Gamify Your Auto Repair Shop to Boost Performance

What is Gamification for Auto Repair Shops?

You've probably heard it before: competition breeds innovation. And even in your shop, friendly competition can be a positive way to encourage productivity while keeping things engaging for your team.

Gamification is the process of using game-like mechanics and goal-setting for your employees in a way that encourages and supports productivity and high performance. A really basic example could be a "level-up" system in which workers are awarded different for completing tasks, which could lead to rewards outside of standard benefits.

According to the Gamification and Work study conducted by TalentLMS, employees say gamification makes them feel more productive (89%) and happier (88%) at work.

Here are six ways to gamify your auto repair shop’s workflow to incentivize your team and provide growth opportunities!

1. Track Shop Productivity with the Right Metrics

It helps to have a clear picture of your technicians’ current productivity levels so you can pinpoint which areas of their workflows might benefit from gamification.

To save time, you can use auto repair shop management software with real-time reports that provide insights for gamification ideas.

For instance, if you notice that your technicians could be more thorough when conducting inspections, you might decide to create a game around seeing which technician can score the highest number of findings every day.

Similar to tracking your technician’s productivity, you can use real-time reports to track metrics that are unique to service advisors, such as the number of estimates written and Average Written Repair Order (AWRO).

From there, you can decide on gamification strategies for your service advisors that help them improve their performance while maintaining their independence.

Shops could set up a challenge where the service writer who builds the most number of estimates that month wins a reward, such as an extra day off or a gift card to a nice restaurant.

2. Create Shop-Wide Challenges

Shop-wide challenges are a great way to boost business for your shop, especially if you find that your shop has been going through a slower period.

Encouraging employees to collaborate on a shared goal can help drive productivity. It would make sense to think about creating shop-wide challenges that focus less on competing at an individual level, and more on working as a team to achieve a common goal.

Or if you do want that friendly competition, it's also possible to think about creating teams within teams, for example maybe pairing service advisors and technicians together and hosting a friendly leaderboard to see which team meets or excels at different metrics.

3. Implement Rewards and Badges

What good would challenges be without rewards? After all, that’s the basis of why gamification works! When we feel like we’re working towards a goal with a tangible outcome, those goals continue to motivate us to keep pushing and growing.

If you can track metrics like car counts or inspections, you can offer different rewards to technicians who complete certain thresholds of work on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

The same goes for service advisors; you can track ARO and create badges that incentivize them to close larger repair orders. These badges could take various forms, such as the shape of literal badges or ribbons that team members can pin onto their work uniforms to showcase their achievements.

You should also consider offering bigger rewards. For instance, at the end of every month, you can do something special and reward the highest performers with gift certificates or take them to their favorite restaurant.

It's important for auto repair shops, just like any other business, to create a supportive culture to not only attract but retain the best talent possible! Growing and supporting your team is not only cheaper in the long run, but a much more effective way of ensuring they deliver the best results.

4. Help Your Team Level Up

You can help your automotive service advisors and technicians achieve their goals by encouraging them to always learn new skills.

While continuous learning and education might seem like a baseline expectation for your team, it can be easy for longtime employees to get stuck in a routine and not make the time to learn about new tools, tricks, and technology.

Fortunately, you can help your team get back in the habit of learning by making a friendly game out of it! For example, you can reward the employee who attends the highest number of free online industry webinars in a quarter by giving them an award, like a gift card.

Employees who feel like they have a path forward and the opportunity to grow their careers will be more motivated to take on those responsibilities.

5. Celebrate Success

Rewards are great, but so are team-wide celebrations. Celebrations give your team members a way to relish in their accomplishments together and have fun while doing so.

Consider what shop owner Al Oramas of Pro Auto Care does:

“I celebrate different ‘wins’ with my employees. For example, I wanted my technicians to get ASA certified. Some were sitting on the fence. So I said that getting the certification would lead to a promotion. When one of my technicians passed his two tests, we threw him a party with cupcakes and balloons. It was a good time.”

As your team reaches certain milestones, you can throw them a party, take them on a retreat out of town, or organize a nice team dinner. When your team members can bond outside of work, they’ll come back to the shop refreshed, ready to communicate and collaborate to tackle what’s next.

Simplify Team Gamification With Tekmetric

Tekmetric’s real-time reports can help you decide the best challenges and rewards to use to incentivize your team. From there, you can continue to measure results as you take your shop to new heights!