Search the Community

We all know there are times of the year that are better than others and times when business is slower than what you would like it to be. While every company goes through highs and lows, there are things you can do to help keep your bays full all year long. One of the best ways to achieve a more consistent car count is to make sure that every customer that leaves your shop today has their next future oil change or factory maintenance appointment booked. Please don’t tell me you have tried this process and it doesn’t work for you; it does work. You can’t get out of your dentist’s chair before booking your next teeth cleaning! Let’s face it, the days of the 3,000-mile oil changes are long gone, so if you are waiting for the customer to book their own appointment, good luck with that strategy. You need to be proactive and book the customer’s next service appointment. I would also recommend booking your customer’s next tire rotation, which will be approximately every six months for most customers. Here’s the essential component of this strategy: Make sure all customers you have booked for a future appointment are logged in your calendar. And make sure that each customer receives a phone call or text a week or so before the appointment date; if the customer can’t keep that date, no problem! Simply book another day! This isn’t rocket science, but it does take a proactive approach on your part. Start today, and you will reap the benefits of this strategy in no time at all. What about electric cars? Well, they need services and repairs too. I will address that in a future blog, so stay tuned!

First, I would be the last person to tell anyone that car counts is not a measurable and important KPI. Every shop needs to know their needed car count and what their sweet spot is. And then use that KPI to understand other important KPI's - ARO, Labor margin, part margins, etc. Now, with that said, the industry in general, has and will see, a decline in the amount of times your customers will visit your shop. It was not that long ago when we had customers bring their cars in 4 to 5 times per year. That has changed. Plus with COVID and many people not using their cars as they used to, we cannot rely on trying increasing car counts. We should, rather, making sure that we make every vehicle visit...COUNT. Here is my strategy to drive up sales per visit, while promoting the right culture with your customers: Ensure that the customer experience is the best on the planet! - Give every customer a reason to return back to you. Perform a complete MPI on each vehicle, but find out the particular needs of customers. What is their car used for? Get your entire staff to understand that the customer is everything and their safety and their car care needs are most important. Promote your Culture of taking care of people, not sales - Believe me, sales will come and so will the profits. Promote vehicle maintenance, safety, and reducing the overall cost of owning their car. NOW HERE'S THE TOUGH ONE: PLEASE BOOK THE NEXT APPOINTMENT AT CAR DELIVERY! Doctors do it, dentists do it, boiler service companies do it, hair dressers do it, nail salons do it, ..even chimney cleaning companies do it! It's not hard, just do it. Hope this helps. Thoughts???

Got your attention? Good. That's the power of advertising and marketing. I know many of you are affected by COVID and experiencing a downturn economically. Studies have shown that the businesses that maintain advertising during downturns do better with market share and sales when the economy returns to normal. Maintaining your marketing presence is a lot easier and less expensive than playing catch up when things get better. I know the reality of tough times. Do your best to maintain your advertising during tough times. You will get back what you invest.

Usually the winter drops off in sales, but along with car counts. This year is different. Customers seem consumed with debt and worried about thier finances, and putting off needed vehicle maintenance. Not good. In the long run this leads to breakdowns and larger repair bills.

We all survive by and need healthy car counts. That's a given. But all too often I see auto repair shops with "steady" but not "growing" car counts, but with new customers coming in each week. So, the question is, "If a shop has steady car counts and has new customers each week, then why are car counts not growing?" This is a topic that's complicated for a post but here are a few things to consider: Is your marketing attracting the right customer that matches your key profile customer? If not, the wrong customer may be a one-timer and that does not help your car count. Or, if you are promoting too much discounting, you may be attracting the wrong customer, and that's not a long-term strategy either. Are you making every effort to WOW all new customers and create an amazing experience that gives the new customer a compelling reason to return? All too often we are too transactional and don't spend enough time establishing relationships. Make every effort to spend time with each customer and ESPECIALLY with first time customers. Its the relationship not salesmanship that builds a company! Are you booking your customer’s next vehicle appointment? Please don’t tell me this does not work. It does! Hairdressers do it, doctors do it, dentists do it, nail salons do it. My chimney cleaning service company evens books the next chimney cleaning! If you are not booking your customer’s next visit, trust me, someone else will. I hope this makes sense. What are your thoughts?

This is not new topic for me, but I need to revisit it again. And I will keep revisiting this topic for the sake of our industry. For independent repair shops to "thrive" today, you must take a proactive approach with regard to business. If you only want to "survive" you can stop reading now. Waiting for the phone to ring, or for cars to breakdown, or for a customer to drive into your shop asking for a repair or service is business suicide. The days of broken cars lining up in front of your bays are over. Sure, cars still breakdown, but you cannot thrive with a wait-and-see strategy. Make sure you perform multipoint inspections on all cars in for any type of service. Yes, any type of service or repair. Look up vehicle history on all vehicles. Let the customer know of needed services, missed services and services due. And lastly, book the next appointment. Yes, I know....Joe's been preaching this over and over and it does not work in your shop. Fine, then let me focus on those shops that do book the next appointment. Because those are the shops that are adopting a proactive approach...and I will see those shops in the future.

Back in the late 1990’s, I began to get concerned about car counts and customer retention. Around that time, cars were beginning to become more reliable and many of the services and tune up components we once counted on, were going away. I also started to notice that many customers were going to the quick lubes for their oil changes. To be honest, I couldn’t blame them. There was a time when I did not offer any “wait” service and I was never concerned about the oil change business. That all changed. I began an all-out blitz to get my customers coming back to me for their next oil change. I especially made it a point to inform customers of their next appointment when we did not due their last oil change. I just informed them of their next service date and made sure they received a service reminder. The plan took time, but it worked. It increased car counts and customer retention improved. We still use this strategy to this day. Make sure you speak to all customers at car delivery about their next service. Book it in your calendar. And if the car was not in for an oil change, check the oil sticker, enter the date in your CRM reminder system, and assume that the customer wants to return to you. We need to be proactive these days. We cannot wait for the phone to ring, we have to make it ring!

34 years ago, when I opened the doors to my shop, I had broken cars lined up in front of the bays on a daily basis. Thank God for GM, Ford and Chrysler. Cars back then broke down at any alarming rate. We didn’t have to be the best sales people either; broken cars just arrived at our doorstep. We lived in a reactive world, where we repaired one car after the other. Those were the days! Well, those days are gone. Today, if you wait for cars to come to you, you may be waiting a long time. With extended service intervals, improved car quality, and less maintenance items to service and repair, we need to take a proactive approach. We need to improve our image, hire the best people, adopt a culture of continuous training, speak to all customers as if they are best friends or family, inform them of needed future services, book the next service, sell preventive maintenance and deliver world-class customer service. Most important; Create the customer experience so memorable, so enjoyable, so rewarding that when they leave your shop, they think to themselves…. “That was a great experience, I’m coming back.”

Car count is a key performance indicator (KPI) showing you the health of your business. But before we blame low car counts for the reason why we are not achieving our sales goals, we need to take the time to look at all the numbers; analyzing labor and part margins, average repair order (ARO) production issues, other critical KPI’s, customer retention and workflow processes. Only after a thorough analysis can we begin to work on the issue of car counts. This is not to suggest that a shrinking car count is not a problem. Many shops are experiencing declining car counts for a number of reasons: increased competition from dealers and mass merchandisers, improved car quality, decreased factory scheduled maintenances, decreasing vehicle visits, and other of factors. The key thing is to track all key numbers and vehicle visits per year, per customer. If you see your car count trending down and you are not meeting your sales objectives, and all other KPIs are in line, then you need to address this issue. But, are you really losing customers? You may find that that customer visits per year is the problem. With increasing scheduled oil services and the perception that cars don’t need maintenance, this is a big problem. And it may be the problem for a declining car count. A more proactive approach, selling preventive maintenance and other services will help. In addition, bump up your marketing efforts, especially with you existing customer base. And lastly, make sure you stand out by providing world class customer service.