Alex recently sat down with Ratchet + Wrench Radio to discuss a whitepaper she authored on how shop owners can identify inefficiencies in their shops. During the conversation, she discussed how shop owners can recognize these inefficiencies and fix them with shop management software.
Here are some of the highlights from the podcast.
Alex Bunkers: "The saying time is money is no truer than in the automotive industry.
You're literally charging people time. I don't know of a single shop owner that would say they love having to dig through a file cabinet to find an old RO or a purchase order, and it's hard to keep track of tech hours on a journal or spreadsheet (which, we have some shops that come to us doing that).
So having a shop management system allows you to stop spending time in your business and more time on your business—or just more time at home or on vacation with your family."
As any shop owner knows, running a business is an art and a science. Yes, shop owners need to listen to their intuition, but they also need to follow the data.
Tekmetric generates several real-time reports that help shop owners track their key metrics for specific date ranges.
As service advisors punch key repair details into Tekmetric, the system tracks it all, and then generates real-time reports.
Tekmetric saves shop owners time spent calculating their metrics, so they can instantly access insights and spend more time thinking through what those numbers tell them.
By taking their time back, shop owners can grow their shops faster and more methodically."
Alex Bunkers: “You probably do have some idea if you work in a shop what your bottlenecks are. But before you start, evaluate where your bottlenecks are formally. I would start, actually, with breaking out all the processes in your shop into two tracks.
The first one being all of your customer-facing things and kind of a step-by-step of what your customer goes through.
And that's something we like to call the customer journey. For most shops, this is probably going to look something like vehicle drop off, DVI and diagnosis, send the estimate approval, order parts, right, all the way through to payment and pickup. T
he second track would be all the back office things you do, your inventory audits, parts reconciliations, right, things that aren't part of the customer journey."
With streamlined workflows, auto repair shop teams are more unified. They can collaborate from one central hub, all while playing to their unique strengths.
Shop management software with workflow features, like Tekmetric, simplifies the process of streamlining workflows. Shop owners can set up manageable, trackable, adjustable workflows that minimize communication gaps and inefficiencies.
Tekmetric offers three main workflow tools for shops: the Job Board, the Tech Board, and DVIs.
The first is the Job Board, which gives service advisors a whiteboard-esque view of every repair order moving along at the shop, so they can track the progress of each repair and everything is humming along smoothly.
Next, there’s the Tech Board, which shows service advisors what’s on each technician’s repair to-do list and how far along they are with their assigned tasks, so they can know which technician is free to take on the next repair.
Finally, with digital vehicle inspections (DVIs), technicians can pinpoint issues and suggest necessary repairs, send the information to service advisors to create estimates, and then send the estimates directly to customers’ devices.
These three workflow features help service advisors and technicians reduce miscommunication and stay organized.
Alex Bunkers: “When you don't track metrics or take a serious role in orchestrating your customer journey, you're leaving money on the table.
We've worked with thousands of shops during my time at Tekmetric and I definitely notice a correlation between the annual sales of the owners who are actively involved in the operations, building the structure, training their teams, and tracking metrics, versus those who are having a hard time just staying on top of everything.
So, sometimes you have to make yourself slow down to speed up."
Let’s look back one more time at the importance of analyzing the data. It only takes an hour each week, or two hours every other week, to dive deep into real-time reports and monitor how things are going.
For example, spending a few minutes each day just to thoroughly analyze the End-of-Day Report can yield a wealth of insights into how to make more money for your shop and take back time in other parts of the day.
Examining the data makes it easier to know how your shop is doing on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis, and course-correct more intentionally as needed.
You’re looking for the right tool for your shop: something that can manage your shop's workflow efficiently, free you up to spend your time on important shop decisions, and grow your bottom line.
How do you know if a system is designed to grow your business? At the very least, it must measure your business. If a shop management system cannot accurately measure shop performance, it can’t tell you whether or not using that system has improved your business.
Although our goal is to help you determine the best ways you can enhance your auto repair shop profit margin, we’re still going to shoot straight with you: opening a shop isn’t easy. You’re going to have to put in some hard work, but exceeding your goals will be well worth it. Along the way you’ll learn new things through trial and error and encounter some unexpected challenges, but who doesn’t when they step outside of their comfort zone, pursuing something they’re passionate about?
One question you may have is, "Is it even a good time to start an auto repair business?" That's a tricky question to answer. Coming off the heels of a pandemic in an economy that has seen better times might scare any new business owner. But remember, some of the most long-standing businesses were started during economic recessions.
Although there’s been better times to start an auto repair business, your shop can still be successful. And it’s clear that the demand for automotive repairs isn't going anywhere.
Take a look at these statistics on the latest automotive repair trends:
As you can see, the need for vehicle repairs will likely increase due to the fact that drivers are choosing to stick to their trusty ol’ vehicles rather than opting for a shinier new ride. But regardless of whether the auto repair industry’s profit trends are growing or plateauing, making smart business decisions will not only prepare your shop for future transformation but also help your shop survive disruptive trends in the future.
Let’s get to boosting your shop’s short and long-term profits.
We’ve listed each of these tactics in the order you should take during each of your business growth phases: the seed stage, the start-up stage, the established stage, or the expansion stage. The order of these 10 tactics does not determine their importance; each tactic complements one another to put your shop in the fast lane to success.
Fast Facts
Auto repair shops are under more pressure than ever. Tighter margins. A technician shortage that isn't going away. Customers who expect speed, transparency, and a frictionless experience every time they walk through your door.
Yet many shops are still running on disconnected systems, manual workarounds, and processes that haven't changed in a decade. The result? Bottlenecks that bleed time, stall revenue, and cap growth — often without the shop owner even realizing it.
This is the problem a recent ShopOwner webinar, sponsored by Tekmetric, tackled head-on. The conversation centered on one deceptively simple idea: the connected shop.
In this article, you'll learn what a connected shop workflow looks like in practice, how one multi-shop operator doubled monthly revenue after switching to Tekmetric, where the most common operational bottlenecks are hiding in your estimating process, and how features like SmartJobs, parts and labor matrices, and good/better/best estimates can raise your average repair order (ARO) — the average dollar amount collected per repair order — without adding headcount.
A connected shop isn't just about having software. It's about having the right systems talking to each other — and having your team actually use them.
John Phelps, director of channel partnerships at Tekmetric, put it plainly: "Just because you have an oven, that doesn't make you a chef. You can have the technology, but if you're not leveraging it properly, what good is it doing?"
That distinction matters. Technology for its own sake is another bill. Technology deployed with intention — one that connects estimates, parts ordering, inspections, payments, and customer communication into a single workflow — is a growth engine.
Tekmetric is built to be exactly that. With 70-plus integrations, built-in digital vehicle inspections (DVIs — digital inspection forms that capture photos, videos, and findings shared directly with customers), real-time reporting, and a native mobile app for technicians and service advisors, it's designed so every step of the repair order (RO) flows into the next without friction, duplication, or lost data.
Tim Lanier knows what a revenue ceiling feels like. As president and CEO of Lanier Auto Group — which today operates four rooftops in the northern Atlanta suburbs — he spent years running a single shop that simply could not break through a certain monthly revenue level.
"We were stuck," Lanier said during the webinar. "We had our ways of doing things. A lot of copy-paste out of catalogs into the shop management system."
In March 2020, he made the switch to Tekmetric.
"As soon as we made that change, it opened the door to a lot of new possibilities — some of which we just didn't anticipate." He added: "We probably doubled our sales in about two years once we made the switch."
At the time of switching, Lanier's single rooftop was generating roughly $200,000 per month. Two years later, that number had climbed to approximately $400,000 — a structural shift in what the business was capable of, not just an incremental gain.
What unlocked it? A connected workflow that brought parts ordering, DVIs, payments, accounting, marketing, and inventory into one platform. The glass ceiling, as Phelps framed it, became a paper ceiling. And Lanier's team broke right through it.
When Phelps asked Lanier to name the single biggest operational bottleneck he's had to overcome, the answer was immediate: the estimating process.
"If you don't come up with systems to streamline things, that person becomes the bottleneck in the shop," Lanier said. "Some tickets can take 30 minutes to an hour to find all the parts and pieces you need for big jobs."
His solution? Get technicians directly involved — and give them the tools to act on that involvement.
"We've empowered the technicians by giving them a computer at their bay and a dual monitor setup so they can go straight into Tekmetric, pull up PartsTech, use diagrams and photos to quickly identify the exact part they need, and put the part on the ticket," he explained.
The result: estimates arrive at the service advisor roughly 90% complete. Advisors clean up grammar, add photos, and present. That's it. No back-and-forth. No shouting across the shop floor.
This is the connected shop in practice. Tekmetric's integration with PartsTech means technicians can search multiple suppliers in one lookup, confirm part specifications, and add items to ROs without leaving the platform. What once took an hour can be compressed into minutes — with fewer errors and fewer return trips.
One of the most overlooked drivers of ARO growth isn't sales technique — it's consistency.
Phelps highlighted this during the webinar: if a customer calls back a week later asking for a brake quote and gets a number $50 different from what they were told before, trust breaks down. Inconsistency in how estimates are built — varying labor rates, different parts markups, or service advisors quoting from memory — costs shops money and customers.
Tekmetric addresses this directly. Parts matrices and labor matrices create a consistent pricing foundation so every estimate reflects the shop's actual margins, regardless of which advisor builds the ticket or when. SmartJobs — Tekmetric's proprietary canned job system that automatically pre-populates parts, labor, and job notes for common services — takes this further by ensuring the right components populate every time, on every RO.
"If you're not using SmartJobs, powered by PartsTech, in Tekmetric, reach out to support, get your SmartJobs set up, and you'll be taking a massive step forward,” Jake Benson, director of strategic accounts at PartsTech, said during the webinar.
Economic uncertainty means customers are making tighter decisions. Giving them options isn't just good customer service — it's good business.
In Tekmetric, shops can build a good/better/best estimate structure without starting from scratch three times. Build the base estimate, duplicate it, add parts or labor for each tier, and text all three options to the customer. A built-in checkbox at the job level keeps declined or unchecked options out of close ratio reporting, so advisors aren't penalized for presenting choices.
The same system works for tires, fluid services, brake packages, or any job where tiered pricing makes sense. Shops that present options consistently report higher approval rates and stronger customer relationships — because customers feel informed rather than pressured.
Lanier's growth from one rooftop to four over the last four years didn't happen by accident. He credits systems and processes — and the ability to replicate them — as the core of that expansion.
"Once you figure out your systems and processes, things begin to click," he said. "It all becomes a lot easier."
Tekmetric is built to scale with that ambition. Whether you're running a single shop or managing multiple rooftops, the platform gives ownership real-time visibility into performance across every location — ARO, technician efficiency, close ratio, and more — without requiring an extra step to pull the data.
The connected shop isn't a future state. For shops like Lanier Auto Group, it's already the standard. The question is whether yours is built the same way.
Watch the full on-demand webinar from Tekmetric and PartsTech — How to Simplify Shop Operations and Increase Your Average Repair Order — and hear directly from shop owners and industry experts on the strategies and tools driving real results in 2026.
Thought Leadership
May 14, 2026
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