Accelerating Excellence: A Roadmap of Our Q3 Achievements

Clare Corriveau

|

October 11, 2024

|

Read time: 3 min

The checkered flag is in sight, moving to the last stretch of the race at a good pace! As Tekmetric kicked off Q3, we focused on two main priorities: streamlining the customer experience and enhancing our relationships within the auto repair industry. With a customer-obsessed approach, Tekmetric is committed to driving product innovation through these two avenues, as we continue to evolve and better serve you – our partner shops.

Streamlining the Customer Experience from Beginning to End

This quarter, we made it our goal to continue helping shops improve the customer experience from start to finish. The customer experience involves streamlining operations at every level, so the vehicle can be safely repaired and back on the road as soon as possible. From estimate to the final payment, our end goal is to help you be as efficient as possible.

As part of our efforts this quarter, we sought to identify and eliminate bottlenecks to enhance shop efficiency while meeting customers where they want to be. We also implemented updates that many of you, our partner shops, have recommended to keep Tekmetric relevant to the entire shop experience. Together, these updates combine to create a stronger shop management system that helps your shop run smoothly and ultimately supports growth over time: 

  • Simpler Day-to-Day With Enhanced Data Integrations: With ALLDATA and TireFitment,  service advisors can now get labor and tire data directly from these integrations within the Tekmetric platform.
  • Tire Purchasing Made Easy: With Tire Suite you can manage all tire operations directly from the platform including compliance, regulatory standard adherence, inventory management, and even purchasing via our integration with PartsTech. 
  • Increased Transparency in Inspections: Through our integrations with Advance’s MotoVisuals, you can now more easily educate your customers with repair animations.    iCustomer Comms Simplified: We added template messages and the ability to adjust text verbiage for estimate, inspection and invoice links, which limits redundancy and streamlines communication.
  • Increased Payment Flexibility With BNPL: Our partnership with Affirm allows shops to meet vehicle owners where they are with flexible payment plans for nearly any budget or repair need, including Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL). Customers who introduce BNPL see a 3x increase in ARO. 

Growing Relationships Within the Industry

As Tekmetric continues to streamline and enhance the customer experience, we are also focused on strengthening our relationships within the auto repair industry. As a customer-obsessed shop management system, we aim to support shops in providing the highest quality service to vehicle owners they can – and this wouldn’t be possible without valuable feedback and insights from you, our partner shops. This approach allows us to better understand the real challenges you face, so we can provide innovative solutions that help you accomplish your goals and succeed in a market where the consumer expects more from their repair shops.

You may have seen us at the Shop Hackers Conference in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where Adam McInturff, VP of Sales and Phil Acree, Head of Payment Sales presented on our latest features and upcoming innovations. We also spoke to many of you about the trends you are seeing in the industry and how Tekmetric can support your needs – from hiring service writers to succession planning. We continued these conversations at ATE Spokane in Washington and ASCCA in California and gathered key insights as we look ahead to the end of 2024 and the beginning of a new year. 

Thanks to you and your key feedback shared through these conversations, Tekmetric has been able to provide excellent service and innovative solutions throughout this quarter, resulting in recognition from the G2 Summer Awards in these categories: Overall Leader, Best Usability, Most Implementable and Momentum Leader. In addition, Tekmetric was named the best auto shop management software by G2. This recognition is a significant testament to the support of each of you, your teams and the valuable insights you provide.  

Aspiring To Inspire with Thought Leadership

For Tekmetric, customer relationships aren’t confined to the walls of a conference room. We also aimed to share the knowledge through webinars and conversations with industry outlets that sparked important conversations about what’s changing in our industry. 

With our webinars, our aim is to help you uncover actionable insights that you can apply to grow your shop. Some of these conversations included our webinar, “Innovate to Elevate,” led by John Phelps, Director of Channel and Partnerships, where he talked about transforming the customer journey with the end goal of streamlining operations and boosting customer satisfaction. Similarly in our payments webinar, Phil Acree, Head of Payments covered the current state of consumer financing and how shops can enhance the customer experience regarding the payment process.

We also shared this knowledge through key industry outlets, so you can share and discuss with your team, including:

  • Future proof your shop exit strategy. P.J. Leslie, Director of Business Development, along with Matthew Schwab, owner of Clutch Automotive, shared tips to prepare your shop for the future and retirement by building a well-crafted exit plan so exiting shop owners can confidently step into the next phase of their lives, knowing they have set up a legacy for their shop.
  • Strategic use of evergreen and real-time data. We also published an article with Vehicle Service Pros titled, “Using numbers to supercharge your shop’s performance, where we discussed how to use real-time and evergreen data to expand your shop.

As we leave an upbeat Q3, Tekmetric continues to keep its eye on the finish line for this year: helping shops enhance the customer experience through product innovation. We are very proud that our commitment to a two-way relationship with our customers has been the driving force behind every improvement and our collaborative approach with other leaders in the industry enables us to build a steady foundation for continuous innovation. We aim to continue measuring up as we enter the final quarter of 2024.

👉 Ready to grow your automotive business? [Book a personalized Tekmetric Demo Here]

FAQ

similar articles

In the auto repair industry, where customer trust and satisfaction are paramount, leveraging customer feedback is an invaluable strategy for improving shop performance. As technology improves, customer expectations for service quality and transparency continue to rise. Fortunately, shops can actively seek, analyze and act upon customer feedback to better position themselves to meet these expectations, enhance their service offerings and build long-term loyalty.

Customer feedback is a powerful tool that, when leveraged effectively, can lead to enhanced customer satisfaction, repeat business and a stronger reputation in the marketplace. As the industry continues to evolve to meet the needs of its customers, auto repair shops that prioritize and act on customer feedback will be better equipped to rise to these standards, thrive and succeed.

Know your audience in the modern industry

Today’s customers are increasingly more digital. In the past, auto repair shops relied on phone calls as their primary form of communication. In the modern market, however, digital communication like email or text messaging has become the preferred type of communication for most people. In fact, 91% of texts are opened within the first three minutes after receipt, with 81% of Americans texting regularly. Ultimately, the best way to get ahold of your customers is to cater to their preference – so ensure you know your audience’s preference and offer solutions that help meet their desired communication style.

Furthermore, the modern landscape of the customer experience emphasizes convenience. At the click of a button, you can have groceries delivered or receive an item within two days of ordering it. Long wait times and visiting brick-and-mortar stores to purchase items is no longer the only way customers can buy things. The same applies in auto repair shops. With this knowledge, you can implement digital solutions to make the customer experience more convenient, thereby increasing loyalty and ensuring your customers return time and time again.

Collect feedback on your shop’s customer experience  

Once you understand your audience in general, you should also strive to understand their experience with your business specifically. It’s important to foster a two-way relationship with the customer and give them the opportunity to share direct feedback. This can help you gain insight into the customer experience, including your shop’s strengths and pain points for customers, so you can adjust and improve.

Tracking feedback is just as important as tracking your shop’s internal operations or financial performance. You can gather feedback through multiple avenues: Google reviews, post-service surveys or even in-person conversations. Each option offers customers an opportunity to share their thoughts on areas where you perform well or bottlenecks that need to be addressed. 

Digital tools can help monitor all forms of customer feedback. Through Tekmetric, you can integrate with a variety of solutions to monitor and respond to feedback via Google reviews. Or, to help drive your customer experience and gather feedback, you can utilize Tekmetric’s Smart Jobs feature to create estimates within one click, allowing your service advisors to spend less time on manual labor and more time cultivating strong customer relationships. 

Leverage feedback to improve shop performance

Customer feedback is critical because it addresses your shop’s bottlenecks from the perspective of the vehicle owner. For example, some shops may include parts ordering and inventory tracking among service advisors’ responsibilities, in addition to taking care of the customer. At Tekmetric, we’ve found this creates many opportunities for miscommunication between the technician who needs the parts and the service advisor, leading to a delay that affects the customer. To solve this problem, we created our Inventory Orders feature so technicians can easily order the parts needed. This ensured better accuracy within the shop and a greater customer experience.

Customer feedback also highlights the importance of convenience when it comes to driving loyalty. For vehicle owners, convenience is not always about choosing the closest shop. It is about choosing the shop that will make their life easier. For example, digital payments solutions can create a more convenient solution for customers. With Tekmetric’s two-way texting and text-to-pay features, customers can pay from their desk or their home office, pay for their college kid who lives in a different state and even pick up their vehicles after regular business hours.

Implementing customer feedback cultivates a stronger connection between your shop and your customers. Through open dialogue, feedback creates a two-way relationship that allows you to address customer needs effectively and improve shop performance. Customer feedback can also help address bottlenecks and streamline processes in your shop, leading to enhanced customer experiences, increased loyalty and, ultimately, a healthier bottom line.

Leveraging Customer Feedback to Improve Shop Performance

September 27, 2024

Read time: 3 min

read more

Drivers can sometimes see repairs as frivolous or not important.

Reasons for their skepticism can stem from many things: the customer can’t see what the service advisor is seeing on their end; they might not have a way to gauge the importance of the issue at hand; maybe a service advisor doesn’t communicate the problem correctly or forgets to ask the customer if they’re following along.

Tekmetric’s features empower auto repair shops to improve customer transparency, streamline communication, provide flexible payment options, and simplify the payment process.

These promote customer trust, enhance satisfaction, and ultimately help your shop close more repair orders. And that's what matters most.

Because at the end of the day, if customers feel they can trust your shop, they'll be more likely to return the next time they need something repaired.

Your Auto Repair Shop Can Close More Repairs Orders With These Features

August 20, 2024

Read time: 3 min

read more

We’re excited to announce that Tekmetric now supports the new Nexpart Multi-Seller integration! This new integration gives Tekmetric customers one-click access to your entire supply chain. Now it’s easier than ever to build detailed estimates and find the right parts & tires from ALL of your suppliers on ONE screen.

The Largest Parts Network in The Industry

For over 25 years Nexpart has been the industry leader in parts cataloging and electronic ordering. Nexpart has built long standing relationships with over 53,000 parts suppliers. In recent years Nexpart released Multi-Seller, an all-in-one ordering system that gives you a bird’s eye view of your entire supply chain.

With Nexpart Multi-Seller you’ll gain access to more suppliers in more places backed by the most comprehensive parts catalog in the industry. Find the right parts for the job fast with real-time inventory and wholesale pricing.

 

Now Available: 50+ Tire Suppliers For FREE

Need tires? Nexpart Multi-Seller now connects you to over 50 national tire suppliers for FREE. Access big names like ATD, NTW, Tire Rack Wholesale and more all in ONE click!

If your shop is equipped for tire services, it’s now easier than ever to make strong recommendations for any budget and keep your customers in house. With parts & tires plugged directly into Tekmetric, you can add a set of tires to an estimate in seconds. If the customer isn’t quite ready to pull the trigger on a set of tires, simply save the quote in Tekmetric. Boost ARO, and get more ROI out of your tire equipment.

Build Strong Workflows & Stronger Estimates

Tekmetric enables you to create accurate estimates and get approvals faster which saves you time, boosts productivity, and builds customer trust. Keep your repair jobs moving without delays thanks to real-time inventory tracking, immediate access to part availability during job setup, and integrated parts ordering, now with Nexpart  Multi-Seller. With Tekmetric, you can effortlessly monitor all repair jobs and the inventory assets assigned to every vehicle, and if a part isn't available, quickly browse your shop inventory for a swap or order a replacement through Nexpart Multi-Seller, all within a single intuitive program.

Earn Multi-Seller Rewards On Every Parts Order

As an additional benefit, Nexpart Multi-Seller customers earn rewards points on every parts order*. Every $1 spent on parts earns 1 Rewards Point. Multi-Seller shops can redeem points for up to $500/Year in eBay Gift Cards.


*Available to all US and Canadian Nexpart Multi-Seller users. Tire purchases not currently eligible for Rewards. Learn more and see the full terms and conditions.

How To Get Started in Tekmetric

  1. Click the Shop Settings section on the bottom left menu bar.
  2. Click the Integrations tab.
  3. Click Manage from the Nexpart Multi-Seller integration box.
  4. Add your Nexpart Multi-Seller Username and Password.
  5. For detailed instructions on how to order parts view this video

To learn more about Tekmetric or book a demo, visit https://info.tekmetric.com/nexpart or call 832-787-0900

To learn more about Nexpart Multi-Seller, you can get started and create a free account at www.nexpart.com

Looking for a full walkthrough? Need help setting up your vendors? Schedule an onboarding appointment with a Nexpart Rep.

Supercharge Your Supply Chain With Nexpart Multi-Seller

August 26, 2025

Read time: 3 min

read more