, complicated machinery that most of us happen to rely on every day. And while we've probably spent a larger portion of our lives driving than we want to realize, the inner workings of their vehicle remain unintuitive to most of us.
That's exactly why your shop exists! To help your customers take care of the costly, sometimes difficult repairs so they can get back to their lives, whether that’s bringing the kids to soccer practice or getting to work on time!
Independent auto repair shops can overcome that skepticism from customers. After all, anything is possible with the right tools for the job. When that comes to customer service, independent auto repair shops can start using those tools with a modern shop-management system.
One that makes the often painful, expensive process, of getting their car fixed as simple, easy, and painless as possible.
More specifically, with Tekmetric, shops can show customers what's wrong with Digital Vehicle Inspections, and even help them cover the unexpected cost of a necessary repair with checkout options like Buy Now, Pay Later.
Customers can see photos and videos of exactly what’s wrong with their vehicles, see the urgency of each proposed repair, and approve or decline jobs directly from their smartphones.
DVIs simplify the entire process from both ends, enabling your team to offer amazing customer service most of us don't expect from an independent auto repair shop.
Technicians can build inspections on their smartphones or tablets, and take pictures or record videos to clearly illustrate what parts need to be repaired or replaced. This lets the customer see and hear the problem with their own eyes and ears.
Why DVIs are the Right Tool for the Job
Telling a customer their wheel bearing is going bad on a paper printout will have a different effect than showing them a video of your technician rotating that wheel bearing, recreating that awful howling noise the customer hears every time they drive.
Customers expect digital experiences. We have our receipts emailed to us instead of printed, we can order groceries online, and we get pictures when our deliveries are dropped off. Almost everything we purchase has a digital component, and your shop should be no different.
Auto repair shops can easily provide a modern customer experience with digital vehicle inspections by emailing or texting the results directly to the customer, including those pictures or videos technicians include in their inspection findings.
And you can stop wasting time on phone calls and tracking down your guests for the green light on repairs. Tekmetric lets customers review repair orders directly in those digital inspection findings your shop sent them.
Within a matter of seconds, at their convenience, customers can approve the work so your shop can get started, and get their vehicle back on the road as quickly as possible.
Buy Now, Pay Later Options Bring Your Shop into 2023
Here’s where the tricky part comes in: the customer hesitates to approve the repair order.
The sticker shock of a big repair they weren’t expecting can generally lead to customers picking and choosing what they want to repair so it fits their budget. In some cases, this means sometimes putting off important repairs that could end up dangerous if ignored.
That's exactly where buy now, pay later comes in.
Why Buy Now, Pay Later Options are the Right Tool for the Job
With our industry-first offering of buy now, pay later via Affirm or Klarna, we make it easy for shops to get those expensive repairs approved by providing customers with the option to pay for the repair over time, while you get paid the same day.
And you’ll still see a host of new benefits, like:
Get paid on time by allowing your customers to pay over time
Make more money by increasing your Average Repair Order value
Keep everything simple with one single trusted payment partner
Tekmerchant is all about consolidating your payment processing into one platform, simplifying the hassle of seeing all of your payments right in your shop management system.
And with buy now, pay later shops can see a huge boost to their average repair order by meeting customers where they are and giving them the option to pay at a schedule that fits their needs exactly.
Visualize Repairs with MotoVisuals
Building a trusted relationship with your customers starts with transparency.
Tekmetric now seamlessly integrates with MotoVisuals to elevate the customer experience, streamline shop processes, and empower automotive businesses like never before.
MotoVisuals offers a wide array of simple-to-follow animation videos for service advisors to leverage with their guests, simplifying vehicle education and repair explanations.
Why MotoVisuals is the Right Tool for the Job
While DVIs can help your shop show customers what needs to be repaired or replaced, they still might have questions about your shop’s labor rate. It’s one thing to see a broken part and another thing to know what it takes to replace it.
That’s where your service advisors come in – they help translate the technobabble of auto repairs to the customer. So why not equip them with the best tools for the job?
In fact, Advance Professionals reported a 90% increase in close rates from hesitant customers when shops incorporated MotoVisuals into their digital vehicle inspections.
The Right Tools for the Job Meet Modern Customer Expectations
Because they don't feel pressured to cover the cost upfront, customers are more likely to make those larger repairs with less hesitance.
Your shop will become a trusted advisor for your customers: one they can rely on for support, helping them make the right decisions for their vehicle and their wallet.
However, it’s important to stay consistent in also attracting new customers rather than relying solely on the group of existing customers you build up as your shop expands its reputation for good repair work.
While walk-ins are certainly a thing, it isn’t the best bet to depend on them as your sole way of getting new customers. Instead, take proactive approaches to gain a steady stream of new customers coming through your doors.
Tekmetric has remained committed to 2024 as a year filled with product innovation, providing updates that included feedback from our customers to demonstrate our commitment to a customer-centric approach as we continue to grow. From product updates and attending industry events to elevating our approach to data security, the second quarter has built on the first quarter’s momentum, leading to a vibrant first half of 2024.
Supporting Shops by Enhancing Efficiency
Tekmetric is systematically seeking opportunities to better understand the needs of shop owners and how our product can help shops run more efficiently. Building on our commitment to enhancing shop effectiveness, we focused Q2 on implementing updates that significantly bolster operational efficiency across the board.
Having the right technical team is essential, and with our latest update, shops can now assign multiple technicians to a single job, ensuring greater collaboration and efficiency. This update allows more experienced technicians to supervise staff technicians regarding more complex jobs, giving staff technicians an opportunity to experience hands-on learning. Overall, having multiple technicians on a single job improves efficiency by allowing you to align and prioritize your technician resources.
In addition to the multiple technician updates, we also released the Inventory Activity Feed. To ensure smooth operations and profitability, it's crucial to understand the flow of money. Inventory plays a necessary role in this process and with this update, shop owners now have an extra eye to spot inconsistencies in pricing and quantity. This new feature allows shops to monitor key changes made to parts inventory, identify and rectify errors and enhance operational efficiency and employee training initiatives.
As we move into Q3, we continue to strive for further updates that increase productivity within internal operations or streamline the customer experience from the first touchpoint until repair completion and beyond.
Commitment to Education and Learning Opportunities in the Industry
In an industry as complex as auto repair, there is no shortage of learning opportunities to improve your shop or learn how to incorporate customer feedback into our ongoing improvements.
At Tekmetric, we value a commitment to growing our knowledge base and sharing that with our peers at various events, whether it be in-person conferences or through webinars. Our dynamic duo John Phelps and P.J. Leslie attended WorldPac STX in Nashville, Tennessee in late April to share with repair shops key strategies to boost profits through enhanced customer experiences. Their presentation included leveraging digital tools and enhancing the digital buying experience, transforming buyer trends into revenue drivers and customer retention through excellent experiences.
From there, P.J. had two additional speaking opportunities at Thoroughbred Diesel in Winchester, Kentucky and AASPA Tools in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in the month of May where he presented on How Customer Experience Can Change An Industry. At both events, he shared his expertise regarding digital purchasing experiences, leveraging trends for revenue growth, mastering customer retention strategies, and surpassing expectations of the CX generation. Additionally, John Phelps, made an appearance on the Changing the Industry podcast where he discussed Career Shifts and Setting Industry Standards. At Tekmetric, we believe that the desire to give and improve the lives of our customers is ultimately what will drive your business to reach its full potential.
We participated in the ASI & ASTA Summer Social in Apex, North Carolina which provided an opportunity to network and connect with shop owners and tire dealers from the area. Our participation at these events helps us better understand your needs, fueling our commitment to product innovation and excellence in customer experience.
Tekmetric also aims to support our shop owners in sharing their own insights and lessons about measuring up in today’s industry through the webinars that we host. This quarter, we hosted a webinar entitled “Confessions of A Shop Owner,” which included Travis Troy, owner of Honest Wrenches, along with Ward Myers, VP of Training and eServices at Advance Auto Parts, Gregg Rainville, SVP at Steer, and Ian Miller, Partner Manager at Tekmetric. The key points were all about defining and developing shop culture and leveraging technology to be more efficient in the auto repair space.
Prioritizing Data Security
We recently increased our benchmark in data security by earning SOC 2 Type II compliance. Tekmetric meets the five principles that are required which include: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy. With SOC 2 Type II compliance, we are able to keep any information that you put into Tekmetric secure, from your shop’s data to your customers’ information. This gives us more confidence that as we continue to improve the quality of Tekmetric, we are also ensuring the security of everything that is entrusted to us.
Keeping Our Foot on the Gas
As we close out the first half of the year, Tekmetric aims to use our customer-centric approach as the fuel that ignites our product innovation. Through our commitment to attending industry events and listening to customer feedback, Tekmetric meets its customers where they are, with constant plans to keep innovating and improving. We head into Q3 with our customer-obsessed mentality to continue improving and streamlining shop operations with Tekmetric.
Some of the minds behind Tekmetric have been exactly where you are: running a shop and trying to maintain that fine balance between success for your team, success for your customers, and success for your business.
And we know there's always that extra .001 millimeter room for improvement, which is why we set out to help shops find and make those improvements. Everything about Tekmetric is about making your shop better!
But we also know that you spend a lot of time running your shop, and that’s why we’re happy to do that heavy lifting. Part of the natural byproduct of helping great shops get better is we have a lot of data and a lot of insight into how shops can, and maybe even should, operate.
That's the beauty of modern cloud-based shop management systems, they provide businesses like yours with a strong foundation of organization, simplicity, and functionality to run your shop, with the flexibility and freedom to run it in whatever way works best for you.
Looking specifically at the first half of 2023, we set out to gather a high-level view of the entire independent auto repair industry alongside unique Tekmetric shop data to understand how shops like yours can save time, improve operations, and bolster your profit margins.
The goal behind our latest industry index report was simple: we wanted to make it as easy as possible for shops like yours to take advantage of all that amazing data and industry expertise we've gathered along the way.
Keep cars on the road, customers happy, and your team supported for a successful business.
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