Chris Monroe is a coach who owns Monroe Tire & Service at Shelby, NC., Joe Marconi is a coach who also owns Osceola Garage at Baldwin Place, NY.,  and  Kevin Vaught is a former multi shop owner and is an Elite Worldwide Business Development Coach

The key talking points from this episode are already done for you on the show notes page at https://remarkableresults.biz/a201

I just opened an auto repair shop about 4 months ago, but I'm still working my full time job as a tech therefore I open the shop from 4 pm until 9pm M-F and 8-5 on Saturday. I'm starting to build customers but most are from referrals and neighbors I don't get much traffic cars. I'm starting to think that the hours I'm open don't really work for the auto repair business seems like after 6 everything dies. Has anyone worked this kind of hours or what do you guys think about this odd hours.

Customer hands you key > place tag on key> place invoice and key in hanging plastic order> place on workflow rack(or hand to technician)> tech pulls car in> I prefer if a car is in the bay to have the key on the seat with the window rolled down(to prevent lockout) or have the key in the hanging plastic invoice holder hanging on the mirror> Vehicle finished and key makes its way back to front office> then given to customer.

This seems like a logical workflow. However my concern is what do you do with keys when cars stay overnight?

If the vehicle is parked outside, Do you put them in a Safe/Lock box? Drawer?

If the vehicle is parked inside and is currently being worked on, do you leave the key in the car? hanging holder on the mirror? Safe/Lock box? 

We're a small shop (2 bays, 1 advisor, 1 tech and myself who doesn't wrench). I was asked today if we could call in an additional technician to help with the extra work tomorrow. I asked them how much work is on the schedule, they said hours of inspections and diags. I told them to inspect and diag everything in the morning and schedule out the repairs with the client from there. "Diag in the morning, repair in the afternoon" as I've heard it said and that always made sense to me. My little crew is willing to go the extra mile to get things done but don't seem to have the tools of time/scheduling management to do this as effectively as I'd like to see.

Is there a resource out there to help teach the fundamentals of scheduling? 

Thanks.

Also, are you paying your techs for these inspections on top of other services? If so, how much?

Here is a copy of one of our digital inspections if anyone is curious.  http://2un.me/yssm 

Personally, I've struggled with checking cabin and air filters for 2 reasons. 1.) It is a bummer to pull out those filters, take pictures, make the recommendation, and the customer decline, just to turn around and put them back in. 2.) Some filters a real pain in the ass to check. I really struggle justifying pulling out a glove box assembly to find a clean cabin filter, or to find a dirty filter and the customer decline replacing it.

I've also struggled with with the following situation: We find a radiator leaking, build a quote, present to the customer, and they decline. I've toyed around with the idea of scrapping all component specific inspection points and simply informing the customer that we found a coolant leak on their vehicle and using that information to sell a '$49 cooling system inspection'... I haven't pulled the trigger on that yet.

It would be cool to see what kind of inspections you guys are doing on every vehicle and how you are handling different aspects of it. 

How do you guys finding the use of a scheduler?

As the owner I expect at least a 10% growth. My confusion is 10% over what? Last month or last June?

My shop seems to have a life of its own depending on the month. How about your shop?

What were your pros and cons?

I'm interested in it because I think the contact management is actually better than Mitchell, alldata etc. And want to link it to "sugar".

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I hate to be a gravy tech or a gravy shop but if I'm turning down 5 brake jobs to do one rusted manifold what did I accomplish? Man card credit? Ego boost? Pride? No thanks I'll pass.

So let me give you a little insight of what is happening at the shop. i have 3 techs, one service advisor (my self) one receptionist, and a shop foreman (my father). We average at 45-65 billed hours a week (5 days), at 65 billed hours we are going crazy like if we are bringing in 150 hours, at the end of the week i look at my hours and Im like WTF. i just ran around like crazy for this.. Im know we have a big efficiency problem but i don't see the issue. My question is how is everyone a tight ship? How long is it taking for people to get there parts? I know its different for every one but i looking for an average.

I hope i can figure this out..

Rick

Normally we have no issues... normally I mean years I have never encountered a problem. Recently working with a knuckle head and he is claiming he didn't authorize some work to be done. He also never signed an estimate due to all correspondence through telephone. Also to keep in mind most of my tickets are $1000+ and I have not had any issues thus far. This is situation is causing me to rethink my procedures. Unfortunately having a customer authorize via signature can be difficult due to customers going to work, going away, living far enough distance from the shop etc. What have you done in your shop? Obviously there are state laws and such to consider as well...

We're fairly unique. We're a very small town power sports dealership which also does satellite sales and service for a nearby Kia dealership. We currently have one automotive and one small engine tech. Our DMS is power sports focused (DX1) and they don't currently have any scheduling software that integrates with their system. So I'm open to almost anything, but cost is a factor due to our size. If you have scheduling specific software that you use it would be great to hear what you use and what you think of it. Thanks.

Maybe I should know better to have more than one Suzuki and 15 year old Benz in the shop at the same time. Its going to be an interesting week. I haven't had a shop completely full of immobilized oddballs in a while.

Lets summarize the tools and processes available to the independent shop owner, service advisor and technician to manage workflow.

1. the service advisor's ability to memorize what is going on
2. the technician's ability to recall what the service advisor said 10 minutes ago or earlier
3. the service advisor'a ability to decipher the tech's scribble
4. The tech's ability to put clear explanations on a piece of paper (work order)
5. the WIP screen in your point of sale software (POS)
6. the printer printing work orders
7. the paper rack holding printed paper sheets
8. the bags keeping the key to the vehicle and the paperwork together
9. the scheduler in your POS
10. a white board or spreadsheet managing the vehicles going through the shop
11. a time punching system or flag sheet

The sad part:

Not one of these 11 pieces can be skipped. Service advisors are super heros juggling 11 disjointed "management tools" at any time during the day.

How do they do this? Super hero ability, you knew it already.

Now the even sadder part:

In order for the service advisor to juggle all this successfully, they often skip or at least minimize the engagement with the motorist.

Lets repeat that with different words:"Service advisors skip advising service because they are too busy doing busy work because the tools available are inadequate."

Do you agree, or am I smoking something here?

Last but not least, the saddest part:

You as owner can't measure behavior today, only results from the POS reports.

What does that mean?

• you don't know what tech is pencil whipping or over recommending
• you don't know how many recs from the tech uncovered during the inspection make it to estimate (our research revealed 56% of all recommended actions from the tech are not sold. Fifty-six. Do you smell opportunity here as well?)
• you don't know why the vehicles are in the shop for way too long. Is it the waiting for parts or the service advisor or the dog ate the home work?
• you don't know why the tech efficiency of tech A is at 95% but of tech B at 53%
• you can't change behavior if you can't measure it

How to we turn 11 disjointed tools into 3 integrated ones?

You add a tablet(1) to the techs toolbox, replace the paper rack with a second screen(2) and download SmartFlow(3) to the tablet from the App Store or Google Play and add it to the browser bookmarks on the second screen.

Then get rid of

• paper
• time punching system
• laptops in the back shop
• paper rack
• running back and forth (you might have to buy the service advisor a gym membership)
• white board
• spreadsheets
• bags
• flustered service advisors

Done.

Now your service advisor counter might look like this

The photo credit goes to Matt Purselle, he turned a typical two screen setup into a four screen setup. One screen for the POS, one for SmartFlow, one for email, one for everything else. Two are enough for the beginning, some of our clients use only one and it works too, thanks to built-in alerts.

Matt's counter looks like this seen with the eyes of the service advisor(s).

How do the techs know what is going on? they clock in on the tablet, EVERYTHING is on the tablet now, Identifix, Alldata or Mitchell, work order, inspection sheet, any info they need. They stay at the vehicle and smart-chat with the service advisor and get alerted about new info and new assignments for them.

Have you introduced a daily huddle with the techs? Great, do it like Matt and use a 55 inch screen with touch overlay to manage the day.

How does that sound to you?

Service Advisors are freed up, and can focus on the customer. All recommended actions by the tech are on the estimate now. You can measure and correct tech and service advisor behavior. Pencil whipping, over recommedning, time on the vehicle, tech efficiency and productivity, shop proficiency, anything you want really, since you are digital now.

One of our franchise clients just send this over to me

Sound to good to be true?

Nah.

Ask SmartFlow users in your area or us.

If I were to take it to the dealer how should I go about this? Take it in as a shop or just an individual? Is there a chance they would give me a max that it would cost me or do they just want a blank check?

Luckily it looks like there were no serious injuries but it made me curious about emergency preparedness - how do you guys handle it? Only three of us in our shop so we're always in communication anyway with plenty of exit paths. How does something like this play out insurance wise?

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Any advice? The opportunity was dropped in my lap out of no where. The building owner is a family friend, which scares me a bit.

The building is on a major highway, lots of traffic, and no other shop for 5 miles in any direction. Another plus is the location is very close to our current location. I'd be concerned he'd market it to another shop which could possibly impact our walk in sales. Our profit numbers are the best they've ever been, and we're finding production (revenue) to be limited by shop size. When big jobs come in it literally can bring our shop to a halt.

I'd rather not make a rash decision or a decision I won't be able to pay for, so I'll be taking a hard look at the numbers prior to making a decision as well.

Just curious if you guys had a guideline for expansion.

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