Tekmetric Named Leader 9 Times in G2's 2023 Fall Spotlight

The reality is that now is a better time than ever to set your auto repair shop up for success, and even start laying the foundation for multi-shop growth. Especially for shop owners willing to take the time to embrace a new toolset: a modern shop management system.

In our latest Auto Repair Industry Index we took a look at recent industry trends across the country, compiled data from industry resources, and compared it to our Tekmetric data. What we found was really promising!

With a cloud-based SMS, shops can leverage amazing features like Default Inspections and Smart Jobs to not only simplify their workflows and smooth out their operations to run like a well-oiled machine but also set their business up for future growth and success.

More than anything, partnerships should be mutually beneficial to everyone involved. When good partnerships are formed, the whole should be worth more than the sum of its parts.

Why Should Your Auto Business Partner with Other Brands?

For example, McDonald’s burgers make you thirsty enough to want a Coca-Cola, and sodas have a high margin. By partnering up, McDonald’s can lock in their costs on soda and improve their profit margins for the long term.

On the other hand, not all partnerships are beneficial. Partnerships can expand your opportunities but can also force you into making decisions you never intended to make. When McDonald’s decided to partner with Coca-Cola, they had to exclude other soda brands from their locations.

This exclusivity may have been worth it, but it meant removing options from customers, such as Dr. Pepper and Pepsi products. What may have made the partnership intriguing for McDonald’s is the fact that Coca-Cola owns a variety of beverages, including Diet Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Powerade, Minute Maid and Pibb Xtra.

Thanks to a variety of options, McDonald’s is able to satisfy most customers who ask for a Dr. Pepper by saying, “Will Pibb Xtra be okay?”

Partnerships in the Auto Repair Industry

In the auto repair industry, we face similar challenges when it comes to partnering with other businesses and brands.

Potential partnerships may include teaming up with parts suppliers, software companies, marketing and trade show affiliates, and any other service, resource or tool that could potentially improve your shop. In some cases, these partnerships will help shop owners enhance performance, save costs and drive revenue.

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For example, Tekmetric has partnered with BG Products, making it easy for shops to sell additional BG products with simple canned jobs built right into the repair-order process within Tekmetric.

Other times, auto partnerships may bind you to an agreement that doesn’t pay off.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to determine whether a partnership is mutually beneficial or if they’re asking you for more than you’re getting in return.

1. Are You Free to Choose the Tools and Solutions You Want?

One sign of a bad partnership is being forced to do something you don’t want to do. If partnering with another company means taking valuable options off the table, then you may be at a disadvantage.

If your partner implies or directs you not to do business with their competitors because they would like for you to instead use their services or their partner’s services, think it through.

Before officially entering a partnership, imagine your shop one year, five years and ten years down the road. Where will it be then? What will happen if your shop grows? What if innovation has slowed down with your partner? Will you be allowed to innovate your business by using new tools and solutions that become available in the future?

If you’re restricted in a way that prevents you from innovating or adapting to market conditions by testing other products, tools, solutions, and software, you may be handcuffed and unable to compete with other shops.

Let’s face it, tracking inventory is tricky. It takes keen attention to detail, an ability to anticipate your shop’s needs, great timing, and some serious research skills—not to mention a lot of time on the phone or computer, away from the action of the shop.

Bottom line? Keeping track of inventory is a job that most service advisors and shop owners didn’t sign up for. While some shops have a shop foreman to help with inventory, even the best foreman still needs a solid tracking system.

But when a shop runs low on the right tools and parts, it can mean turning away customers when you could be building loyalty instead. Simply put, without up-to-date inventory records, your shop may have to pump the brakes and turn away customers or delay jobs.

If your team wants to stay ahead in the industry, you probably see inventory upkeep as a frequent task. And without a shop inventory software, you might also spend hours calculating purchases, tracking orders, checking wear and tear to tools, and rotating stock.

Everyone has their own way of conducting the inventory process, but in general, inventory methods fall into three major categories:

• Pen and paper
• Excel/spreadsheet/template
• Shop inventory software
  

If you’re still using pen and paper or a spreadsheet, it may be time to upgrade or at least supplement your inventory process.