He and Sunil Patel started Tekmetric in 2016, and today, it’s become the preferred auto tech software in the auto repair industry.
Prasanth’s success prompted Authority Magazine to contact him for an interview on the formula for scaling success.
Below are just a few excerpts of Prasanth’s interview with Ken Babcock (CEO of Tango), along with bonus content for any entrepreneur seeking to scale their business.
Scaling with People
Let’s look at each component.
The Right People.
First, you have to have the team that serves your company the best.
At Tekmetric, we learned this the hard way. We had a phenomenal idea — but our first team wasn’t comprised of exactly all the people we needed.
And that meant we failed in the first round. It was disappointing, but we learned a valuable lesson, and the next round, we hired people based on the talents we knew we needed. It was the right move, and it set us in the right direction toward success. In fact, many of the team members from this second group are still with us today.
Tekmetric’s People Today: The Best Support in the Industry
Today, Tekmetric has a growing team of people working in various departments, such as customer support, sales, product development, and human resources.
Walk into our Houston headquarters, and you’ll see people from all backgrounds catching up on their week, discussing the next product update, or talking about the future of our company over a cup of coffee.
A large portion of our team works remotely. We have employees across the United States, including: </p><ul>
Cleveland, OH
Washington, DC
Denver, CO
San Diego, CA
But no matter where our team members are, one of the big things they have in common is that they’re passionate about providing Tekmetric’s customers with the best experience and support possible.
Our support team in particular is easy to get in touch with.
Customers don’t have to spend hours listening to annoying “waiting” music on the phone or anxiously sitting in front of their computers for a response to a support ticket.
The Tekmetric support team acts to get questions answered quickly and any issues resolved fast.
After all, auto tech software needs to move at the pace of the auto repair industry—fast—and support is an important part of that process.
Having the idea is great; getting it right as you grow is vital. You may not have the details fully fleshed out, but you must know what you want to do and the tools you need to get there.
I’ve always said, if you have a goal in mind, and you don’t know how to get there, then you’re doing something right.
If you do know how to get there, you’re not thinking big enough. Think long and hard about what you want your business to look like.
Once you figure out those initial steps and orient yourself in the right direction, you can think ahead to challenges like growing and scaling.
Tekmetric’s Direction Today: Driving the Auto Repair Industry Into the Future
The Tekmetric team keeps a close eye on what’s happening in the auto repair industry so that we can stay one step ahead when it comes to driving the auto repair industry into the future.
For example, Tekmetric listened to its customers’ desires for a true two-way texting feature, which enables shops and their customers to communicate more seamlessly than ever before.
Tekmetric also frequently adds to its list of integrations with industry-leading tools so that shop owners can set up workflows that work best for them.
And Tekmetric listens to what shop owners, technicians, and service advisors are saying, taking their feedback and suggestions into account.
We know that we cannot do this on our own, and respect the contributions of people throughout the industry.
Scaling Your Finances
As you scale your business, be intentional with your finances.
When you start making profit, don’t take that as a sign to relax financially. You need to find the right balance. The biggest thing at Tekmetric has been knowing when to expand and take on extra resources.
A lot of companies start with an idea, raise a ton of capital and try to build something gigantic, and they don’t move strategically.
Before you scale, look at your resources: are you using funding efficiently?
Are your people paid too little, or too much? I think about it like a car — I wouldn’t put it on the road with no gas or unaligned tires. The same applies to your company and its resources.
Tekmetric’s Finances Today: New Funding, New Horizons
As Prasanth told Authority Magazine, we’re always intentional about our finances. Ultimately, financial intentionality from the get-go is what enables us to get the right resources in place to offer shops auto tech software that doesn’t break the bank with astronomical pricing.
Part of our financial strategy includes securing funding. In December of 2021, we raised a fresh round of funding from Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE).
We’re using our funding to scale by adding more people to our engineering and technical teams. We’re also going to enhance our product, so it continues to meet the needs of shops as the industry evolves.
We are grateful to connect with such excellent funding partners and the opportunity to fund our next stage of growth.
Preparing for Growth
Inevitably as you’re scaling your business, you’re going to hit a roadblock. Expect roadblocks. You have to be okay with this, and you need to be prepared to pivot, realign and take on a new plan.
That might mean a project takes another quarter, or that you lost a deal because you couldn’t deliver results.
For Tekmetric, sometimes a feature doesn’t go as planned or is released late. We might have a big enterprise client that’s upset with us because they’re not getting the results they want.
Having a stomach for those things and realigning as needed is crucial. Not everything goes perfectly as planned, and that’s part of the scaling journey.
Tekmetric’s Preparation Today: Work Hard, Play Hard
We’ve come a long way as a team since the early days of our business. Now that we have a large team, we’ve put an even greater focus on learning and training—both internally and externally.
We hold in-house product training sessions to make sure everyone across the company understands our auto tech software and the people we serve. Understanding the ins and outs of the software is what enables each member of the team to do their best work for our customers.
We also train people externally, encouraging them to get professional certifications in their fields.
We’re always on the lookout for the best talent. Our people and culture team actively seeks new talent to bring to Tekmetric.
By retaining and hiring people at the top of their game, we’re ready to pivot at a moment’s notice. If something doesn’t go as we expected, or we want to see something exist that doesn’t exist yet, we roll up our sleeves and build.
We work hard, but we play hard, too. Throwing some fun into the mix is a vital reason why we’re able to adapt and respond to challenges so well. Our weekly breakfasts are a popular tradition.
Every Wednesday, people at our Houston headquarters and San Angelo, TX office mingle and munch on whatever is on the menu (which can range from delicious donuts to breakfast tacos… after all, we’re in Texas! Breakfast tacos are a must).
People also hang out for lunches, happy hours, local events—they just want to connect with the people they work with each day.
Persistence During The Growing Pains
Finally, don’t stop challenging yourself and looking to build your business. Success is the result of a journey, not a result alone.
Being an entrepreneur is a journey, and it’s always evolving.
Your business is not a standstill component — it’s a growing entity that needs to be nurtured. It’s a journey that keeps growing and evolving, and it keeps getting nurtured.
You have to enjoy the process and create new goals to maintain your progress, even as you reach old goals.
Tekmetric’s Persistence Today: One Mile at a Time
Our philosophy is that good auto tech software needs to evolve with the times.
We didn’t just create a stagnant product that we sell to shop owners year after year. We’re always striving to iterate and innovate; we want our existing customers and the new shops we get in front of to have access to the best of the best features.
That’s not to say we haven’t hit some speed bumps along the way.
A few flat tires are a part of life. But we work through those challenges as a team because we have the end goal in sight: driving the auto repair industry forward one mile at a time so shop owners can provide world-class service to their customers and provide great lives to their team members.
2024 was a big year for Tekmetric and for the shops we support. Thank you to all the shops that supported us this year and for allowing us to be your partner. Find our 2024 highlights below.
Key customer wins
Tekmetric exists to help shops be more efficient and more profitable. Here are some of the notable wins our shops achieved in 2024:
Number of cars worked on: 28 million +
Number of Tekmetric releases: 44
Hours saved by adding a Smart Job to an RO: 4,700 + Hours
Number of photos added to inspections: 50 million +
Transactions processed through Tekmetric shops: 1.6 million + ($900 million processed)
Average ARO: $913.35 (That’s 167% higher than the national average!)
Top features used by customers:
Digital Vehicle Inspections
Two-Way Messaging
Smart Jobs
Tekmetric Payments
Counter Sales
Top product releases
Mobile app
Tekmetric Mobile allows shops to perform inspections faster and streamline their workflows. It is available for free in the Apple and Google app stores.
Tire suite
Our tire shop software helps shop owners streamline their operations, invoices, tire ordering, inventory management, and ensures regulatory compliance.
Payments
Tekmetric Payments received a rebrand in 2024 with it being added into the Tekmetric main portal plus more financing partnerships.
2024 Awards
G2
Tekmetric took home more hardware in 2024 including the G2 badges for most implementable, best usability and momentum leader. Ultimately, this led us to be ranked first for best auto shop management software by G2.
Silver Stevie Award
Tekmetric received the 2024 Silver Stevie Award for fastest growing tech company.
Houston Business Journal
Tekmetric earned a top 25 ranking in the best places to work for in 2024.
Top events
SEMA/APPEX
This year, Tekmetric had a significant presence at SEMA and APPEX. Our primary focus was on mobilizing and engaging with our customer base, driving demand for Tekmetric solutions, and increasing brand awareness.
At SEMA, the largest automotive trade show in the USA, which attracts about 140,000 attendees, we hosted the 5th Quarter and Yeti Giveaway Happy Hour event in our booth on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. This event featured drinks, snacks, and a raffle for a Yeti Prize Package, creating a relaxed and engaging networking atmosphere during the last hour of the show.
Vision
VISION Hi-Tech Training & Expo, a premier automotive service event for over 30 years, annually drew over 3,500 attendees. Focused on employee training, it offered hands-on lessons for technicians, service advisor training, and management sessions. The 2024 conference, held from February 19th to March 3rd at the Overland Park Convention Center, covered technical practices, standard operating procedures, KPIs, and service advisor sales approaches.
Tekmetric had a booth at this event, providing valuable networking and learning opportunities. The event also served as a marketing platform for top automotive companies to host sessions, sponsor, and exhibit, connecting with dedicated professionals and contributing to industry excellence. Additionally, we co-hosted a happy hour with Steer on March 1st, which allowed us to interact with more attendees in a relaxed and engaging setting.
Shop Hackers
The Tekmetric team attended Shop Hackers in early August as a Platinum Sponsor. Shop Hackers was one of Tekmetric’s key strategic events of the year, with a large portion of attendees being Tekmetric customers. Our focus as a revenue team was to ensure we leveraged the event and overall investment to:
Mobilize and engage our customer base.
Drive demand and adoption of Tekmetric solutions.
Generate brand awareness and visibility for Tekmetric.
At this event, we had the opportunity to speak directly with attendees and presented Tekmetric Unveiled: Latest Features and Upcoming Innovations, showcasing our newest developments and exciting future plans. We also launched the MVP Customer Advocacy Program, which allows us to recognize and engage our most valued customers. To further enhance the experience, we invited four of our customer shops to attend the event and share their experiences with Tekmetric.
Closing Thoughts
2024 was a big year for Tekmetric and the shops we support. As we look ahead to 2025, we are excited to join forces with Shopgenie and provide even more ways to streamline your shop operations. Lastly, thank you to all of the shops that allowed us to serve you in 2024 and we can’t wait to see what you + Tekmetric accomplish in 2025.
Auto repair shops might bulk order carbon copies, or you might find a template online and print as many copies as your shop needs. Or, if your shop uses digital templates, you might have to deal with time-consuming digital file management.
Filling out the forms over and over, be it by handwriting or typing, can become tedious. And both options are less than ideal for record-keeping.
Paper can get lost, and digital files can become overwritten or corrupted. Both approaches are inconvenient and ultimately slow things down at your shop. And the impression you give during the payment process can determine whether those customers return or not.
Here are four reasons why a shop management system is better than an auto repair invoice template approach for your business.
As the auto repair industry continues to evolve, adaptability to changing customer needs is crucial to delivering a top-notch customer experience. When it comes to choosing an auto repair shop, customers are more likely to prefer a shop that is easy to do business with over the nearest shop. For the modern customer – an increasingly digital generation sometimes called Generation CX – the customer experience is paramount. One of the ways to curate an invaluable customer experience is to leverage the trends of today’s customers. Using these trends alongside the knowledge gained from your shop’s data, you can create an experience that is transparent, convenient and efficient.
Tekmetric’s Industry Index Report, pinpoints key trends around customer needs and expectations. In a recent webinar with Ratchet and Wrench, we discussed how you can use these trends to propel your business. By leveraging the trends within the report in conjunction with your shop’s performance metrics, you can tailor your approach to enhance your customer experience, drive revenue and ultimately boost your bottom line.
Efficient operations drive revenue
Efficient shops create more revenue opportunities by completing repairs quickly and effectively. When you streamline your processes, you enable your team to accomplish more in less time, without sacrificing quality. Efficiency creates smoother customer interactions and reduced wait times. This translates to a seamless customer experience – a key driver of satisfaction and repeat business that drives profits and increases your bottom line.
Several tools are available that can improve your efficiency, thereby helping you repair more vehicles in less time. For instance, Tekmetric’s Smart Jobs feature allows service writers to create jobs in just one click depending on the customer’s vehicle type by automatically pulling the correct labor time, sourcing the parts and applying relevant matrices based on the job selected. By reducing the number of clicks, your service advisors save time on creating repair orders (ROs). Instead, they can focus on answering customer questions and delivering an exceptional customer experience.
Convenient communication increases customer trust
Today, there are over 250 million vehicles on the road that are more than 12 years old and will inevitably need repairs. On average, shops see customers twice a year – and the majority will seek a shop they trust. Transparency and communication build strong levels of trust, resulting in a significant impact on the shop’s overall performance. Clear and convenient communication with the customer about repairs can streamline the approval process in the short term, as well as increase your average repair order (ARO) in the long term.
Customers expect clear communication and visibility in the repair process. One tool that supports these expectations is a digital vehicle inspection (DVI). DVIs allow your shop to send visual reports of inspection findings directly to your customers, keeping them informed and engaged throughout the repair process. DVIs can be shared via email or text, so your customer can conveniently access them and approve the work even when they are not physically at your shop. Through DVIs, a shop can share data in the form of photos and videos, encouraging customers to make informed, data-driven decisions. This digital tool goes a long way in building trust as vehicle owners can gain a deeper understanding of the repairs you recommend. Vehicle owners can prioritize the immediate repairs while also having a record of additional work, like a tire rotation, that needs to be done in three months.
Another way to build trust through clear communication is through two-way texting. This feature facilitates instant communication, enabling your customers to authorize repairs, ask questions or provide feedback in real time. For example, shops using Tekmetric can communicate directly with vehicle owners through two-way texts, even creating a repair order or appointment based solely on a text – no calls necessary! Customers know they can reach your shop anytime, from anywhere, and their needs will be met.
Together, two-way convenient communication and DVIs significantly increase the likelihood of customers accepting your shop’s recommended repairs, increasing your ARO and ultimately driving revenue growth.
Personalized customer experiences promote loyalty
Personalized customer experiences are another revenue driver. By adding a personal touch to the customer’s experience, you can go beyond the standard service offerings to create tailored experiences that bring customers back time and time again.
One key aspect of personalized experiences is the integration of digital payment options, such as “buy now, pay later” or text-to-pay. According to the Tekmetric’s Industry Index, only 16% of shops have tapped into the potential of text-to-pay options – but these options have tremendous potential in building customer relationships. Tekmetric’s solution enables your shop to offer customers the convenience of digital payment methods such as Apple Pay, Google Pay or text-to-pay. This not only streamlines the payment process but also caters to modern consumer preferences, making transactions faster and more convenient.
Additionally, “buy now, pay later” options powered by Affirm or Klarna allow your customers to get the repairs they need and pay over time, supporting their financial needs without negatively impacting your shop’s revenue. By alleviating some of the financial burden of repairs with “buy now, pay later,” you can better empower the vehicle owner to make an informed decision on repairs without breaking their bank. Tekmetric has witnessed the power of digital payment solutions: in the past year, 60% of customers at our partner shops were approved for financing, with 62% of them utilizing this option. The average transaction amount is $567 for card payments and $1,883 for "buy now, pay later" purchases on our platform.
Tying it all together to transform your customer experience
Efficiency, personalization and convenience are all traits that you can prioritize to maximize profit and create a noteworthy customer experience. Technology can do so much for businesses at its foundation, but taking it to the next level within the customer experience makes a significant difference. By leveraging technology to create a strong experience, you can set your shop up for success far into the future and measure up, by every measure.
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)