There are some jobs that shops do day in and day out. With canned jobs, you can boost productivity and enhance your customers’ experience to create a more profitable business.
Repeat jobs are common in auto repair work. How often does a customer walk in and ask for something common like an oil change or a tune up? If you added it all up, how much time would you say that your team spends writing the same jobs?
Regardless of the job, your customers are relying on your team to provide the same quality experience as the last time they visited your shop or the same quality of service your team provided for their friend that referred the customer to you for an oil change. And if you own multiple shops, then your customers are expecting you to provide the same quality of service at each location.
So, how do you save time while providing a consistent and smooth customer experience for those common repairs you have done and will do time and time again?
Canned jobs.
Canned jobs (also referred to as canned services, pre-saved services, or service bundles) are templates that include all the parts and labor associated with common repair work. Using a canned job saves service advisors time from having to constantly enter the same information on service tickets.
But we've seen shop owners take canned jobs a step further. In addition to saving time, a solid canned jobs process makes it easier for repair teams to provide customers with the best of the best. An easy, efficient, and reliable canned jobs process leads to happy customers; happy customers lead to better customer retention; better customer retention increases shop profitability.
We're inspired by auto repair shops that use canned jobs to grow their business, which is exactly why canned jobs exist within our cloud-based shop management software to begin with. We’re always looking for ways to improve our canned jobs features by listening to shop owners, service advisors, and technicians. As we evolve to best meet you and your customers’ needs, you will find additional ways to make canned jobs more beneficial for your shop.
There are a lot of reasons why someone might choose to go to a specific repair shop. Some customers look up reviews, some get direct mail, some take recommendations from a friend or someone on Nextdoor, and some already have a favorite shop they’re loyal to.
Another complexity when it comes to the consumer psychology of drivers seeking repair work is that they often put it off. Drivers typically don’t go out of their way to purchase vehicle repairs.
There are plenty of things that we, as consumers, get excited to buy: the latest gadgets, golf clubs, or nice clothes. When we’re shopping for things we actually want to buy, we might take our time to shop around, look at all the options, and revel in the excitement of getting something new. But when we “shop” for auto repair work, all of that emotion and excitement sort of disappears.
Rather than joyfully picking out a new gadget, auto repair customers lean more towards, “Welp, gotta get this done. I need this, but I don’t want it. I wish there wasn’t a problem, just make it go away.” With that frame of mind, most customers just want their car to be back to normal without spending too much time or money.
The truth is a lot of people want to get back to the way their life was before they had a problem with their vehicle without thinking too hard about what parts to get or what all needs to be done. If they’re going to a repair shop, chances are they’re not interested in fixing it themselves.
Canned jobs give your team the ability to give your customers the experience they want. They make the buying experience easier, faster, and more convenient for your customers by limiting options. You don’t have to get into the knitty-gritty of every individual job included in something standard like a brake repair, so each customer can get in and out without having to make too many choices.
The convenience of canned jobs can keep your customers coming back for more. Okay, really their car acting up keeps them coming back, but they’ll choose your shop over others if you’ve made it easy, convenient, and affordable for them to solve their problems. With canned jobs, you can do just that.
How many repeat repair orders does your team do each week? Chances are you can think of at least three jobs that are created over and over. According to Brandon Gaille, general automotive repairs account for about 86% of repair work across the auto repair industry. If you’re able to create canned jobs for just a fraction of those general repairs, you’ll come in clutch for yourself and your team by getting lost time back.
The repairs your shop creates canned jobs for is entirely up to you, but they should be based on the common repairs you provide. Whether your shop focuses on exotic vehicle repairs, diesel engine repairs, fleet work, or standard independent garage clientele, you’ll want to create a list of canned jobs that are both common and replicable at your shop.
The systems and tools you use should benefit your team, your customers, and your business. When analyzing a platform for canned jobs, ask yourself: will this help my team work together faster and more effectively? Will it build trust with customers and exceed their expectations? And will it help me stay on top of all aspects of my shop?
By stepping outside of your comfort zone and exploring better solutions, you can uncover new opportunities, methods, and strategies to grow your business. For example, if you’re using an older system to manage ROs and canned jobs, you might be missing features like on-the-go access and real-time reports that could be a catalyst for taking your business to the next level. We know trying new systems can feel like a big change, but change is required if you want to kick things up a notch and accelerate your business.
We highly recommend using a shop management system that lets you save and customize canned jobs without leaving the system. Your service advisors should be able to add canned jobs to an RO in just a few clicks so that technicians can get to work faster and customers can get back on the road.
Consider how the shop management system’s other features integrate with canned jobs for an even more streamlined experience. For example, if your shop management system lets you conduct Digital Vehicle Inspections, you may want to see if it also lets you link inspection findings to their corresponding canned jobs.
While canned jobs can be considered a “secret weapon” for running a more profitable shop, it’s important to consider the other tools and features in your shop management system’s arsenal and how they integrate with canned jobs for an even more streamlined experience. Here are questions you might want to ask yourself when looking for a shop management system the effectively leverages canned jobs:
With the right shop management system, saving time, pleasing customers, and increasing your bottom line should be easy and intuitive. After all, the tools in your shop management software should be there to help you, your team, and kick your business into high gear.
You and your team work hard every day to accommodate your customers and deliver an exceptional customer service experience. We want to make your lives easier while doing just that. Tekmetric has carefully tailored our canned job experience to help your team sell more work faster and without the hassle. Tekmetric’s canned jobs board is here to meet your shop’s needs so that you can meet your customers’ needs.
According to a study by PWC, customers care most about speed, convenience, helpful employees, and friendly service. Businesses who get it right prioritize technologies that foster or provide these benefits over adopting technology for the sake of being cutting edge.
Investing in Tekmetric will help you elevate your customers’ experience, especially when using canned jobs to make their check in and estimating process more speedy and convenient.
A speedy and convenient customer experience not only leads to better customer retention, but also to new customers visiting your shop for their repairs. By providing a stellar customer experience at your shop to your loyal customers, your rating on Google will go up, your social media presence will be acknowledged and shared, and more customers will refer your shop to their friends and family.
According to a Nielsen report, 92% of consumers believe suggestions from friends and family more than advertising. Beyond friends and family, 88% of people trust online reviews written by other consumers as much as they trust recommendations from personal contacts. Providing your customers with speedy service, thanks in part to canned jobs, can lead to more satisfied customers, more referrals, and more profit. It’s an upward cycle for your business.
A solid process for inspections and estimates will maximize your service advisor’s chances of upselling and cross-selling work.
Tekmetric’s canned jobs help shops sell more work because customers don’t see it as a bunch of individual jobs. When you sell a canned job, it’s all lumped together, meaning that if there were some extra repair recommendations you found along with the canned job, they will be more likely to approve it.
Think back to the consumer psychology we discussed earlier. If I told you that you needed a new oil filter, oil change, labor, new brakes, an inspection for your suspension, a tire rotation, and a new AC filter, you might be like, “That’s a lot!” But if I said, “You need an oil change and an alignment, and you might want to consider new brakes and a new air filter,” that sounds more reasonable.
It’s all the same amount of repair work, but the former way of putting it sounds like I’m selling you seven things while the latter way of putting it just sounds like only four. To make your odds of selling more work even better, you can pair your canned jobs up with a digital vehicle inspection (DVI) process that gives customers an honest assessment of how they should prioritize their repair work.
Speed Auto Repair Owner Jim Brown said it best, “The digital vehicle inspections have all the pictures right there with typed up descriptions of what needs to be done. It’s much easier to sell a job when everything’s written on the inspection, and you have the pictures to back it up.”
A proven strategy for maximizing your shop’s profitability is upselling work. With digital vehicle inspections used in conjunction with canned jobs, service advisors can upsell recommended services more confidently and effectively. Yes, your service advisors run the risk of the customer declining the recommended service(s), but you can still increase your shop’s Average Written Repair Order (AWRO).
AWRO is crucial to your shop’s profitability goals; the more work your shop recommends, the more likely you are able to get approvals for work. In other words, you miss all the shots you don’t take. So writing all the work that needs to be done, even if it's just work that may be needed in the near-future, increases the chances of selling work. Worst case scenario, your shop has a declined job that you can follow up on later. You might not be getting the green light on all recommended services just yet, but you’re definitely adding the potential to see more work in the future.
Investing in a shop management system with a full suite of easy-to-use features will save your team time and headaches. With Tekmetric, you can align your shop’s estimate process to your inspection process to your repair process to your invoice process for a seamless experience.
Your service advisors can manage both customer relationships and technician productivity all from one dashboard—the Job Board. And as your service advisors are monitoring your technician’s progress on repairs, they can add canned jobs as needed in just a few clicks.
With Tekmetric, you can tie canned jobs to DVI findings. For example, your shop can create an AC inspection where any cooling system findings are linked to a “cooling system repair” canned job. So if a technician is performing that AC inspection, and they mark the cooling system as red, the service advisor can click the canned job icon next to the finding, and it will automatically populate on the estimate.
Having the capability of tying canned jobs to inspection findings will increase efficiency and streamline workflow at your shop.
By eliminating the time spent on tedious tasks, your team members will have more time to focus on safely getting customers back on the road.
The canned jobs you create at one shop can be saved and transferred across your other shops. So if you choose to expand beyond owning one shop, or if you already own multiple shops, you can create a consistent customer experience.
Transitional phases are never easy, so we wanted to make our shop management system mergeable for each of your business’ locations. Having the ability to bulk manage and centralize your business’ canned jobs will keep your customers’ experience consistently notable.
At Tekmetric, we’re known for our metrics. We track all sales data so you can gain accurate insights into what’s working and what isn’t working for your shop.
With Tekmetric, you have the opportunity to see:
Having the ability to track what parts are commonly used for repairs, which are longer-lasting, and who the preferred vendors are will help you determine what canned jobs will be most profitable at your shop, as well as which canned jobs you should replicate for future shops if you intend on expanding your business.
Stop spending more time sorting through parts to figure out what you need for the job than you spend actually repairing vehicles. Tekmetric’s Canned Jobs pull from your shop’s inventory to see what parts you already have on hand and what parts you may need to purchase. You can also set a parts markup on inventory items that are added to canned jobs to lock in your parts margin on those parts. This addition to your parts management strategy will cut out all the guesswork and streamline jobs.
The Tekmetric shop management system gives you and your team the ability to link the canned jobs you’ve added to an estimate. As your service advisors are drafting up estimates, they can automatically populate a canned job with the specific parts and prices your shop selects.
Empower your team to confidently navigate through Tekmetric’s Canned Job Board by easily viewing and sorting canned jobs. Your service advisors can filter out any noise to narrow in on their target by viewing the canned job’s title, total, category, or labor rate.
With Tekmetric’s canned jobs feature, your team will save time during the parts ordering stage and the estimate building stage. And as a shop owner, you know any time spent on tedious tasks can add up fast. Shaving off time here and there will ultimately make your team productive and efficient so that they can focus on bringing in more money and satisfying more customers.
Canned jobs are a secret weapon to maximize your shop’s profitability—especially when you’re armed with the highest caliber canned jobs platform on the market.
“We worked on our shop’s processes. We asked ourselves: how can we become more profitable? We worked on all of our systems. We perfected our customer intake, our checkout systems, and our digital inspections. We recreated all of our canned jobs so that when we got busy again, we were ready to roll. It simplified us overall. Tekmetric was a huge help in achieving our system overhaul.”
- Speed Auto Repair Owner Jim Brown
Tekmetric helps you provide your customers with quick and reliable services through effective teamwork and fine-tuned shop processes.
