From what we see, there’s a lot that shop owners get right. They understand how to lead their teams, grow their shops, and bring trust and transparency to their customers. But as a former trainer and franchise performance specialist, I do notice a lot of little inefficiencies that add up.
Tekmetric touches every part of running your shop -- from managing customer information and measuring business metrics to facilitating digital vehicle inspections, repair order workflows, and even payment processing.
One common thing I see at repair shops is an overflowing parts return shelf. Often those parts have a thick layer of dust from sitting there for months or even years.
When I see those full shelves, I see dollars (think of a cartoon character with dollar signs for eyes—that's me when I see these overflowing return shelves). Don’t let those dollars sit on your shelves; put them back in your pocket!
Here’s how.
Set expectations with your team.
When I worked in the shop, we had a 24-hour rule for returns. Unless there’s a specific reason, no part should stay on the shelf for more than 24 hours. We were so tenacious about parts returns that the delivery team members started catching on and checking the shelves without us even asking.
Have a linear process for ensuring the returns are complete.
A critical component of Tekmetric is the built-in core/parts return function. From marking a part “needing to be returned” to “refund complete” and confirming the credit on your parts invoice, having a tool that helps manage this process will help protect your margins.
Set a reminder.
Put a reminder on your phone or computer for the last business day of the month to ensure that your parts shelf is clear. Tekmetric makes it easy to know which parts need to be picked up; just compare the Parts Purchased Report to the Parts Usage Report. If there are any parts, call those vendors and get them picked up!
2. Track Your Marketing Sources
What does your marketing strategy currently look like? Maybe you’re paying for signs on the local high school’s baseball field, or ads in grocery store brochures. Or maybe you’re paying for billboards on busy roads, or sending out bulk mailers.
No matter which marketing tactics you’re using, it’s vital that you track the return on investment for each campaign you roll out to maximize auto repair shop profitability. For instance, if you decide to spend $2,500 on a mass mailing campaign that features an oil change coupon, you should keep track of how many customers walk into your shop with that coupon.
After the coupon’s expiration date, you’ll know exactly how much revenue that mass mailing campaign generated for your shop. If the revenue wasn’t high enough, that’s a sign that you should try a different marketing tactic.
Tekmetric simplifies the process of tracking the ROI you’re getting from different marketing sources. Within Tekmetric, service advisors can select a custom marketing source for each and every customer. At the end of the month, or whenever you choose to end your campaign, you can look at the RO Marketing Source Report to see exactly where each customer came from.
After you figure out the best marketing tactics to get customers flowing through your garage, you can really rev up your auto repair shop profitability by having your team…
3. Leverage Digital Vehicle Inspections (Because Seeing Is Believing)
“Your coolant reservoir is trash!” the technician exclaimed.
The customer in the lobby had wanted more details on why the shop was telling him he needed to pay $1,100 for the repair, so a young service advisor had brought in the technician to explain.
That young service advisor was me.
Oftentimes, telling someone that something is wrong with their car just isn’t enough to close the deal. Everyone is tightening their belts these days, and seeing an estimate for a couple thousand dollars can be really tough for many people to swallow.
However, when customers can actually see what they’re about to spend their money on, there is a significantly higher chance of them approving the repair.
The Tekmetric Difference
We see it time and time again: when shops start using Tekmetric’s built-in digital vehicle inspections (DVIs) to show customers the issues with their vehicles using photos and videos instead of trying to just explain the repairs in words, it builds trust, increases approvals, and boosts your shop’s Average Repair Order (ARO).
You can try to explain a repair all day, but the truth is, seeing is believing.
Role-based visibility means each person in your shop sees the numbers and screens their job actually requires, and not the ones it doesn’t. A technician sees their job queue, their assignments, and their hours. A service advisor sees the estimates, inspections, and customers in front of them today. A store manager sees one whole shop. An owner sees the whole portfolio.
Most multi-location operators get this half right. They are careful about what people can do and less careful about what people can see.
Visibility is not the same as permission
Permissions answer a question about authority: who can apply a discount, who can unpost a repair order, who can change a labor rate. That is worth getting right, and it gets harder with every location you add.
Visibility answers something different: whose attention is this number worth?
You can get every permission toggle exactly right and still hand all four roles the same crowded screen. Nobody's data is at risk in that setup, but everybody's attention and time is at stake.
One test that sorts almost every case
Ask this about any number, report, or screen: can this person affect the outcome and improve the bottom line?
If yes, they should see it daily, and without having to ask anyone for it. If not, showing it does not create accountability. It creates noise, and eventually the habit of ignoring the screen altogether. A technician staring at portfolio gross profit is not empowered. They are distracted from the numbers they own.
Run that test role by role to discover whether your employees have the right information in front of them.
What each role needs to see
Technicians
Needs: their job queue and assignments, hours logged against each job compared with the labor guide, parts status on jobs they are about to start, and the inspection findings they documented.
Doesn't need: portfolio revenue, shop-level gross profit, and another technician's hours or pay.
A technician's ability to make an impact on the shop's bottom line is entirely on the car in front of them. Hours and parts availability are the two things they control, and parts is the one operators most often overlook — a technician who can't see whether a part is on the shelf starts jobs they can't finish.
"It's also great to be able to see approved work and hours, and it helps us keep track of our hours efficiently." -Anecia Lewis, Tekmetric G2 review
Service advisors
Needs: the full job board for today, inspection results the moment the technician finishes them, complete customer history including declined work, and their own close ratio.
Doesn't need: other locations' performance, portfolio-level financials, and payroll.
Close ratio is the one to sit with. It is the number advisors most directly control, and the one most of them have never been shown. An advisor who doesn't know their own close ratio has no way to tell a slow week from a presentation problem.
Advisors also need one view that reaches past their own role: the technician job board. Not to manage technicians, but to route work.
"Another feature I value is the ability to view the job board for technicians, which lets me plan more effectively and assign vehicles to technicians who could use additional hours." -Verified service advisor, Tekmetric G2 review
Store managers
Needs: their shop, completely, including car count, ARO, close ratio by advisor, technician efficiency, work-in-progress aging, discounts applied, and end-of-day reconciliation.
Doesn't need: the other locations, unless comparing locations is genuinely part of the job.
This is the one most operators get backwards. Portfolio visibility feels like a gesture of trust, and it quietly changes the conversation: a manager judged on one shop who can see five shops will start explaining their own numbers by pointing at somebody else's. Give a manager the shop they are accountable for, and the discussion stays on their side of the desk.
Multi-location owners and ops leaders
Needs: the spread. Every location side by side on the same metrics, with the ability to drill into one shop, one advisor, or one date range when something looks off.
Doesn't need: individual repair orders, most days.
The temptation at this level is to use full access to go back to running a shop. Owners should assess the gap between their best location and the worst one — a rising portfolio average can hide one store sliding backward.
Owners who have done this describe the payoff in ordinary terms:
"Everything is online — I can work from home or at any of the terminals at any shop. I am able to set up different levels of access depending on the employee's position." -Verified multi-shop owner, Tekmetric G2 review
Both ways to get it wrong
Too much visibility costs you attention and, at the edges, discretion. Picture a technician scrolling past their own approved hours to reach a portfolio gross profit figure they can't act on, next to payroll data they were never meant to see. A screen that should have taken four seconds to read took 40, and the habit of skimming past it starts that day.
Too little costs you speed, and it costs more than operators expect. Advisors wait on approvals for information they should already have. Managers can't make a call on their own shop without phoning the owner. And technicians start work they cannot finish:
"Technicians can simply see if all parts are now in inventory or if we are waiting on them, keeping them from wasting time starting a job we're not ready for." -George, verified user, Tekmetric G2 review
How Tekmetric scopes visibility by role
Tekmetric is an all-in-one auto repair platform, allowing multi-shop auto repair operators to configure role and visibility together rather than as two separate projects.
New employees start from a default role — owner, manager, service advisor, or technician — each with granular permissions you can adjust, set up once and applied consistently at every location. Technicians see their job queue, their assignments, and their hours. Advisors build estimates, communicate with customers in front of them, and take payment. Managers get what they need to run their shop without touching another location's data. Owners see the full portfolio in real time from a single login.
The Job Board is where the advisor's view lives, sorting active work into estimates, work-in-progress, and completed. The Tech Board gives advisors and managers a live read on every job by technician, with status and labor hours, while technicians update status from their own device instead of walking to the front desk.
At the portfolio level, one dashboard carries ARO, car count, close ratio, gross profit, and technician efficiency for every location, filterable by shop, advisor, and date range. That filtering is what makes the same dashboard work for two different jobs: the portfolio view for an owner, one store for the person running it.
"The amount of information that is available to the front desk, the service advisor, and the technician at a glance is very impressive, and the functionality of it together is great." -Moises M., guest service representative, Tekmetric G2 review
The takeaways
Getting this right is unglamorous configuration work that pays out as speed. Here are three things to do with it:
Run the test on every role you have. For each number on their screen, ask whether that person can change it.
Give each role their own scope by default. Don't overload roles with information or data. Provide what they need and can impact.
Show your advisors their close ratio and your technicians their hours. Those are the two role-level numbers with the most direct line to ARO, and they are the two most often left switched off.
Then get out of the way and let each person look at the thing they can actually fix.
It is often said that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” When it comes to vehicle inspections, you could even say a photo is worth a thousand happy customers. Digital vehicle inspections (DVIs), complete with photos and videos, give your customers a clear picture of their vehicle’s status and empower them to make well-informed decisions regarding repairs. This not only enhances the customer experience but also fosters a culture of trust and builds long-lasting relationships. Take a look at three ways DVIs can drive growth and success in your shop:
1. Fostering trust with photos and videos of repairs for approval.
Digital vehicle inspections provide the clearest way your associates can tell a customer what you found within their vehicle and the possible solutions. Using the media the technician captures, the vehicle owner is empowered to make a knowledgeable decision based on your technical knowledge and experience.
Sending the customer six to eight photos and videos more than 50% of the time leads to a higher ARO. Not sending enough photos and videos may not give the customer enough information on the health of their vehicle. Conversely, too many images and videos can overwhelm the customer. Capturing the full state of the vehicle with just the right number of photos and videos facilitates a culture of transparency and builds trust with customers, enhancing their experience and leading to more repeat business.
2. Proactively monitoring overall vehicle health.
“I should only get my car inspected if something seems off.” Wrong! A great way to view DVIs is to think about them in terms of overall vehicle health. A thorough DVI can not only provide insight into the customer’s original complaint; it can also give you a full picture of other issues that might be impacting the vehicle or will in the future. Just as you might need blood work and X-Rays for a correct diagnosis from your doctor, a DVI done correctly can provide insight into the health of your vehicle and help technicians make strong, educated repair recommendations.
Completing a routine “check-up” with DVIs can verify if the vehicle is in top-notch shape or proactively identify issues a customer might not see. Even if a customer does not want regular check-ups, technicians can still complete a thorough DVI when the vehicle comes in for repairs and potentially prevent further issues down the road. DVIs go beyond simply making a profit. They are a tool used to build a relationship with customers and ensure their safety on the road.
3. Educating the customer with convenient, easy-to-understand explanations.
DVIs seek to leave no questions unanswered. When vehicle owners are presented with the option for a repair, they need to know two things: information about the problem and the benefits of the repair. This is where DVIs come in as an opportunity to educate the vehicle owner and give them the information they need to make the right decision.
With Tekmetric’s MotoVisuals integration, the recommended repairs in a DVI are accompanied by educational videos and animations that give more context to the issue and how the technician’s proposed repair can benefit the vehicle owner. This provides a greater understanding of the repair process for your customers – they can even share the videos with a car-minded partner or friend for a second opinion. By educating the customer on the purpose of a repair, it gives them more confidence in your shop.
Ultimately, DVIs lead to a higher close ratio and ARO because they present the information in a transparent manner that leads to greater trust. When vehicle owners can see the why behind their repairs and understand the value of the solutions you are offering them, they’re more likely to return. As a result, you are setting your shop to experience increased customer retention, stronger relationships with your customers and ultimately, greater profitability.
When it comes to auto repair, a great customer experience can make the difference between a customer returning for future repairs or not. At Tekmetric, we recognize the importance of creating an excellent experience for your shop’s customers that meets their expectations and keeps them returning again and again. To accomplish this, we strive to offer a solution that helps you meet four key pillars of the customer experience: convenience, comfort, trust and loyalty.
Convenience
For vehicle owners, choosing the most convenient shop is not necessarily about going to the closest shop. Rather, convenience is a matter of choosing the shop that makes their life easier.
With approximately 50% of all business shopping completed outside of regular business hours, convenience goes a long way – especially when it comes to auto repair. Customers may need to drop their vehicle off and pick it up later, rather than waiting in the lobby. They may even request to complete pick up after business hours. In all cases, convenient solutions can keep the pick-up process smooth and painless for both you and the customer.
Tekmetric’s two-way texting opens the door of convenience for vehicle owners. Two-way texting meets the customer where they are – anytime, anywhere. The vehicle owner can access updates to their repair process through a simple text, even from their office desk. Additionally, two-way texting can integrate with Tekmetric’s text-to-pay feature, so customers can pay from work or home, then come pick up the vehicle at their own convenience.
Comfort
Traditionally, we think of comfort in a physical sense. For example, we might say, “that chair is comfortable.” Customers choose who they do business with based on how comfortable of an experience they receive. Having the tools and resources that ease the tension inherent with getting a vehicle repaired is critical to making a customer feel comfortable. One example that is often overlooked is the payments experience.
With Tekmetric’s “Buy Now, Pay Later,” option, shop owners can offer vehicle owners the opportunity to complete necessary repairs and pay in installments over time. An experience like this can make vehicle repair affordable and comfortable, no matter what the customer’s budget is.
Trust
Trust between an auto repair shop and vehicle owners is paramount. Not only can it make the repair process smoother for all parties during the repair, but it also contributes to building a lasting relationship for future repairs. A customer is more likely to trust you when you have demonstrated that you can create an experience that is convenient, comfortable and transparent.
Digital vehicle inspections (DVIs) are a great opportunity to educate vehicle owners on the health of their car by providing them with recommended repairs accompanied by photos and videos. Through DVIs, technicians can offer a holistic, transparent evaluation of the customer’s vehicle by highlighting both areas in need of repair and parts that are working well. The result? Customers can gain a better understanding of the technician’s findings, making them more likely to approve work – and return for future repairs.
Loyalty
Prioritizing customer convenience, comfort and trust contributes to an enduring sense of customer loyalty. Building loyalty drives your shop’s bottom line in the long term. A good experience for one vehicle owner can lead to a domino effect within their personal network, as they return for future repairs and make referrals to others. Therein lies the hidden gem of long-standing, thriving businesses: strong customer loyalty.
One of the ways to strengthen customer loyalty is through education and clear communication. Our integration with MotoVisuals demonstrates Tekmetric’s commitment to education and clear communication by showing customers what is wrong with their vehicle instead of simply telling them. Informing vehicle owners about the health of their car accompanied with pictures and educational videos creates a dynamic that is forthcoming, honest and geared towards educating the customer while also ensuring the car gets repaired.
A customer-centric approach can drive your shop’s performance and establish an excellent customer experience. Use these four pillars – convenience, comfort, trust and loyalty – to drive your shop, and you will create a seamless experience for your customers from start to finish. Whether it’s meeting them where they are financially or educating them about a repair, you can establish a consistent, excellent experience that attracts and retains loyal customers now and far into the future.
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