The holiday season is now in full swing, and as a shop owner, you’re probably thinking about how to best lead your team during this time.
Between the hot chocolate and the carols, there will be a lot you’ll have to navigate, including holiday pay and time-off requests.
By preparing and leveraging auto repair shop management software, all of this can be a piece of cake (or pie, if that’s your holiday dessert of choice).
Your technicians will likely appreciate getting paid faster, especially during the holidays, when they’re probably planning for purchases like gifts and decorations.
Instead of waiting until an entire RO is completed, you can pay your technicians as they finish individual jobs.
That way, technicians won’t have to wait for their colleagues to finish their tasks. They can get their paychecks once their part of the repair is done.
Some technicians end up getting more or fewer hours than others—and not necessarily on purpose.
After all, it can be easy to lose track of who has done what recently. This holiday season can be the perfect time to start turning that around by giving more equal hours to technicians across your shop.
That way, you can avoid overworking or underworking technicians during the holiday season and beyond.
Whether or not your shop already has a vacation time policy in place, you’ll likely see a lot of time off requests during the holidays. Your team members might want to take extra time off outside of the designated days the entire shop will be closed for the holidays.
As much as you want to honor everyone’s time-off requests, it’s not realistic. If you have too many people out at the same time, you risk being understaffed, which can lead to slowdowns and frustrated customers.
Instead of risking being understaffed, you can implement a fair time off system and communicate it to your staff. For instance, you can stipulate that time-off requests during the holiday will be “first come, first serve.”
You could even stagger the schedule so that if multiple people want to be off on the same day, the first half could work during the morning and the second half could take over in the afternoon.
If you do want your shop to be partially staffed on, say, Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve in case of any emergency vehicle repairs, you can offer your staff holiday pay.
This way, team members who would like the extra money can opt to work those days, rather than you designating certain people to come to work.
During the holidays, your shop might spend time giving back to the community, be it through organizing a holiday donation drive or giving discounts to essential workers. As a shop owner, you might also be thinking about how you can spread some holiday cheer to your team.
A great way to do so is by giving everyone a holiday bonus. However, you need to evaluate if you’re in a financial position to give out holiday bonuses, and if so, how much you can give each person.
You track your ARO. Maybe you watch your car count week over week. You know when a month is good and when it's below par.
But here's a question most shop owners can't answer quickly: Compared to shops like yours, are your numbers strong, average, or quietly underperforming?
There's a real difference between a number that's improving and a number that's competitive. A shop can grow ARO year over year and still be well below what high-performing shops are seeing in their market. Without an external reference point, you don't know which situation you're in.
That's the problem benchmarking solves, and it's the reason the data matters more than the direction.
Internal performance tracking is essential. If you don't know your ARO, car count, parts margin, and effective labor rate, you're managing without the most basic tools. But internal tracking has a structural limitation: it can only tell you how you're doing relative to your own history.
That's useful for spotting momentum — a rising ARO, a growing car count, tighter parts margin. What it can't tell you is whether your baseline is strong or weak relative to the market.
A shop with a $580 ARO that has grown from $520 over two years has made real progress. But if top-performing shops in their region are averaging significantly higher, that progress hasn't closed the competitive gap. It's just moved in the right direction.
The fix isn't to stop internal tracking. It's to add an external benchmark so you know what the target actually looks like.
Many shop owners get their benchmarks the informal way: conversations with peers at trade shows, numbers shared in coaching groups, or revenue figures posted in forums. These have real value, but they're also limited.
Self-reported numbers skew high (people share their wins). Peer groups are small samples. Industry averages from trade associations are often lagged and lack the granularity you need to compare fairly — a six-bay shop in a suburban market shouldn't be benchmarking against national averages that include dealership-adjacent shops in metro areas.
The more useful comparison is data drawn from shops operating in similar conditions, at similar scale, tracked in a consistent and anonymized way.
Effective benchmarking for an auto repair shop compares you on the four metrics that most directly drive profitability:
Each of these metrics has a different lever. If your ARO is lagging, the fix usually involves inspection completion rates or customer communication. If your car count is stagnant, the issue is typically acquisition or retention. If your parts margin is eroding, your pricing matrix needs a look. If your effective labor rate is low, it's often a discounting or packaging problem.
Benchmarking tells you which problem to solve first. That's valuable when you have limited time and you're trying to prioritize.
The Tekmetric Shop Index is a free benchmarking tool built from data collected across more than 12,000 auto repair shops. Enter your shop's metrics and get an instant comparison showing where you stand on each of the four key measures. No Tekmetric account is required. Anyone can use it.
The output isn't a vague grade — it shows you where each metric ranks and gives you a clear picture of where the gap is largest. That's the signal that tells you where to focus first.
The benchmarking data is the starting point, not the finish line. Once you know which metric is your biggest gap, you can start asking the right questions:
Each of these questions points toward a workflow, and Tekmetric's reporting is built to surface the answers at the job, technician, and service writer level. But even before you get to that step, knowing which question to ask is most of the work.
➡ Benchmark your shop now →
High-performing shops don't treat benchmarking as a one-time exercise. They check their rankings periodically, track how their numbers shift against the industry baseline, and use the comparison to coach their teams with context.
"You're at 85% DVI completion" is a data point. "You're at 85% completion, and top shops are at 95%" is a coaching conversation with direction.
"Seeing them take the shift to Tekmetric and then grow profitability in the same four walls has been phenomenal. Some of them are just exponential." — Matt Schwab, Clutch Automotive, Tekmetric Customer
Once you know your gaps, the next step is building a system to close them.
Thought Leadership
June 28, 2026
Today, online reputation management is a key tactic top shops use to attract more customers. Online presence is often the first—and sometimes only—impression a customer has of your business. This guide will dive deep into why automotive reputation management is no longer optional, how it impacts your SEO search rankings, and the specific strategies you can use to attract more 5-star reviews.
Why do online reviews matter so much in the auto repair world? The answer is that most customers check online reviews from Google and other search engines as part of their decision-making process. In addition, online reviews impact your SEO rankings and can help you differentiate your shop from the competition. Here are some other top reasons to keep track of your reviews:
High-quality testimonials help build trust before the customer even sets foot in your lobby. Research consistently shows that the majority of customers read online reviews before feeling they can trust a local business. For auto repair shops, positive reviews act as social proof that your shop provides quality services.
When a prospect searches for "oil change near me", the results they see are heavily influenced by SEO strategies. Google prioritizes businesses with a high volume of new reviews, high star ratings, and a complete, active profile. If your competitors have 200 reviews and a 4.8-star average, while you have 120 3-star reviews from 2019, Google will rank your competiton higher. Review management directly impacts your rankings, rankings impact your visibility, and visibility impacts how many customers show up to your shop.
Go ahead and Google your competition. How many reviews do they have? Do they average 2-star or 5-star reviews? By focusing on auto repair reputation management, you can position your shop as the best in your area. New customers are often hesitant to try a new shop; seeing a consistent stream of positive feedback from satisfied customers lowers that risk and encourages them to stop by.
Another way to move past your competition is to leverage Google Ads. Search ads can help you boost your visibility in more competitive markets and keep your business top of mind.
Successful auto repair reputation management is a continuous project. Top performing shops have software and employees dedicated to monitoring online reviews. To stay ahead, shops need to follow best practices to maximize their online visibility.
Claim your listings in Google Business, Yelp, and Facebook. Once claimed, you can optimize your profiles by making sure your business name, address, and phone number are consistent across the web. Upload high-resolution photos of your shop, your front-desk staff, and your comfortable waiting area. A professional-looking profile sets the stage for a 5-star experience.
Many shop owners utilize reputation management software to aggregate reviews into a single dashboard. This allows you to ask for reviews and respond to them in the same platform.
While Google reviews are often the focus of local SEO, don't ignore other platforms. Some customers prefer Yelp, while others might find you through social media. Directing a small percentage of your review requests to different platforms ensures a well-rounded online presence.
Your service advisors are the faces of your automotive brand. Train your staff on the importance of the customer experience. If your technician or service advisor is mentioned in a 5-star review, encourage that behavior by rewarding them accordingly. Make it a competition to see who can earn the most 5-star reviews in a month.
Use customer feedback internally to improve your operations. If you notice a trend in negative feedback regarding long wait times, don't just ignore it. Use those insights to refine your workflows and teach employees.
Responding to online reviews is perhaps the most critical part of review monitoring. It shows potential customers that you are attentive and care about your customers.
Don't just "like" a 5-star review. Take a moment to write a personalized response.
These responses reinforce customer trust and encourage them to come back to your shop for service in the future.
Negative reviews are inevitable in the any business. Parts fail, delays happen, and sometimes there are misunderstandings about pricing. The key is how you handle the negative feedback.
Tekmetric offers a feature called private feedback where you can engage with upset customers before it goes public.
Regularly responding to reviews tells search engines and prospects that your business is active. This can provide a slight boost to your search rankings. In addition, if you successfully resolve a customer's issue mentioned in a negative review, you can ask them to go back and edit their star ratings or delete the negative feedback entirely.
Reviews can come in naturally but customers often need to be prompted to leave a review. While unhappy customers are often highly motivated to vent, satisfied customers frequently forget to share their experiences. The best performing shops have an automated way to ask for, collect, and respond to reviews.
The simplest way to get more positive reviews is to ask for them. However, timing is everything. The best time to ask for a review is within 24 hours of service before customers move on and forget. A simple, "We're so glad we could get you back on the road! If you're happy with the service, would you mind leaving us a quick review?" goes a long way. Make it easy for the customer by providing a Google review button or link with your completed invoices.
Don’t forget that physical signage can be effective as well. Add a QR code or sign in your lobby asking for customers to leave a 5-star review which will enter them into a drawing for a free oil change.
In the automotive industry, convenience is king. Using SMS for review requests has a significantly higher open rate than email. By integrating automation with your Shop Management System (SMS), you can trigger a text message to be sent automatically after a work order is closed. This message should include a direct link to your Google or Yelp profile, making the review process frictionless for the user.
One of the best ways to earn a 5-star automotive review is through transparency. Digital Vehicle Inspections (DVIs) allow you to send photos and videos of the needed repairs directly to the customer's phone. When a customer sees the worn-out brake pad, they feel more confident in the repair services. This transparency naturally leads to higher customer satisfaction and better reviews.
Reputation management creates a natural cycle where great service leads to positive reviews, which improves your local SEO, which attracts new customers, who then leave more reviews. If managing all of this feels overwhelming, Tekmetric can help with online review management software specifically tailored for the automotive industry.
By implementing a clear reputation management strategy, utilizing automation for review collection, and staying active on social media and review sites, you ensure that your auto shop remains the top choice in your community. Remember, every satisfied customer is a potential spokesperson for your brand.
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Do you ever wish you could see into the future? As a business owner, being able to predict how much business you will get during a week, a month, or a year can help you make important decisions regarding marketing your services, taking on more work, hiring more employees, or even knowing when to expand your business.
Of course, there are always going to be unforeseen situations. No matter how much technology you have, there’s no surefire way to predict accidents, natural disasters, or other changes in life circumstances. Fortune telling aside, shop owners can use real-time reports to forecast the health of their business and get a sense of how much money their garage is expected to make before the end of a week, month, or year.
Here’s how you can leverage two of Tekmetric’s real-time reports in combination to forecast your shop’s performance and test the decisions you make as a shop owner.
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