Ratchet+Wrench - October 2020

10.20

STRATEGIES & INSPIRATION FOR AUTO CARE SUCCESS

th

0 e 10s u is

PHONE MISTAKES THAT COST YOU CUSTOMERS PAGE 39

6 TIPS FOR MAXIMUM ARO

PAGE 35

THE WAY FORWARD The game-changing shifts to propel your shop PAGE 22

STOKES:

GAIN MORE CLARITY

PAGE 42

Eye on Growth Shop owner and Ratchet+Wrench's first cover subject Brian Sump has grown his Colorado business into one of the premier operations in the industry.

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O C T O B E R

Revisiting the Past In 2012, shop owner Brian Sump was Ratchet+Wrench’s first cover subject. One hundred issues later and he’s significantly grown his Colorado-area businesses.

F E AT U R E

22

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

Four industry superstars share their journeys in the industry and the lessons they've taken with them.

AK PHOTO

BY TESS COLLINS

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. COPYRIGHT ©2020 BY 10 MISSIONS MEDIA LLC. All rights reserved. Ratchet+Wrench (ISSN 2167-0056) is published monthly by 10 Missions Media, LLC, 571 Snelling Avenue North, St. Paul, MN 55104. Ratchet+Wrench content may not be photocopied, reproduced or redistributed without the consent of the publisher. Periodicals postage paid at St. Paul, MN, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTERS Send address changes to: Ratchet+Wrench, 571 Snelling Avenue North, St. Paul, MN 55104.

ON THE COVER: BRIAN SUMP PHOTOGRAPHED BY AK PHOTO

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TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

J U M P

10 ONLINE

Control a busy shop

S TA R T

T O O L B OX

15 BREAKDOWN

31 SHOP ADVICE

17 ADAPT

35 FINANCE+OPERATIONS

19 STRAIGHT TALK

39 CUSTOMER SERVICE

Rehiring furloughed employees

13 EDITOR'S LETTER

Celebrating 100 issues of R+W

Inside an EV shop Maintain your personal life JOE MARCONI

How to keep calm and carry on Tricks for raising ARO

Phone call do’s and don’ts

42 THE FIXER

Take a long, hard look in the mirror A ARON STOKES

31

19

“BECAUSE I’M A TECH...

I PUSH THE LIMITS AND DO WHAT I LOVE.

”

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EDITORIAL VICE PRESIDENT, CONTENT AND EVENTS Bryce Evans EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Anna Zeck ASSOCIATE EDITOR Megan Gosch STAFF WRITER Abby Patterson SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR Nora Johnson SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR Jordan Wiklund CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Tess Collins, Joe Marconi, Aaron Stokes, Rissy Sutherland PRODUCTION ART DIRECTOR Zach Pate GRAPHIC DESIGNER Lily Risken GRAPHIC DESIGNER Morgan Glisczinski PRODUCTION ARTIST Lauren Coleman SALES VICE PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER Chris Messer 651.846.9462 / cmesser@10missions.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Andrew Johnson 651.846.9459 / ajohnson@10missions.com MARKETING STRATEGIST Matt Walz 651.846.9463 / mwalz@10missions.com SALES MANAGER Jennifer Pullin 651.846.9551 / jpullin@10missions.com CUSTOMER SUCCESS REPRESENTATIVE Shayna Smith 651.846.9460 / ssmith@10missions.com CLIENT SERVICE SPECIALIST Jen George 651.846.9465 / jgeorge@10missions.com 10 MISSIONS MEDIA PRESIDENT Jay DeWitt GENERAL MANAGER AND PRODUCTION MANAGER Mariah Straub BOOKKEEPER AND CLIENT SERVICE SPECIALIST Meghann Moore EVENT PRODUCER Kate Fahlen SENIOR DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGIST Tiffany Fowler DIGITAL MEDIA ASSISTANT Nina Kayfes MARKETING SERVICES MANAGER Miranda Jama MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST Kasey Lanenberg ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Corey Steinhoff EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Jimmy Alauria, 3A Automotive & Diesel Repair Leigh Anne Best, Mighty Auto Pro Ryan Clo, Dubwerx Dwayne Myers, Dynamic Automotive John Miller, Fifth Gear Automotive Bryan Gossel, BG Automotive HOW TO REACH US 10 MISSIONS MEDIA 571 Snelling Avenue North, St. Paul, MN 55104 tel 651.224.6207 fax 651.224.6212 web 10missions.com The annual subscription rate is $72 (U.S.A. only) for companies not qualified to receive complimentary copies of Ratchet+Wrench.

BACK ISSUES Past issue single copies are $8.

Go to ratchetandwrench.com/backissues LETTERS TO THE EDITOR editor@ratchetandwrench.com ARTICLE REPRINTS For high-quality reprints or e-prints of articles in this issue, call 651.846.9488 or email reprints@ratchetandwrench.com.

Opinions expressed in Ratchet+Wrench are not necessarily those of 10 Missions Media, and 10 Missions Media does not accept responsibility for advertising content.

New Ratchet+Wrench Podcasts.

RADIO

4 SERIES WITH NEW EPISODES EVERY MONTH.

HOW I DID IT. Series featuring a rotating guest each month.

Hear about the challenges, opportunities and success stories from shop owners who found a way to thrive.

New episode this month.

GROW. Series hosted by marketing expert Frank Leutz.

Inside the processes, systems and operational strategies that have allowed the industry’s top shops to thrive.

New episode this month.

LEAD. Series hosted by shop operator Aaron Stokes.

The go-to resource for leadership lessons, philosophies and success stories. New episode this month.

S P O N SO R ED BY:

Print & Direct Mail Made Easy

INNOVATE. Series featuring a rotating guest each month.

An introspective look at the industry’s most pressing topics from the people who know them best. New episode this month.

LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE S E A R C H “ R AT C H E T + W R E N C H ” I N A P P S FOR APPLE AND ANDROID

AUTOMOTIVE GROUP

PODCASTS

STITCHER

POCKET CASTS 10 . 2 0 / R + W / 9

ONLINE 10.20

COMMENTS, DISCUSSIONS, FEEDBACK AND MORE FROM AROUND THE WEB

WEBINAR

—

Busy few months? You’re not alone. Check out Ratchet+Wrench’s latest webinar with shop operator and R+W online columnist Ryan Clo for tips on getting a handle on your workflow. It’s all at ratchetandwrench. com/webinars.

RADIO

FEATURED TOPIC:

REPORTER’S BLOG

—

PODCASTS

Ratchet+Wrench has some new faces on board: associate editors Mike Munzenrider and Megan Gosch. To learn more about the new team members and get firsthand insight on the industry from a pair of fresh eyes, head to ratchetandwrench.com/reportersblog.

—

You may have read their profiles last month, but to learn more about this year’s crop of Ratchet+Wrench All-Star Awards winners, head to ratchetandwrench.com/podcast for interviews with each of the winners.

ratchetandwrench.com TODAY

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EDITOR'S LETTER

Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going REFLECTING ON 100 ISSUES OF RATCHET+WRENCH

LEAH QUINTO

It feels like a lot longer than 10 months ago when one of my colleagues

came to an interesting realization: October 2020 would be the 100th issue of Ratchet+Wrench. And not only that, but it’s also the fifth year we’ve conducted our Industry Survey.

This came up in a planning meeting, as our team looked at the year ahead, particularly the fall. The fall issues are typically our biggest and coincide with numerous industry events, including AAPEX and the Ratchet+Wrench Management Conference, so we typically try to find ways to make them “special” and unique.

What better time to take a look back, celebrate and to highlight the advancements in the industry over those past 100 issues?

Well, plans change. COVID-19 hit. Nearly every event, including our own, was postponed or outright cancelled. The industry suffered.

We’ve suffered.

But, what can you do? If there’s ever been a year that’s illustrated just how little control we have, it’s 2020. So, we’ve done the only thing we can do: Adjust.

I mentioned it last month, but just because times are tough doesn’t mean there isn’t reason to celebrate. In fact, tough times might even be more cause to celebrate the good.

So, think back to your journey over the last 100 months. What have you done? What have you accomplished? How have you grown, and how have those around you grown?

I can say that we, as a magazine, as a company, as a team, and as a resource to the industry have grown tremendously. As someone who’s been there since the beginning, convincing shops who wanted nothing to do with another industry publication that they should talk to me and that we would be different, that growth has been extremely rewarding.

You’ll see on the pages of our feature, “A Look Back, A Leap Forward” (p. 22) how the industry has shifted, as well. We picked four people for four specific reasons—they’re folks who we’ve highlighted before and people who have been on the journey with us. Brain Sump was our very first cover subject, and in the 100 months since, he’s expanded his operation and become one of the foremost shop owners in the industry. Greg Bunch has also grown his Colorado business, and has now shifted his focus to helping other growing shop owners through his Transformers Institute. We also talked to two of the most tech-focused operators in the industry, National Automotive Task Force executive officer Donny Seyfer and Greg Buckley, who was on a 2016 cover wearing Google Glass.

While their stories are different, all of these operators have one quality in common: they keep pushing forward. They’ve all weathered obstacles.

They’ve all pivoted in one way or another. And they’ve all managed to come out better on the other side.

So, let’s do the same. Let’s keep adjusting. Let’s keep moving forward.

And let’s have even better things to celebrate 100 months from now.

BRYCE E VA NS, VICE PRESIDENT, CONTENT A ND E VENT S BE VA NS@10MISSIONS.COM

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J U M P S TA R T

Staffing During a Pandemic

How these shop owners were able to get their staff back to work

BY A B BY PAT T E R S O N

When states issued stay-at-home or-

ders and mandated shutdowns earlier this year, businesses have had to lay off workers due to the toll it’s taken on the economy. In fact, a new report from Facebook, according to CNBC, found that of the 86,000 small business owners surveyed, only 45 percent said they would rehire the same workers that they had furloughed or laid off.

Luckily, as auto repair businesses were deemed essential businesses, a complete shutdown wasn’t necessary, but some still had to furlough or lay off workers to ease the blow of the slow business weeks ahead.

From the Ratchet+Wrench Industry Survey, only 23 percent of respondents said they had to lay off or furlough employees. Most owners, however, turned to furloughing employees instead of laying them off completely, which allowed employees to have a job waiting for them when the lowest of the lows was over.

Here’s why shop owners were able to bring employees back through furloughing instead of giving workers the boot.

Furloughing Versus Laying Off Of those who responded as having to cut back on staff, most owners opted to furlough staff instead of lay off.

While laying off an employee cuts ties between the business and employee completely, furloughing, in other words, is like a required unpaid leave of absence, where employees go without work for a certain amount of time, but still earn their benefits and are guaranteed to have their position waiting for them when business picks up again, according to Business Insider.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Dan Moyer, owner of Metric Motors in Loveland, Colo., wanted to avoid having to send any of his employees home

without work. But as the pandemic really started to set in, he says he started to notice the phone ring less and less. And when that happened, he knew he needed to prepare.

Pre-pandemic, Moyer had little to no idea of what furloughing an employee actually looked like, but he wanted to make sure that whoever did have to take a step back from work was well taken care of and knew they had a spot waiting for them.

So, right before business started to take a plunge in the last week of March, he tried to gather as much information as he could, even sitting through a webinar on the ins and outs of furloughing and laying off.

Making the Call to Furlough Thankfully, Moyer only had to furlough one full-time employee and one part-time employee, and he got lucky doing so—he didn’t have to choose someone to furlough. Instead, someone on the team actually volunteered to furlough, unlike the rest of his crew.

Ron Goiorani, owner of Lodi Transmissions in Lodi, Calif., wasn’t quite as lucky. He had to make the decision himself. During the last week of March, the shop’s workload came to a halt and Goiorani sent five full-time workers—one service writer and four technicians—home to take advantage of unemployment. Goiorani was still able to take care of these employees. The shop’s health care company created a few policies when the pandemic began, which included deferring health care payments for 30 days and having an additional 30-day grace period on top of that. All in all, Goiorani was given two months to pay his staff’s health care bills, which allowed him to keep his staff’s health care intact.

Taking Advantage of Loans A big help for bringing back employees? The abundance of coronavirus business loans.

It was always Moyer’s intention to bring his staff back on, but in order to ensure their spot, he applied for the Paycheck Protections Program (PPP).

Once he was approved four weeks after applying, he was able to bring back his two workers and even hire more workers on. Now, he’s back up to a total of six workers in the shop.

For Goiorani, he credits the loans he received for getting his shop back on track.

Before applying for and receiving both the PPP and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL), no worker at the shop was guaranteed a spot back after the pandemic was over. With these loans secured, he was able to easily bring all of his staff back on when work picked up in May. Making Staff Feel Valued While Moyer’s staff volunteering made many decisions easier, Moyer still wanted to make sure his two staffers that were furloughed felt valued at his business.

During the four-week period the two staff members were furloughed, he checked in on them a few times per week to see how they were doing and if he could help them out in any way.

On top of that, Moyer gave the two employees the option to come back when they had enough work for them to do so.

While the apprentice came back after four weeks, his full-time employee asked to take an extra two weeks of furlough for himself. And while Moyer did have work for him to earn some money, he gave him the time to enjoy. Now, he’s back at work, and instead of viewing those six weeks as being unemployed, he viewed it as some extra unpaid vacation time.

10 . 2 0 / R + W / 15

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THE ADAPT: AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGY SUMMIT IS A THREE-DAY EVENT PROVIDING SHOP OWNERS AND OPERATORS WITH A UNIQUE, UNMATCHED OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN DIRECTLY FROM INDUSTRY LEADERS ON THE MOST PROGRESSIVE AND PRESSING TECHNOLOGY TRENDS DISRUPTING THE AUTOMOTIVE AFTERMARKET

K E Y I N S I G H T S , T R E N D S A N D S T R AT E G I E S F O R T O M O R R O W ’ S I N D U S T R Y—T O D AY A D A P TA U T O M O T I V E . C O M

A D A P TA U T O M O T I V E . C O M / FA C E B O O K

T W I T T E R .C O M /A DA P T_ AU TO M OT I V E

THE ADAPT INTERVIEW

Inside the Rebellious EV Shop Three partners knew their stuff when it came to Tesla. When it came to servicing and modifying the cars as an independent shop, they had a challenge on their hands.

Their operation, Electrified Garage, has risen to the occasion. ADAPT has the story of these three owners who have cracked into the proprietary world of Tesla.

The first of a three-part series covers Chris Salvo, a former BMW and Tesla tech who decided to strike out on his own with Electrified Garage.

Part two examines Chad Hrencecin, who also has BMW and Tesla on his resume and is the second co-owner of Electrified Garage.

Finally, check a podcast with Rich Benoit, aka RichRebuilds, who is a self-taught tinkerer and YouTube personality. Benoit talks to ADAPT about his work, Tesla's impact and how his independent work is getting in on the fun.

Get the series at adaptautomotive.com/electrified.

ADAPT TREND REPORT Head to the ADAPT website to sign up for the ADAPT Trend Report newsletter to have the latest news, strategies and transportation trends sent to your inbox every week. adaptautomotive.com/newsletter

The ADAPT: Automotive Technology Summit is a three-day event covering the most progressive and pressing trends disrupting the industry. Learn more at adaptsummit.com.

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After you check out the episode with #RichRebuilds, take a listen to how ADAS is being tested in modified vehicles.

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Columns

STRAIGHT TALK Joe Marconi

TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE Don’t let your business consume you

MICHAEL HOEWELER

David Simmons was a long-time customer and a friend. Whenever he

brought his car in for service, he would remind me of his countdown to retirement. It’s not that he didn’t want to work—David enjoyed his career as an accountant, worked hard, and had a successful business. However, David had plans and goals other than business.

That was, to purchase an RV and travel to every state in the U.S. with his wife.

David had every detail clearly written out. The routes, the places they would stop at, how much time on the road each day, how long the trip would take

and, of course, the model RV he would purchase. Three months before his retirement, David was excited and let me know that he would be gone for at least a year. I could feel his excitement and I was happy for David. Six months later, David’s wife came in to see me with sad news. A month before his retirement, David was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer and died two months later. David and his wife never took their long-awaited dream vacation.

This story is not to upset or depress anyone. Death is a part of life. However, life is part of life too. As business

Joe Marconi has more than three decades of experience in the automotive repair industry. He is the owner of Osceola Garage in Baldwin Place, N.Y., a business development coach for Elite Worldwide and co-founder of autoshopowner.com. j.marconi@eliteworldwide.com ratchetandwrench.com/marconi 10 . 2 0 / R + W / 19

STR AIGHT TALK / JOE MARCONI

people, we sometimes think that business will go on forever or that we have more time on this planet than we actually do. We all reach a point in our lives when we realize that there are more years behind us than there are ahead of us. No matter what age you are right now, stop and read the last sentence again and let that sink in a bit.

In 1973, at the age of 18, I made the decision to become an automotive technician.

I took that seriously and worked hard to be the best I could be. Seven years later, I became a shop owner, and have worked hard to become the best I could be in business. I grew up hanging around repair shops and gas stations with my father, and I wanted to make a difference in the world of independent auto repair shops. My passion for this business was rooted from a very young age. I knew it would be a long hard road, but I made the best of it, accepted it, and have no regrets. Well, only one. If I could do it all over again, I would change one thing—reduce the number of hours spent at the shop.

There were times when I got to work at 5 a.m. on a Saturday, got the shop going, left the shop around 9 a.m. for my son’s baseball game, went back to the shop at noon after his game was over, and finished up a few jobs. I know many of you reading this are shaking your heads—not in amazement, but in empathy, that you too did, or are doing, the same exact thing.

I remember there were days when I was so tired, I would lock the shop doors around 7 p.m., get an hour of sleep in the back room and go back to work for a few more hours. Yes, I was a little nuts in the 1980s. I would bet that I am not alone in my over-the-top work habits.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I am not judging anyone who works hard.

And I am not angry with myself for working the way I did. However, later on in my business career, it became clear that the way I worked was due more to my inability to truly run an efficient business. The business relied too heav-

ily on what I did, as opposed to building a team around me, which is what I eventually did. And we all know that the right team is more successful than any one person.

As shop owners, we have commitments to fulfill each and every day.

Those commitments extend to our employees, to our business, and to our community. However, we also need to make a commitment to ourselves and our families. I have said this countless times and will repeat it here again: Your business must serve to enhance your life, never consume it. Be successful, build your wealth, and become the shop owner you’ve dreamed of becoming. Make a difference in this world.

But never do any of that at the expense of precious time away from your family and time for yourself too. David Simmons’ goal was to wait until retirement to begin to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

He never reached his goal. Let’s all learn from David. Don’t wait, make the most out of life. Start today.

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SPONSORED CONTENT

SHOP SPOTLIGHTS

S&S Auto Repair | Speed Auto Repair Aaron Smith & Jim Brown GROWING AGAINST THE ODDS Despite the challenges faced by the auto repair industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, Aaron Smith and Jim Brown were both able to grow their businesses by leveraging Tekmetric and opening second locations.

We recently sat down with Jim and Aaron to learn about their shop management philosophy and how they were able to confront challenges head on. Here’s what we learned:

Pushing Through with the Community

Jim Brown: The first thing I did when COVID started was triple my marketing budget. I made a video for our customers where we said,

Whatever you need, just give us a call, and we will make it happen.

That could mean service on your car, or it could mean getting your medicine or groceries if you couldn’t leave your house.

Aaron Smith: I pretty much abandoned the normal automotive messaging. For me, it was all about “How can we help you?” I wanted messages that centered on being there to help our customers when they needed us. One lady called us because her house was flooding and she wanted us to pray with her. We decided to go a step further and call our customers to check on them. We didn’t want to sell them anything, we just wanted to make sure they were okay.

Overhauling Systems to Stay Profitable

Aaron Smith: I wanted to move forward and push through, and I felt like we were in a good position to weather the storm and take the risk of what might happen. We buckled down, tightened our belt, and found ways to cut our expenses. We trimmed the fat quite a bit.

Jim Brown: We worked on all our shop’s processes. We asked ourselves, “How can we become profitable during these times?” We repaired our building and serviced all our equipment. Then we worked on all our systems. We perfected our customer intake, our checkout systems, and our digital inspections. We recreated all our canned jobs and things like that, so that when we got busy again, we were ready to roll.

Going Paperless and Rethinking Our Customer Interactions Jim Brown: Our big innovation was touchless service: you book an appointment using our online portal, and we’ll come to your house to

SHOP STATS: S&S Auto Repair Owner: Aaron Smith Location: Chattanooga, TN & Hixson, TN Staff: 21 Average Monthly Car Count: 900 ARO: $430 Number of Bays: 18 Shop Management System: Tekmetric

SHOP STATS: Speed Auto Repair Owner: Jim Brown Location: Roswell, GA & Alpharetta, GA Staff: 15 Average Monthly Car Count: 800 ARO: $300 Number of Bays: 18 Shop Management System: Tekmetric

pick your car up for you. We perform our inspection and use Tekmetric to send pictures of all work that needs to be done directly to the customer’s phone. The invoice is attached to the report as well, so they can pay it right there on their phone, and they never have to leave the safety of their home. It became such a hit that we decided to keep doing it.

Aaron Smith: We had already gone paperless in February after switching to Tekmetric, so it was easy for us to transition to a safe, touchless auto repair service. Now, all of our information is passed digitally between our service, parts, and technician departments.

Visit tekmetric.com/shop-spotlight for Jim & Aaron's full stories.

Visit speedautorepair.com for more info about Speed Auto Repair.

Visit ssautorepair.net for more information about S&S Auto Repair.

10 . 2 0 / R + W / 21

After 100 Issues, Ratchet+Wrench reflects on how the industry has and continues to evolve

BY TESS COLLINS

I

n 1954, Roger Bannister achieved what seemed to be an impossible feat: He ran a mile in under four minutes.

However, it took only two months for that unprecedented record to be broken—by a full second, no less.

Today, the world record for the mile is 3:43.13—a full 17 seconds under four minutes.

Under four minutes is now the expectation.

If you know Brian Sump, Ratchet+Wrench’s firstever cover star (reprising his role in this issue), you likely know this story. Sump has written about it in the pages of this publication and spoken about it at the Ratchet+Wrench Management Conference.

In many ways, it’s representative of Sump’s journey: A retired professional football player, he was simply following his passion when he purchased his 2 2 / R + W / 10 . 2 0

first shop, Avalon Motorsports, in 2007 with little industry experience.

A few years later, though, he was Ratchet+Wrench’s first cover and a few years after that, he opened another business—Urban Autoworks. Then a third shop.

And this year, a fourth.

Sump was the perfect choice for Ratchet+Wrench’s first issue in July 2012. He was a trailblazer. He was innovative. He cared for the industry. He was the future of the automotive repair industry.

The four industry superstars profiled in the following pages have become the industry standards of what it means to be successful shop owners—each in their own unique way. Here, they share their stories on how they’ve seen the industry evolve coupled with insight from the 2020 Ratchet+Wrench Industry Survey.

Leverage a Fresh Perspective

AK PHOTO, GETTY IMAGES

During a closing keynote at the Ratchet+Wrench Management Conference, Brian Sump polled the audience with, “how many of you never worked as a technician?" Only one other owner raised his hand.

Only 15 percent of shop owners in the Ratchet+Wrench Industry Survey said they had zero background in the industry before taking over a shop.

That hasn't stopped Sump from running some of the most successful shops in the country.

After retiring from a pro football career, he purchased Avalon, an e-commerce website for performance upgrades run out of a small office attached to a service center. He’s since moved locations and added on a general repair MSO called Urban Autoworks.

Going from a career in professional football to running an auto repair shop may seem strange—and maybe it is—but Sump has always loved cars.

“I loved football and I loved cars. I’ve always loved cars. [I thought,] if I could be around German cars all of the time, that would be sweet,” he says.

Seek a sounding board.

Despite his passion, those first few years were a struggle for Sump.

It wasn’t until he sat next to a fellow shop owner on the way to the Worldpac Expo in 2009 that he was encouraged to attend the classes available—not just sit by the pool, he says with a laugh.

“My eyes were opened to the opportunity of the industry,” Sump says.

Sump realized that he wasn’t the only one that was running into certain obstacles and that others around him had been able to find a way to be successful. If they could do it, so could he. That hasn’t stopped Sump from running some of the most successful shops in the country, along with what Sump refers to as his “ridiculously awesome team that sacrifices a lot”.

That year, he started a 20 Group in Denver to continue the peer networking that he found so helpful.

“You have to have smart people and good advisors and people who have done what you’re thinking of doing,” he says.

Sump took a big risk when he moved Avalon across town in 2011. The move to a larger location

and rebrand had Sump working 80-hour weeks to make ends meet, but within two months, he had nearly doubled his record revenue month. Since then, he’s added three general auto repair shops—Urban Autocare—to his operation since 2014.

Forge a new path.

Many in the industry told Sump that his background was an advantage, but it took a while for him to see it that way.

Now, he sees that his civil engineering studies taught him problem–solving and critical thinking, and that his time as a musician enabled him to use both his left and right brain to access critical thinking and creativity.

Because he hadn’t been in the industry for many years, he wasn’t stuck in a certain way of doing things, which made him flexible and willing to adapt.

Not having a preconceived notion of how the business should run allowed Sump to innovate and think outside of the box.

“I didn’t already have bad habits,” he says, with a laugh. “I didn’t know anything.”

“FIND SOMETHING YOU LOVE DOING AND MAKE A LIVING DOING IT.”

BRIAN SUMP — OWNER,

AVALON MOTORSPORTS, URBAN AUTOCARE

2002

earns civil engineering degree

2003

plays in the nfl

2 0 07

purchases avalon motorsports

2009

attends worldpac starts

20 group

2011 moves avalon motorsports

2014 purchases first urban autocare

2019

acquires 2nd location

2020

acquires 3rd location

10 . 2 0 / R + W / 2 3

A L O O K B A C K , A L E A P F O R WA R D

Embrace the Tech

“WE LIVE AND BREATHE TECH IN OUR WORLD— WE CAN’T ESCAPE IT.”

GREG BUCKLEY — OWNER

BUCKLEY’S AUTO CARE

1968 begins working in dad’s shop

1995

purchases shop from father

1997 starts using email

1999

creates first website

2000

starts tracking kpis

2006

moves to current location

2009

starts using google voice

2010 purchases shop ipad

2014 purchases google glass

2020

updates ipads, laptops and monitors

24 / R + W / 10 . 2 0

Greg Buckley began his career in the automotive repair industry in 1968 at the age of 8, working at his dad’s shop (the original Buckley’s Auto Care) as a pump jockey. Since then, the industry has changed and shifted in a major way. One of the most notable shifts is through technology, something with which Buckley has become synonymous (ratchetandwrench.com/techandtoolsbudget).

Buckley has been in the industry his whole life, but that doesn’t mean he’s gotten complacent. Far from it, in fact. He’s used Google Glass in his shop (ratchetandwrench.com/utilizetech), all of his techs are equipped with digital vehicle inspection tablets, and he’s currently looking into interactive monitors that will allow his shop to effectively communicate with one another.

But it’s not just about using technology for the sake of having it—Buckley uses it to find the best solutions for his shop.

Study up.

2000, five years after purchasing the shop from his dad, was a significant year for Buckley.

“We knuckled down and studied what we were doing to find out how we could become more efficient,” Buckley says. “My dad would always have numbers on paper. We weren’t ignorant to KPIs—they were gross metrics back then—but it’s not as mature as it is today.”

According to the 2020 Ratchet+Wrench Industry Survey, 79 percent of respondents track KPIs—which has a significant impact on shop performance. That percentage is an increase from 64 percent in 2017, but 21 percent still don’t track, which is a detriment to the business. Not surprisingly, Buckley was an early adopter and has tracked KPIs for 20 years. In 2000, Buckley joined NAPA and the NAPA TRACS shop management system.

Being able to have an organized approach to tracking numbers made a huge difference for Buckley, as it helped break down every job to highlight where the money makers and the headaches were, something that was extremely convenient for a shop that services all makes and models. Now, he can see which customers he should

market to in order to be as successful as possible.

Boosting team buy-in.

So, in all of the years that Buckley has been in the automotive industry and with all of the new technology that’s come out, what does he believe is the piece of technology that’s advanced his operation the most?

Digital vehicle inspections.

The number of shop owners that use DVIs is on the rise, but, according to the 2020 Ratchet+Wrench Industry Survey, it’s still fewer than half of respondents.

One of the reasons for this low number could be the fact that many shop owners have a hard time getting their team on board with new processes, Buckley says. One way to do so could be to show the actual impact that it has. For example, the survey found that of those that use an electronic vehicle inspection sheet, 46 percent had a closing ratio of 70 percent or higher. That number dropped drastically to only 9 percent for those that do not take advantage of this technology.

The use has clearly paid off, though: With only two advisors and three technicians, Buckley’s produces more than $1 million in annual revenue with a car count of $154 and an ARO of $589.

Lead with a Vision

RW FILE PHOTO

Greg Bunch didn’t start out with the intent to own more than one location.

“I bought the second shop on a whim,” Bunch says.

While it’s not something he recommends, it ended up working out, as he’s gone on to open six total Colorado-based Aspen Auto Clinic locations, one of which he sold, and is currently looking for more acquisition opportunities. Owning more than one location is relatively rare among Industry Survey respondents: Only 10 percent said they owned MSOs, with 85 percent identifying as owners of single-location independent repair shops.

Bunch has undergone a complete transformation—from working in the business to working on the business—throughout his time in the industry, a theme that remains common for many shop owners. Thirty-one percent of 2020 Ratchet+Wrench Industry Survey respondents said they work on vehicles every day and only 29 percent have plans to expand.

“I went through an evolution. When I started, I was a one-man band—I did everything,” Bunch says. “At that point, I didn’t mind doing that.”

Prepare to pivot.

“I went to an industry conference, and the speaker said that the best thing you can do for your business is to take your toolbox out,” Bunch says. “At that point, I was the only tech. That was the moment that took the air out of my lungs and stuck in my mind that eventually, you have to be the business owner.”

Life often takes you unexpected places, as Bunch knows all too well. Newly divorced and a single dad to four kids, he knew that he needed to change his mindset.

In order to do this, Bunch became more involved in training within the industry. He took classes through the Automotive Training Institute, he joined 20 Groups and he became more familiar with the business side of automotive repair.

“I didn’t understand what a P&L was. I didn’t understand margins,” Bunch says. “I think the modern business shop owner has a much better grasp on the numbers than anyone I ever saw growing up

in this. They understand they need to be a better business person than a better mechanic.”

Putting people first.

Since Bunch started, the way vehicles are made has radically changed, which he says has been the biggest adaptation he’s had to make.

Because there are fewer touchpoints, making a good impression with customers is key. Luckily, this is one part of running a business that hasn’t changed.

What’s changed is what customers want and how to adapt to their new needs.

“When I first did the threeyear, 36,000-mile warranty, everyone thought I was crazy,” Bunch says of an offering that has since become common.

Customer service, especially in today’s highly competitive environment, is key. That’s what makes this statistic so alarming: 55 percent of Ratchet+Wrench Industry Survey respondents do not track their CSI scores.

“IF I COULD CHANGE THINGS, I WOULD HAVE GOTTEN HELP FROM THE VERY BEGINNING.”

GREG BUNCH — OWNER

ASPEN AUTO CLINIC

2001 starts first shop out of garage moves into commercial building

2005

purchases shop 1

2 0 07

purchases shops 2 & 3

2010

purchases shop 4

2013

purchases shops 5 & 6

2015

sells sixth location

2016

starts transformers institute

10 . 2 0 / R + W / 2 5

A L O O K B A C K , A L E A P F O R WA R D

Advocate for the Industry

“INDEPENDENTS AREN’T GOING AWAY; NEITHER ARE DEALERSHIPS. WE NEED TO GET THAT NARRATIVE OUT OF THE WAY AND TO SAY, ‘WHAT DO WE NEED TO DO TO TAKE CARE OF PEOPLE WITH CARS?’”

Before Donny Seyfer was born, his father, Don, founded the Independent Garage Owners of Colorado (which would later become the Automotive Service Association) in 1963. You could say that being an advocate for the industry runs in his blood.

Seyfer has put in a lot. He has served in almost all of the Automotive Service Association positions (including Chairman), he was on the board for ASA National, the board of ASE education and involved with AMi. He currently serves as the executive officer for the National Automotive Service Task Force (NASTF).

DONNY SEYFER —

Empower with engagement.

When his father was involved in the industry, it was much more difficult to network, especially across the nation. But even then, Don saw the need for it, and his son has carried that belief.

Today, that’s become much easier (even during a pandemic, shop owners have found ways to network through Zoom meetings and virtual conferences and webinar).

“I have over 3,200 people in my contacts,” Seyfer says. “When you get involved at that level, you meet people and they make the world a little bit smaller for you. By being a volunteer [within industry organizations], you get an opportunity to develop relationships.”

Seyfer says that the networking piece of running a business is so important, and that’s why he chooses to stay involved.

The benefits of peer networking are clear, but many in the industry don’t take advantage. Only 29

CO-OWNER OF SEYFER AUTOMOTIVE INC.

2001 begins teaching for asa colorado

2 0 07

joins asa board

2015

resigns from asa board

2017 named executive officer of nastf

percent of Ratchet+Wrench Industry Survey respondents are a member of a 20 Group or other peer networking group.

Make conscious connections.

Seyfer is big on communication, and that is where he says the automotive industry fails.

OEMs don’t communicate what is available, and because of that, independent repair shops don’t use all of the tools at their disposal because they are unaware. The lack of communication between the independent auto repair industry and the automakers means there’s a lack of understanding of what the aftermarket needs and a lack of resources for providing these tools. By not leaning on one another, the entire industry suffers, Seyfer says.

It all goes back to the importance of being involved: “You can’t complain if you’re not on the call,” Seyfer says.

THEN & NOW

2015

2020

Digital vehicle inspections

32%

47%

Labor rate above $110

21%

47%

ARO above $400

45%

60%

Don't charge for diagnostic work

10%

10%

2 6 / R + W / 10 . 2 0

PHOTO COURTSEY DONNY SEYFER, RW FILE PHOTO

The numbers that have changed the most in the past five years—and one worrisome figure that hasn’t

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T O O L B OX / S H O P A D V I C E

Keeping Your Cool

GETTY IMAGES

Don’t let anger get in the way of your success One day, Mike Turner, owner of the 8-person, $1.6-million-per-year Portland Automotive in Portland, Conn., had a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. For years, he knew he had a bit of an anger problem, or more of a problem with shooting from the hip too quickly with his staff and members of his 20 Group, and he didn’t know how to control it.

“I was a little too blunt and a little too forward at times,” Turner says.

Turns out, Turner was diagnosed with ADHD, which is known to cause aggression, anger, and impulsivity. After figuring out what was holding him back, he was able to take control.

Whatever the reason behind it, anger issues can plague shop owners and their abilities to lead. To help keep your cool as a leader, here are some tips he’s learned that have helped him keep his anger in check.

A S TO L D TO A B BY PAT T E R S O N

It’s important to notice the signs.

I found myself losing my temper, so I wanted to get to the cause of it. I think what really helped me notice it was my coach asking me to look into it. He knew something was up when I would blurt out things, not thinking before I spoke, during 20 Group meetings. I realized I had a bigger problem that I could fix, and it was a big wakeup call.

One thing that I’ve learned is that ADHD is pretty common in the automotive industry. Back in the day, most of us fit into technical schools because it’s what we’d do best; not mainstream schools. If I was a technician working on four cars during the day and I’m able to do 10 things at a time, it made me a very valuable flat-rate technician. I just didn’t know it was my ADHD that was going to help me do that. That’s why you see so much of it in the trade industry.

While I can now easily recognize it with my employees after reading the book, Driven to Distraction, I was able to understand why this would happen and how to control not only my anger, but other people’s anger. Now if I have a technician that I can identify has these symptoms or anger issues in general, I have them read the book.

Find the reason why you’re upset.

That can mean a lot of different things.

Does it mean you’re unhappy with your business? Are you constantly putting out fires? Do you have underlying issues that you need to take care of ? There’s always an underlying issue, so you need to find out the true reason you feel that way. If you raised your voice before you could catch yourself, find out why you reacted that way, apologize, and figure out a system so the reaction and issue can be avoided.

10 . 2 0 / R + W / 31

T O O L B OX / S H O P A D V I C E

SUBSCRIBE. “Ratchet+Wrench is our go-to resource with leadership and organizational development for our team at Dynamic Automotive.

There is no other publication out there that can compare to the depth of information we find valuable every day.”

-Dwayne Myers, CEO and Co-Owner, Dynamic Automotive, 4 locations in Maryland

To subscribe or renew for free today, visit ratchetandwrench.com/subscribe

3 2 / R + W / 10 . 2 0

Use standard operating procedures (SOPs) for everything. Whether it’s checking for parts inventory or someone broke something, we have an SOP for it.

This is one of the biggest ways I’m able not to lose my temper on employees.

Instead of losing my cool, I instead hold an employee improvement meeting to go through the SOP that relates to the issue. When something goes wrong and I’m talking with an employee about it, I’m able to instantly say, “What SOP did we not follow?” versus the first angry response that pops into my head.

I’ve learned that stopping to go through and follow an SOP is the tactic that has helped me the most.

I use a form for technicians called a repair warranty form, instead of calling it a customer comeback form—I find it offensive to say it that way after being a technician for all of these years. We have reasons on the warranty form why there was a repair warranty form issued, and we assume it isn’t the tech’s problem anymore. It could be the equipment, a server issue, the part was bad, etc. You need to find out what the problem is.

Slowing myself down enough to fill those out helps me tremendously and not put the blame on technicians.

I learned to have a little voice in my head that tells me to listen when people are talking. There were times early on in the business where I would lose my temper easily. Not only identifying the signs in myself, but working with my son, who was also diagnosed, has forced me to work on that. I decided I needed to slow myself down. Otherwise, it’s just ready, aim, and shooting off whatever comes to mind before I have time to actually think about what I’m saying.

Before getting to the employee and taking it out on them, I usually only get 10-15 feet out the door before I catch myself, step back, think about it, and tell myself there’s a better way to do it. It’s something I’m always going to be working on, but my goal is to realize earlier on what I’m doing. I think a lot of shop owners get those moments. It’s learning to not get to the other side of the shop and get to that person face to face before thinking about it that has been really helpful.

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T O O L B OX / F I N A N C E + O P E R AT I O N S

Sky-High ARO How to take this KPI to the next level

BY TESS COLLINS

GETTY IMAGES

Jake Hammer, owner of Everett Street

Autoworks in Portland, Ore., sees an impressive 640 cars per month at his general repair shop. This falls into a higher car count model. That being said, Hammer is trying to shift toward a high average repair order (ARO) model.

“We’re a higher car count shop, but it wasn’t a strategic decision. For us, we’ve never had a problem bringing in customers so when we were looking to grow, that was the easiest route,” Hammer says. “Now, we’ve hit capacity and it’s hard to get more parking spots, so we’re shifting our focus to ARO.” With vehicles going longer without maintenance needs, many shop owners are

making the most of when their customers come in by focusing on ARO. Hammer, along with three shop owners with AROs above $900, share their tips for becoming a high ARO shop.

Target the right customer. [parker davis / broad stroke associates / snohomish, wash. / bmw and audi shop / $1,100 aro / $152 posted labor rate] We had a low labor rate and running oil change specials—we were attracting the bottom of the barrel. We would write it all up and they wouldn’t buy any of it. We’re not doing that ever again. What we did was we brought our labor rate up and start-

ed charging the right margin on parts. We started pursuing customers that had the same values as us and wanted to keep a car in great condition. To do this, we changed our marketing. We do not discount market anymore. The only offers we run are $50 off for first time clients. We never talk about price—we talk about warranty.

Find and explain all work. [dave toole / toole’s garage / san carlos , calif. / general repair / $925 aro / $186 labor rate] High ARO starts with the tech. A good quality tech and a good quality inspection is key—all cars need work. If they don’t 10 . 2 0 / R + W / 3 5

see it, it doesn’t get estimated. Then, it’s all about transparency with the customer. Where we are, our clients appreciate pictures and seeing everything. Then, it’s the advisor’s job to do just that—advise.

What’s super important? What can wait?

Earn customers’ trust. [rob sperring / grand rapids motorcar / grand rapids , mich . / general repair / $725 aro / $119 door labor rate] You need to set up that personal relationship—they have to trust you. Have little conversations with them. Ask them if they’re married or if they have kids. Walk around the vehicle with them and show them what needs to be done. Another thing is that you need to touch base with them. You need to reach out within a few hours and keep them updated. Set up the expectation from the start. We first send out the digital vehicle inspections, then we email a quote and then we call the customer.

Keep in mind the staff's capacity. [bill adams / adams autoworx and tireworx inc . / castro valley, calif. / general repair / $960 aro /$187 labor rate] It comes down to basic accounting. It forces you to look at your mix of cars and what everyone in your shop can handle.

For example, if your least experienced tech needs to work on 20 cars per day for quick services, how do you support that?

Do you need 60 cars per day? That’s impossible. You need to figure out where adding one more car lowers your ARO. You should have someone that writes up all of the work orders for the service advisor. A big mistake is treating your sales advisor as anything other than a salesperson. If you throw everything— writing and selling—on the service advisors, they will cherry pick the work because they don’t have the time. If you have someone else—it could be the

general manager, junior advisor or a parts person—write up the work, this allows the service advisor to sell more to the client.

Get your team on board. [jake hammer /everett street autoworks /portland , ore . / general repair / $425 aro / $120 labor rate] In order to be successful with a high ARO model, systems and processes that are replicable are essential. As the leader, create a system that ensures each and every car gets the proper inspection and proper post repair check. For us, we had a lot of meetings that focused on why showing all of the work to the customer was good so our staff saw the value. We updated our comp plan and showed what an increase in ARO would do for their compensation. We set goals as a team now and we celebrate when we’re successful.

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The Top 7 Shop Success Drivers

Kukui’s All-in-One Success Platform has helped thousands of shop owners achieve each of these success drivers

Shop owners all over the country are stretched thin while attempting to run their business, manage their staff, and market their shop. In order to assist with some of the many responsibilities, take the stress off, and help their businesses grow, operators should be looking to outside resources.

As a way to help with the marketing side of the business, shop owners can turn to Kukui’s All-in-One Success Platform for growth in the following shop success drivers.

1. DOMINATE ONLINE PRESENCE Dominating online presence goes beyond being a top search result, and involves a number of methods including social media, Google My Business, SEO, paid placement (Google and Bing Ads), as well as name, address, and phone correctness. Through Kukui’s All-in-One Success Platform, shop owners can utilize tools and support that will boost their online presence and profit.

“Kukui helps our online presence primarily with our SEO, we seem to be popping up all over the internet since we’ve started using Kukui,” Niles Todd, owner of Portland Motor Works in Portland, Ore., explains. “They help spread our presence in a number of different places, including social media and our website. This has really rocketed us to the top of the search list, especially on Google.”

2. MORE INSIGHT WITH BETTER DATA One of the most important tools to running a business is tracking and analyzing key data. Most owners are already calculating their ARO, car count, and average labor hours.

But as important as tracking these critical KPIs are, owners should also be giving the same amount of attention to the data surrounding their marketing programs.

“Kukui provides a dashboard that really helps us track our data, including the traffic to our website and the phone numbers that come into our shop from online. That data helps us to see what’s being effective and what’s not,” says Todd.

3. HIGHER CUSTOMER RETENTION No business survives without customers. And although acquiring new clients is crucial, making sure current customers return is vital. This is because the cost of acquiring a new customer is at least five times more expensive, resulting in current customers being more profitable. Kukui offers a range of products and services that make keeping customers coming back easy. The platform allows owners to set up retention marketing campaigns that will automatically trigger themselves based on a customer's interaction with the shop.

“Kukui’s Follow-Up Module helps us to track when our customers were last in the shop, and helps us communicate a little better with our clients,” explains Todd.

4. HIGHER ARO One of the most important KPIs is average repair order. And in today’s climate—where car count may be lower than ever

before—focusing on maximizing your team’s efficiency on each individual vehicle will, in turn, maximize profit.

“Our business model works on quality over quantity, and to be able to do that successfully we need a high average repair order,” Todd says. “Kukui brings us those opportunities and helps us to build trust with our clients simply because of the relationships Kukui helps us to foster.”

5. NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION Attracting new customers to your shop can be one of the most difficult tasks an owner faces; and new customer acquisition is key to overall business growth. Kukui helps take the pressure off of shop owners by helping to navigate the shop’s marketing.

“Kukui helps us with new customer acquisition in a number of ways, the first being our website. Our website now has all this great information we didn’t have before. We also have videos on there that let our customers get a sense of the shop before they actually come in,” Todd says. “The second way is Kukui organically putting my shop to the top of search results.”

6. IMPROVED WORK/LIFE HARMONY If there is something shop owners don’t have much of, it’s work/ life harmony. This lack of harmony often leads to owners taking their work (and stress) home with them. In order to take some of the pressure off of owners and their families, as many tasks as possible should be reallocated.

“Since Kukui has brought us more business, I don't have to be as stressed worrying if we are going to have cars in the shop. We do great work here, but once we fix each car completely, we then primarily see oil changes—so we need a pretty good stream of new business,” Todd says. “Kukui has helped me to relax a little bit, which has also helped my home life.

7. INCREASING CAR COUNT Although other critical KPIs are important to look at, car count should still be focused on and optimized. Repair shops simply cannot run without any cars, and increasing the number of vehicles is an effective way to quickly make your shop more profitable.

Todd has seen an increase in the number of cars coming into his shop since he has started using Kukui’s platform.

“Our car count last month was 80, and out of those 80, 40 were new clients—and those clients are spending crazy amounts of money,” he says.

Learn more about Kukui and each of the shop success drivers at www.kukui.com

If you would like to learn more about Kukui, visit kukui.com/rw or call (877) 695-6008

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Call to Action A new approach to answering the phone

BY A B BY PAT T E R S O N

Customer service doesn’t just occur

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within the walls of your shop. Customer service carries over onto social media, email, and the phone. According to Kevin Levi, vice president of marketing for OrecX, a phone recording company aiding in customer service, a phone conversation can make or break a sale.

“These days, with the customers being in charge and so many different industries out there, you have to focus on customer service,” Levi says. “It builds tremendous goodwill, it builds additional revenue, and it helps you retain your customers.”

Mark Doornbos knows a thing or two when it comes to customer service over the phone. As the general manager of Dytech Auto Group—owner of seven service facilities in Michigan—he sets up phone training with Elite for his service advisors. Through what they’ve learned, here are common phone call mistakes they’ve seen in the past—and what to do instead.

Don’t: Let just anyone take calls.

Technicians working at your shop should be well trained on repairs, but most likely do not have customer service training.

Instead: Assign duties to a specific person.

This is where a service advisor comes in, with the sole purpose of focusing on customer service. This ensures the best person for the job is talking to customers. At Dytech Auto Group’s shops, the only employees allowed to answer the phones are those that have been trained on customer service over the phone.

If no one is able to answer, or it rings more than three times or so, customers have the option to leave a message or are routed to a phone in the back so someone can help them, which usually is a technician. While technicians aren’t trained on phones necessarily, they are trained to answer the phone like a service advisor and ask the customer to hold until they can find the right person to talk to.

Don’t: Be short when answering.

While most customers know they are calling the shop to schedule a service, Levi says it’s a bad business practice to not identify yourself or who you work for over a call. Doornbos says one of the worst things to do is to answer in a hurry because it makes the customer feel like he or she is an inconvenience.

Instead: Establish all of the details.

The first thing the service advisor should do when he or she picks up the phone is provide his or her name, organization, and a, “How can I help you today?” In return, ask for the customer's name and phone number.

That way, if the customer gets disconnected, they can easily be called back.

Since so many of Dytech’s customers drop off their vehicles before they even open, Doornbos tells service advisors to get as much information as possible over the phone before their scheduled service so they can efficiently send customers their digital vehicle inspection reports.

And, before the call has ended, always confirm all of the details of the

appointment. This includes the date, time, services being performed, and who is working on the car that day.

Don’t: Sound scripted.

It can be hard for service advisors to remember everything to cover on the phone, so some customer service providers use phone scripts to fill in the gaps. However, Levi says this runs the risk of coming across robotic.

Instead: Create a checklist.

Instead of a word-for-word phone script, a bullet-pointed list can be used to help create a more personalized experience without forgetting certain questions or steps in between.

While a mini script is ingrained in Doornbos’s service advisors when answering a call—Thanks for calling Dykstra’s Auto Service, this is X; how can I help you today?—Elite has taught the service advisors to build rapport with customers to not sound so scripted. And instead of a physical checklist, all of the questions that need answering are built into the shop’s management system.

Don’t: Guess at answering a question.

What if a customer asks a question to the person manning the front desk and they aren’t 100 percent certain of the answer?

Instead: Search for the answer.

“When it comes to answering a question you aren’t sure about, you should never guess,” Levi says.

Instead, the service advisor should put the customer on hold or call back. If it concerns policies, look it up. If it has to do with the vehicle itself, go out and ask the technician. It all comes down to liability.

“You’re protecting yourself and you're protecting your customer,” Levi says.

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Don’t: Diagnose over the phone.

Doornbos’s big no-no rule? Never give an estimate over the phone. The service the customer is requesting could be a totally different issue than what the customer believes and could result in a different price point.

Instead: Get the customer to come in.

If the customer is that concerned over the price, Doornbos says that may not be your ideal customer.

But, if the customer asks for the price, Dytech’s service advisors are trained to say that it’s hard to give a price over the phone when so many different factors are involved, adding that they can’t give the customer a fair and honest estimate over the phone without seeing the vehicle first. The one price you can quote over the phone, however? A diagnosis fee.

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Don’t: Hard sell the customer.

Although it’s the service advisor’s job to sell the recommended repairs, Levi says that doing this over the phone can sometimes make customers feel as though the shop is trying to get more money out of them.

Instead: Advise.

Advise the customer on the services needed and give your personal suggestions.

You can tactfully make the sale and capitalize on it without doing it in a pushy way, Levi says.

For example, if a customer calls to install new brake pads, the service advisor can simply ask, “When’s the last time you got your tires rotated?” or ask about any other maintenance service due. That way, you’re trying to advise the customer on what the vehicle really needs instead of trying to sell something he or she doesn’t need.

Don’t: Neglect the follow-up.

Customers are prone to leave a review or speak up when it’s a big enough inconvenience for them, but many may still leave the shop unhappy and not come back.

Instead: Follow up.

Following up with a customer after a service allows the customer to give feedback on how the service went, as well as gives the shop an opportunity to correct the problem, and schedule a future service.

By following up on the service, it gives the customer the opportunity to bring up any issues, big or small—and allows you to fix it.

And while you have the customer on the phone, bring up the car’s next service due date and schedule a future appointment.

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Find YOUR spark at autolite.com ©2020 FRAM Group IP LLC 10 . 2 0 / R + W / 41

Columns

THE FIXER Aaron Stokes

WHO ARE YOU? Getting comfortable with the real answer

if you haven’t caught it, here’s the CliffsNotes: I was a poor, white-trash kid growing up in trailer parks with stains on my jeans and T-shirts. Not super glamorous, and you can imagine the type of messaging I got growing up. There weren’t a whole lot of people around me who went on to be super successful or lead a different type of life. It’s really not at all surprising that, for the first half of my adulthood, I was a poor, white-trash shop owner still living in a trailer, just barely getting by.

That’s the story I was told. That’s who I was told I’d become.

And it’s exactly who I became—until I got real with myself.

It’s funny, when I think back to that time, I’m not even sure I realized I was stuck. I think that happens with a lot of shop owners, actually. You believe you are who you’re supposed to be, and that’s it. A teacher tells you as an eight-year-old that you’re not good at math, and boom—you don’t believe you can read a P&L. Your business hardly made it through the 2008 recession, so—of course—COVID will drive you into the gutter. Never mind that there are tons of people across the country making due and working—it’s just not my lot in life to be one of those lucky few.

Your personal self-image will dictate the success you have available, and until you wipe that fog off the mirror and see yourself as you really are, it’s difficult to flip that switch.

One of the toughest lessons I had to learn, but easily the most impactful, is that your past does not dictate your future. It doesn’t. I’ve had to learn a lot about forgiveness in life: forgiveness toward parents, employees, relationships. It’s easy to say, “Well, they’re always going to be this way. There’s no point in trying.” Trust me, I’ve had that mindset countless times. But, 42 / R + W / 10 . 2 0

what is that belief actually based on? Is it based on the truth, or my perception of those people? After a while, I realized that, not only am I not a fortune teller, but that all I was actually doing was setting my expectations low and preparing for the worst to mask my fear of getting hurt.

People don’t like fear and they don’t like being scared, so they don’t change. That’s been made all too clear this year. COVID has revealed so many inner fears and assumptions about success—or lack thereof.

Why do so many of us assume we’ll fail?

Why are so many of us programmed to believe we don’t deserve success?

That’s an intense question to reckon with, and it’s probably why we’ll do just about anything to distract ourselves and mask that fear. We get ourselves addicted to all kinds of things just so we don’t have to deal with ourselves. We get addicted to cortisol for stress, caffeine for energy, nicotine to calm down. It’s a constant loop and one that allows us to run on that same hamster wheel over and over again without asking ourselves why we’re even on it.

That’s the first step, honestly: becoming aware of our surroundings. Some people are so disconnected from themselves and detached from their personal development that they can’t even find the mirror to hold up to themselves. If I can make someone aware of his or her surroundings and how he or she is perceived, we can identify that broken feedback loop and move into a new phase of life.

One of the big ways that you can get someone to see themselves differently than they did before is to understand how people perceive them. Marriage is a mirror. Children are a mirror. Friends, family, business—they’re all mirrors. When someone sees that mirror for the first time and talks about all their perceptions and fears, and they actually hear themselves,

Aaron Stokes grew his business, AutoFix, into a six-shop operation that is widely regarded as one of the top repair businesses in the country. He is also the founder of Shop Fix Academy. aaron@shopfixacademy.com ratchetandwrench.com/stokes

that’s an introduction to personal development right there.

It’s not easy, by the way. It takes a level of humility and checking your ego at the door that a lot of people can’t handle. If a friend says you’re trustworthy but not reliable, that’s difficult to hear. But instead of arguing, try to listen. If people perceive you that way, it’s true. Perception, after all, is reality. And it’s a great facilitator for change because for once, you’re seeing the world clearly.

I have a saying: Fix the owner, fix the shop. Your mindset is almost undoubtedly responsible for your results. It’s not the pandemic. It’s not your spouse. It’s not your employees. It’s you.

So, think back to 2008 for a moment.

What if, instead of accepting a similar fate for this year, you took everything you learned from that period and instead became smarter and stronger? What if you tried something different? What if you took surviving The Great Recession as a badge of honor, and a vote of confidence for getting through COVID? To steal from Henry Ford: Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.

FUE VANG

I’ve shared my story here before, but

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boltontechnology.com

NEXTGEAR IS HERE. BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY’s game-changing digital vehicle inspection and customer communication tool is now available to any shop, anytime, anywhere. So every automotive professional, whether you have a compatible management system or not, can tap into our award-winning digital vehicle inspection, two-way texting, and advanced appointment setting tools, plus our new Text to Pay feature, with just a smart phone or tablet.

NextGearNow.com | 610-910-8120 10 . 2 0 / R + W / 4 3

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Call 610-890-7266 or visit www.BoltOnTechnology.com/dvis to learn more and start increasing your average repair orders today.

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Breaking Bottlenecks INTRODUCTION

How to Solve: THE CURRENT COVID-19 MARKETPLACE

How to Solve: LOW CAR COUNT

How to Solve: LOW REPAIR ORDERS

How to Solve: LOW TECHNICIAN & SHOP EFFICIENCY

How to Solve: DISPROPORTIONATE CLOSING RATIO

How to Solve: LACK OF TECHNICIAN TRAINING & EDUCATION

How to Solve: LACK OF CUSTOMER COMMUNICATION

Break Through: THE BOLT ON EFFECT

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Breaking BOTTLENECKS Bottleneck: When one step in a chain of processes cannot perform to the standard of those around it.

When cars are coming in faster than your technicians can handle. When your ARO has plummeted because of the lack of communication in your shop.

Or when a pandemic affects the entire world and your traditional marketing efforts fail to bring customers into your business.

Not only do these bottlenecks clog up your process, but they can also cause your shop to cut corners along the way—ultimately resulting in missed opportunities to increase sales and schedule future visits.

It’s how you face these bottlenecks that can mean the difference between keeping your doors open or closing them forever.

Solutions to breaking through these congestion points are ever-changing, especially in a time where new bottlenecks are being presented monthto-month, and the ways we face them have to be more creative than ever.

Through specific processes, procedures and up-to-date technology, common bottlenecks can be shattered and your essential KPIs can rise.

In the following pages, seven of the most imperative bottlenecks affecting your business are identified and addressed. Ratchet+Wrench has partnered with BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY to help you break through these challenges and offer both strategic and technical solutions along the way.

Look Inside BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY Who they are and how they help shop owners tackle challenges old and new Michael Risich, founder and CEO of BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY, shares more about the company’s mission, the effects of the pandemic, and how technology continues to move shops towards success.

How would you describe BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY? BOLT ON grew up in the workflow automation world.

One of my first jobs was working for a barcode scanning company. We would have to manually enter in SKU numbers at the cash register, and just being off by one digit changed all the inventory reports. So early on, I realized that technology creates a wave of imbalance to the transaction; if technology allows you to automate the process, then it can really facilitate best practices through that automation.

BOLT ON implements best practices through software automation. An easy example of that is the automatic appointment creation when a customer comes in for an oil change—we automatically set it up like a doctor’s office.

Most people know two things about their automobiles: The key goes in the front and the fuel goes in the back. Normally, a transaction between shop and customer is extremely uncomfortable for the average person because of their lack of intimate knowledge on mechanical systems. So we

focus on vehicle owner experience and how we can create technology that can make that experience better.

How has COVID-19 impacted how repair shops do business?

We’ve been telling shops for a long time that they have to have better communication skills. We were one of the first pioneers to do text communication. There was a misnomer back in the mid- to late2000s that all text communication was done by teenage girls. Well, it wasn’t true then, and it’s definitely not true now.

It’s even more relevant now during the COVID era. As people want to be in a more contactless situation, it really does present the situation where they have to amplify their communication—and it has to be crystal clear. You can’t take a customer by the hand and take them out to the shop floor to show them something anymore, but that can be done with our digital inspection platform.

How can shop owners utilize technology to overcome those challenges?

During the initial wave of the virus, we saw the number of photos being taken through our platform cut in half (because the number of cars coming in was cut in half). We started talking to owners and explained to them that during this typical time, spring into summer, they would be so busy that they would relax their standards for good

communication. So we encouraged them to go through more of our training to improve their communication. We then started to see a record number of images coming in, even though the volume of vehicles drastically had reduced.

Many shop owners are highly concerned about their car count, and they should be—it’s a critical KPI. But I want to encourage owners to shift their thinking from “car count” to “making every car count.” If they do that, they will begin to have a much stronger relationship with those vehicle owners.

The No. 1 thing shop owners want to see is safe vehicles in their community, and that’s what our technology truly helps them provide.

Where can readers go to access further education, as well as information on BOLT ON products?

They can go to our website, boltontechnology.com, or our social media accounts.

Our marketing team puts together a weekly Facebook Live event, where owners can learn more and interact with us.

Also, on our YouTube channel, you can find hundreds of videos from 3 to 90 minutes long focused on specific features and topics.

We are always available and love to talk to shop owners about what challenges they are facing and how we can help.

More information on BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY and their products can be found on page 20.

To learn more, check out boltontechnology.com or call 610.400.1019

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Bottleneck: THE CURRENT COVID-19 MARKETPLACE Breakthrough: Be present online and create a safe connection with customers during and after their service Most bottlenecks that shop owners face have stayed pretty constant in the past few decades. Continuous improvement and development of technology, as well as strategic mindsets make the subject of bottlenecks—and how to tackle them—perpetually relevant. But this year a new, and particularly challenging bottleneck has arrived, and what makes this obstruction particularly unique is that it affects not only the repair industry, but the world at large.

Community transmission of COVID-19 was first detected in the United States in February of this year. Since then, every week brings new challenges and roadblocks to businesses across the country. How the virus has affected individual repair shops varies, but no shop has been left untouched.

As 2020 continues to push forward, so do the ways owners have been able to break through this unique bottleneck. Owners have developed new safety precautions and procedures as well as updated how they structure their business for their team and customers.

But the real challenge holding businesses back, and will continue to for the unseeable future, is how to bring customers into your shop during these uncertain times—where anxiety is at an all-time high, and team size and resources may be at an all-time low.

The Power of Social Media

Continuing to battle the current marketplace all comes down to being able to bring customers into the shop. If there are no customers, the bottlenecks discussed in the following pages will not arise—not because they have been broken through, but because there isn’t enough work to slow down any portion of the process.

With canceled events, lack of community presence, and less money in general, most avenues of typical marketing have been thrown out the window. But the audience of one important portion of marketing has grown: social media. According to eMarketer, up to 51 percent of US adults are using social media at higher rates during the pandemic.

Owners are using these (mostly) free platforms to post content to disseminate updated information and make sure their customers feel safe using their services.

As a way to connect with customers during such an uncertain time, social media posts should be as personable as possible. Beyond posting any shop updates, other posts can include staff photos, fun and informative videos, activities to do at home, and other content meant to show the faces behind the business.

These posts create a connection with customers and add a much needed sense of ease and trust, encouraging customers to enter your shop.

Social media can also provide a space for education opportunities that would typically take place in the shop. With customers spending as little time in the shop as possible—taking the time to explain and show needed maintenance to vehicle owners in-person has become a lot more difficult. This opportunity should be moved virtual, by putting out educational posts on car care and safe

Beyond COVID-19

The lasting effects of the pandemic on your business

driving on multiple social platforms.

Further connection and rapport can be built through screens outside the walls of your shop.

A Contactless Connection

Once customers are within the walls of your shop, how do you safely make the one-on-one connection to encourage them to return? At this point in time, all interactions with customers need to be contactless and sympathetic.

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Customers are keeping their distance, smiles could be covered by masks and handshakes are out of the question. A majority of shops have also begun to offer pick-up and drop-off opportunities for customers, meaning you might never even see the client at all—making the entire interaction virtual. This is where smart use of technology comes into play.

Before the pandemic, owners were encouraged to incorporate customer education during a service. This could include sitting down with the client and explaining what needed to be repaired, or even bringing him or her to the back of the shop and physically showing them parts of their

vehicle. In order to accomplish this same one-on-one connection, digital inspections have become more vital than ever before.

Being able to send customers a visual show-and-tell report of their vehicles acts as the much needed connection and education opportunity. To obtain the same effectiveness as in person conversations, digital inspection reports should include multiple clear and direct photos, along with videos if necessary. More specific digital inspection strategies can be found on page 10.

To open up distanced or virtual communication even further, follow-up calls, texts and emails are a must. This may be the only time you connect with customers in a direct conversation outside of muffled, quick conversations. These follow-ups allow for a deeper relationship, as well as an opportunity to address any issues that may have arisen.

Customers will always be the center of every business. Making them feel comfortable to come in and then come back will help break through this newly presented challenge.

Soon, believe it or not, there will be systems put into place that will loosen the impact of the pandemic on the public. With this notion, it is easy to think that things will return back to normal—but is that really what we should be striving for? By addressing the domino effect of how COVID-19 has affected auto repair shops, a plethora of new strategies have been put into place. Some of these new strategies include more technology integration, creative marketing, and stringent shop procedures.

Why should these come to an end when the pandemic does?

This time has also given owners the opportunity to think more critically about their business, and how their shop operates.

It’s difficult to think that there could be any positives coming out of the pandemic. However, as 2020 comes to an end, take a look at how your shop has changed for the better, and which changes you would like to keep as the years go by.

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Bottleneck: LOW CAR COUNT Breakthrough: More cars will not drive revenue; smart repairs will

Car Count in the COVID Era

The dream of being constantly overbooked may be just that—a dream. Overbooked and busy shops sometimes compel service advisors and technicians to cut corners driving the bottom line further into the red.

Swift inspections and turn-‘em-and-burn‘em repairs are not the recipe for maximizing revenue. Today, car sales are down and car maintenance is up, creating opportunities for owners wise enough to slow down and see the bigger picture. Quality inspections on less cars may offer more revenue than simply playing the numbers game. As each month passes during the COVID-19 pandemic, DVI-forward shops are seeing increased AROs even as car count diminishes.

Furthermore, you can only sell so many hours in the shop regardless of the number of vehicles. Shops with too many vehicles in the queue often lose the forest for the trees (or the toolbox for the tools): focusing too much on the here-and-now prohibits

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any ability to take a breath, zoom out and really analyze the market and shop data to make next week’s numbers bigger, better, bolder. The ability to upsell is severely diminished when the service advisors look in the lot and see more vehicles that need inspections before 5:00.

Car Count Versus Customer Care

Digital services such as communication and inspections really allow the shop to breathe in ways it never has before— instead of cold-calling customers for scheduled maintenance or follow-up, it can be automated through messaging services embedded into shop tablets and software. Instead of reminding customers what was discussed last time, you can show them via repair recommendations and time-stamped logs of every nut loosened and every ratchet wrenched. (Digital logs also enable swift analysis and action from advisors and technicians with a full history of the vehicle at their fingertips.)

Finally, pictures, video and clear explanations sent to the customer via text educate them on their own terms, fostering a collaborative relationship with the shop instead of one based around the input/ output of money for repairs, helping to build a wear history for each vehicle and a trust history with each client.

So maybe focusing purely on car count isn’t the ideal way to discuss this KPI; maybe the KPI is outdated. Maybe the right services can look to something a little more relatable—a customer care metric. Call it what you want, but one thing is certain: if savvy shops can increase revenue and AROs with lower car counts during these wild times, imagine what can be accomplished when the economy and our shops return to normal.

The Numbers Game

Instead of focusing on car count, focus on more personal data: the customer count (and the loyalty that follows) Don’t follow the cars—follow the data. Here are some recent numbers that should point you in the right direction when tackling car count.

Reducing your customer defection rate by 5 percent can increase your profitability 25-125 percent.* On average, loyal customers are worth up to ten times as much as their first purchase.** The average repeat customer spends 67 percent more in their third year of their relationship with a business than in the first six months.** It costs five times more to get a new customer than it does to keep one, and you only have a 20 percent chance of up-selling to that new customer.

*DestinationCRM: www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/ Web-Exclusives/Viewpoints/Listen-to-the-Voice-of-theCustomer-53239.aspx **Bain & Company: www.bain.com/Images/Value_online_customer_loyalty_you_capture.pdf

From building my first soap box with dad to rebuilding entire engines, my passion for cars has never wavered. BOLT ON provides the tools to connect my shop, my employees and my customers seamlessly. So I can stay connected to what I love.

Fuel your passion and your success.

Call 610-890-7266 or visit BoltOnTechnology.com

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Bottleneck: LOW REPAIR ORDERS Breakthrough: Narrow down your customer base and lean on your team and up-to-date technology to recommend the right services Although a sufficient car count is vital to the success of a repair shop, more cars does not necessarily mean more money. A lower average repair order can quickly become the bottleneck to any shop, low car count or high.

This KPI becomes even more of an issue when car counts are higher than a shop is prepared for—employees are inspecting and repairing more cars than the shop’s capacity, but still not bringing in a high revenue. This scenario can quickly cause chaos, comebacks, disgruntled staff, and possibly can put a business on the brink of closing.

In order to maximize the car count that fits your staff and your shop proportionately, focus on increasing your average repair order.

Multiple factors play into having a high ARO, including your customer base, the tools your team uses along the way and how services are recommended to clients.

The Right Customers

There is a huge difference between a customer who expects to only spend a few ten-dollar bills on an oil change and one who is willing to put in the investment to take care of their vehicle.

Which customer would you rather see drive through the doors of your shop?

At the end of the day, your shop doesn’t have time for everyone. And your team needs to be able to spend their quality time and effort on customers who value what you provide.

Keep in mind, a flood of discount customers will inevitably result in a flood of low repair orders, bogging down your shop with extra work and no pay off.

To bring in the right customers (and deter those only interested in low cost or a single service) pricing should be increased and the marketing audience should be shifted. This switch will attract new customers who value both quality service and investing in their vehicle.

Target your marketing efforts to the customer demographics that mirror your top, value-oriented customers in order to bring in more of the same. Raising the labor rate at your shop can also aid in weeding the customers unwilling to look into further repairs beyond an oil change.

Best Tool for the Job

The secret behind almost all shops with impressively high AROs is the correct use of a digital vehicle inspection tool.

A courtesy digital inspection should be done on every single vehicle that comes into the shop, and at the beginning of

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the process, to come up with a complete vehicle health report from the start.

When performing a digital inspection, technicians should take 15 to 20 clear pictures, including parts of the vehicle that don’t need repair at the time. This way, customers can compare pictures when they come back in and can see the parts changing overtime. On the photos of the parts that do need to be repaired, technicians should be encouraged to draw circles or arrows on the photos that make it easier for the customer to understand. Short videos showcasing something moving (or not moving) correctly can also be useful when completing a digital inspection.

Some customers may have previous car and repair knowledge, but most don’t— digital inspections act as visual proof of the services that should be taken care of in their vehicle. With photographic evidence, customers are more willing to trust the technician’s judgement and get the recommended repair—raising the shop’s overall ARO.

Increase Your ARO Today

Start with these simple strategies to grow your ARO by as much as 40 percent.

Don’t rush through inspections. Slow it down a bit to make sure you capture all opportunities and repairs. Cutting corners means cutting opportunities.

Include notes along with DVI photos and use the report as an opportunity to educate customers.

Include pictures of both bad and good items found during a DVI. By showing the good and the bad, you create an unbiased, credible, overall vehicle health report instead of a list of problems that could scare the customer.

Be sure to upsell small, yet high margin services, such as new wipers on rainy days. This is a super easy conversation to have with a customer but often overlooked.

Don’t let the customer leave without setting their next appointment. Use digital tools to send appointment reminders.

When the customer drops off their vehicle, be sure to remind them of past recommendations that were postponed during the previous visit. Use the DVI photos to show the history and evidence to reinforce why it’s time to get it done now.

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Bottleneck: LOW TECHNICIAN & SHOP EFFICIENCY Breakthrough: Empower your technicians and work space to improve efficiency What’s more important—a technician with the right tools or an optimized space enabling them to succeed?

The answer is both, actually, as the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts. When technicians have the tools and technology to streamline the diagnosis and repair process—and when the space around them not only allows but encourages swift, accurate work with a sensible floor plan—you’ve empowered some of the primary factors to increase total shop efficiency.

Workflow is situational and unique to each shop—a complicated dance of efficiencies, analysis and even a few errors. Fortunately, good managers learn from their mistakes and adapt their team and tools as the situation demands.

Make the Shop Floor Work for You

Any space can be optimized to suit the needs of those within. In boxing, Muhammad Ali famously used the rope-a-dope strategy, prancing around his opponents, jabbing here, blocking there, waiting until their stamina ran thin before really engaging too much. He turned the boxing ring—flat, square, unadorned—into his space. Boxers entered his arena.

Shop owners have the same opportunity (if not the same notoriety). Any floor can be optimized; any bay can be poised to run at maximum efficiency. But it requires a game plan and clear communication with the staff. Most shops don’t have the luxury of just planning a new floor space—especially in the COVID era—but they still require a clear idea and a goal regarding what kind of shop you want to be; what kind of vehicles do you work on?

What can your technicians do, and what is the proper labor and parts matrix to offer the most value at the best price for your customers and for your business? Who is your ideal customer? How will you utilize slower days to cross-train or cleanse?

And how will you use these answers to plan the space you have?

If you desire to specialize in more serious repairs and higher AROs, ensure that your shop floor reflects that with the tools and technology to assist your team as they tear apart a car and get ready for the next round. If you want to fight, you’ve got to cut weight. Drop the habits and practices holding you back, develop new strategies to maximize your strengths and step back into the ring.

Plan Every Day

Does your team know the plan for the day by 8:00 a.m.? If not, it’s time to reconsider

Technician Efficiency 101

Measure technician efficiency to put a number and formula behind your team’s hours and repairs, then improve it

Simply put, technician efficiency is an equation that can help change the way you view, value and validate your team and their time repairing vehicles.

Technician Efficiency = Flat rate hours produced / actual hours worked

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how they spend their time (and maybe how you spend yours).

Employee handbooks. Detailed job descriptions. Daily expectations. Standard operating procedures. These are all methods to help streamline your shop each and every day, and while the daily workload is unique, the workflow is manageable and should be controlled. Use a dry erase board, a vehicular color coding system, digital tablets or shop TVs—whatever you need so the team has eyes on the entire shop, every employee and repair. Some owners hold a daily meeting before the coffee is out while others opt for an end-of-day meeting to discuss the day’s challenges and opportunities and prepare for tomorrow.

Technology will increasingly dictate the workflow in the contemporary repair shop,

so embrace it—many tools and software programs integrate seamlessly with your existing software for wireless and instant communication and documentation. In fact, the most efficient shops should be able to communicate without talking, eliminating the “walk and talk” / casual banter that can chip away at efficiency minute by minute.

For service advisors, technology can eliminate communication bottlenecks such as phone tag. Instead of chasing customers, send a text—digital vehicle inspections (DVI) show the necessary repair instead of asking clients to imagine it, offering an easy opportunity for education and a much higher chance of swift approval for repair services.

The average response time to a voicemail is three hours opposed to three minutes for a text. Again, it’s all about making those in your ring play your game.

The industry average is about 80-99 percent, but the benchmark for highly efficient, high-revenue shops is anything over 100 percent. DVIs can help—they ensure inspections are completed the same way every time. Maintain consistency and minimize errors all while boosting productivity and customer communication. Many DVI tools also offer readymade/ canned responses to the most common recommended repairs, eliminating redundant information and the time (and possible errors) that go into creating it.

Time is money, now more than ever, and the right tools and training can kick your efficiency numbers into overdrive.

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Bottleneck: DISPROPORTIONATE CLOSING RATIO Breakthrough: Recommend the correct services and set goals with both your staff and your customers Average repair order and closing ratio are very closely aligned, but unlike ARO, a high closing ratio doesn’t always mean high revenue.

Most shop owners would agree that a closing ratio of 70 percent and an ARO of 600 dollars is far better than a closing ratio of 90 percent and an ARO of 400 dollars. Even if a shop’s closing ratio is 100 percent, it doesn’t necessarily mean work is being discovered and sold as much as possible.

So how can a high or low closing ratio be a bottleneck in your business?

If your car count is sufficient and your technicians are properly inspecting vehicles, but the right services are not being presented to your customer, time and energy is being wasted.

By focusing on closing ratio from the start, customers are more likely to agree to the services needed for their vehicle. This is a vital step in the process and determines the overall sale.

A New Look at Recommendations The process of achieving a good closing ratio all begins when the technician starts inspecting the vehicle—and in turn, what services they recommend get sold to the customer.

Some technicians may be recommending typical maintenance jobs based on a vehicle’s mileage. The issue with this arises when technicians begin to then recommend common services on the majority of cars that come in, and not because these vehicles actually need it.

Now, when the service advisor sees the same job recommended for every car, he or she begins to not believe what they see, and they don’t try to sell it.

This isn’t an issue when the vehicle truly doesn’t need the maintenance, but it does become one when the car did need the service.

In order to fix this bottleneck on the front end, technicians should be empowered to implement condition-based recommendations rather than mileage-based recommendations. This may boost sales and the overall closing ratio of the shop.

A Goal for Every Service

In order to hold staff accountable for a shop’s closing ratio, some owners set specific goals for their service advisors. It is your responsibility as an owner to ensure that your staff is also recommending simple, yet high-margin services to customers and tracking all sales.

Safety issues often account for most of the final estimate. If these can be sold at a closing ratio of around 50 percent, your overall ratio should still be on the higher side.

According to owners across the country, for every five hours of suggested work, service advisors should be able to sell around 2.5 to 3 hours—great service advisors should be even higher.

Within the overall closing ratio goal, set individual goals for different levels of repairs.

Start with easily sold jobs like oil changes, air filters, wipers and timing belts: • • • •

Oil changes: 95 percent Air filters: 95 percent Wipers: 70 percent Belts: 55 percent

The next level is services, which include coolant and fluid exchanges. These can be placed somewhere in the 60–70 percent range.

Looking Towards the Future

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When all appropriate jobs and services are being presented to a customer, not every client is going to buy into 100 percent of them. But this shouldn’t be disheartening— remember, a super high closing ratio isn’t always a sign of a successful repair shop.

Instead, service advisors should create a plan with the customer to eventually address all of the repairs. The average closing ratio will balance out in the long run and it will help ensure customer retention.

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Bottleneck: LACK OF TECHNICIAN TRAINING & EDUCATION Breakthrough: Stay abreast of industry updates and technician certifications to stay competitive and empower your team Every day is an opportunity to improve; every day is a chance to work smarter, more efficiently and to a higher standard of quality, no matter what your job may be. If you’re a manager or owner, how will you steward your shop into the future better today than you did yesterday? As a technician or service writer, how can you better serve your clients, their vehicles and ultimately yourself, your team and your future?

These are well-intentioned questions, but good intentions do not make a profitable shop. The answer to many of these questions lies in training. Training provides the ability to augment your practices and stay up to date with the most crucial and contemporary methods, tools and techniques.

Quite simply, if you want to repair cars and make a profit, you have to invest in training for yourself and for your staff, especially as hybrid and electric vehicles gain more market share each year. It’s far too easy to focus on today without looking ahead to tomorrow, and before you know it, you’re trapped in the training bottleneck, catching up to OEM repair specifications from several weeks ago while shops around you forge ahead into the future.

A proactive, highly qualified and knowledgeable staff is always something to strive for, especially as the complexity of contemporary vehicles continues to skyrocket. Fortunately, the opportunity to train has never been more apparent, affordable or accessible. From virtual ASE and I-CAR classes to hands-on training sessions and more, the ability to augment your team’s abilities will help make your shop more efficient, profitable and celebrated.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies and organizations offer free training and instruction to help ease the financial burden of normal classes and certifications, and ensure the industry’s technicians have an opportunity to get the instruction they need to prepare for the future. There are myriad options available to help your staff grow their skills. Across the United States, there are over 1,400 National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation (NATEF) secondary and post-secondary programs available (aseeducationfoundation.org), as well as numerous other classes, trainings, certifications and instructions.

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Training Resources

Don’t sleep on these opportunities for your team and shop Here are just a few of the many resources available:

Advance Auto Parts - Technicians can access CTI+WTI training to access classes on diesel, hybrid, diagnostics, management and more.

ALLDATA - In 2012, ALLDATA launched an online training site for collision repairers and automotive technicians. It started with the ALLDATA Training Garage. The site offers resources like color wiring diagrams and OEM diagrams.

Automotive Management Institute - The AMI offers online courses for the wiTECH Diagnostic system.

BOLT ON University - BOU offers first-hand knowledge and training for all BOLT ON software, products and services.

CareerSafe - CareerSafe Offers online safety training courses, including an OSHA 10-Hour General Industry course customized for the automotive industry.

Hunter - Hunter Engineering offers Hunter University, an online self-study program for technicians and industry professionals for training on alignments, tire service and road force balancing techniques.

S/P2 - S/P2 offers online training courses for automotive service, collision repair and refinish, heavy duty/diesel and welding technicians.

Snap-On - The diagnostic tool and repair company offers training videos for every tool at no charge.

Standard Motor Products - Standard Motor Products has been offering online training for over a decade now and services over 60,000 technicians worldwide. swService Solutions - swService Solutions offers online training for service advisors.

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Bottleneck: LACK OF CUSTOMER COMMUNICATION Breakthrough: Be transparent with customers throughout the repair and follow up with them after their service As shop owners work to break through the many bottlenecks and challenges throughout the day, one very important task can be missed along the way: communication. Especially in a time where shop team members may not even see a customer face-to-face during the entirety of their service (as discussed on page 6), virtual communication becomes more important than ever.

Although communication with a customer is especially critical after their vehicle has been repaired, connecting with the client is crucial throughout the entire process. If changes or updates are miscommunicated—or not communicated at all—there could be surprises when they come to pay. In this case, surprises are typically bad, and could leave the customer feeling upset or angry with your shop. And in the age of Google, bad reviews travel faster than good ones.

In order to avoid these surprises, as well as continue a relationship with customers after their visit, clear and constant communication through different mediums is a necessity. Communication during and after services creates a level of trust with customers, and opens up the bottleneck so easily closed by previous (and frustrated) vehicle owners who refuse to be left in the dark.

The Importance of DVI

It all comes back to digital inspections.

During the process of a repair, the digital inspection becomes the most vital and useful form of communication.

The most significant issue in any service or repair industry is the lack of trust due to a lack of transparency, and a full digital inspection provides much needed clarity a customer deserves. Each customer is able to look at photos of exactly what is wrong in their vehicle, and they can also share those photos with their spouse or other family members for further discussion.

Digital inspections can also move beyond the current visit and into the next. That way, jobs that were not sold in the first visit can be revisited and compared to the photo of the previous service to showcase how the issue did in fact grow into a larger problem. This can work to create a stronger sense of trust with a customer and encourage them to continue to return.

Through digital inspections, customers are able to make educated decisions and feel as though they are active participants in their service and their visit.

Reaching Back Out

Once the vehicle is back in a customer’s garage, the job doesn’t end there. As a way to check in and make sure the customer is happy with their service, send a follow-up email, text or call. All three types of communication are important and serve different purposes. The customer will most likely respond to one of the three types of communication that works best for them.

This communication is vital because it may lead to a customer sharing a portion of their experience that was less than satisfactory. This issue can then be resolved or explained, possibly recovering the relationship and increasing overall customer retention. Even if the customer didn’t have any issues during their service, the fact that your shop reached out to them shows that your team cares about them as a customer.

The Rules of Texting

What you need to know before texting a customer One important factor to keep in mind before reaching out to customers through text is the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The TCPA requires businesses to include an explicit opt-in before any text message marketing can take place.

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This opt-in can be a pop-up on your website, a dedicated web page or a checkbox on appointment forms. But in order to legally send text marketing messages to customers, they need to first give you permission.

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T E C H N O LO GY WO N ’ T S O LV E A L L YO U R PR O B L E M S — J U S T M O S T O F T H E M

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business, the right tool can open up a world of opportunities that you scarcely could comprehend without it. Imagine what the simple implementation of WiFi did for coffee shops around the country, moving them from businesses of leisure toward pseudo-workspaces where remote workers could read, write, convene, trade and more—all with the aroma of coffee beans lingering in the air and some local music drifting in the background.

The last twenty years have forced a drastic change upon repair shop owners as well. Today’s shop is a mix of oldworld service and repair combined with contemporary cutting-edge technology.

Wireless communication coupled with the ongoing shift of the car to a computer on wheels has transformed what

many know and think of as their local shop down the road.

Collectively, there is much to consider— how will you stand out from the crowd?

How will you communicate with customers, build trust and ensure their safety?

How will you run your shop at maximum efficiency using today’s tools without sacrificing quality? And how do you market and grow without the resources of a huge corporation?

In other words, how can you minimize bottlenecks and achieve your maximum potential? Is the whole of your shop operation greater than the sum of its parts?

And when those parts falter, how would you know the difference anyway?

“You look back and you wonder how we

got from where we were to where we are,” says Gerald Martin, owner of Martin’s Auto Service (Anna, Ill.).

“The fact is you’ll never have a 100 percent perfect process, but you want as smooth a system as possible. Employees get interrupted with vehicular emergencies, errant phone calls, etc; these things happen all day. The trick,” Martin emphasizes, “is doing the best you can with what you have.”

What Martin has, to put it simply, is a state-of-the-art technological suite that informs every aspect of diagnosis, repair and communication. Working with BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY and its array of services provides something greater than the sum of its parts—it provides the BOLT ON Effect.

And he’s not alone.

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Bolster Your Staff

“Bolt On was a huge deal for us,” says Eddie Mrok, owner of three Car Life Pro facilities near Phoenix, Ariz.

“Bolt On helps us see it all, and when you can see it all, you can make informed decisions,” he continues.

Vision to the shop, the customers and ROs was the primary need for Mrok due to a simple truth in contemporary car repair— good technicians are hard to find. Staffing is the No. 1 bottleneck Mrok encounters as an owner. In his eyes, the most critical bottleneck can’t be solved with an equation; it takes something truly special to make up for something shop technology could never replicate—that human touch.

“Many people attribute car count as the number one bottleneck, but without good people it won’t matter,” Mrok says. As his shops grew, he became frustrated with the fact that he couldn’t find enough talented and reasonable technicians and service advisors to say “yes” enough to customers. Working with the BOLT ON team, however, he decided he’d be able to manage effectively and grow the shop even as the occasional employee came and went. It was all a part of building his long-term team.

“Finding technicians and front-of-house employees became a beastly endeavor.

So Bolt On was a huge deal for us—in our main shops, we did $1.5 and $1.6 million with only two people up front. But the seamless integration of Bolt On Technology into our shop management system makes us incredibly efficient and speeds our ability to help our customers.”

Today, Mrok has seventeen employees at three different shops and uses BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY to gain an eagle’s-eye view of customized shop data to help drive business forward.

“What helps me coach for all three stores is that I can quickly see and assess how

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and why a repair was made or not made; I can be really educated without physically seeing every customer and car. I can more easily ask and see what was the cause, complaint and correction.”

“It’s all at my fingertips.”

Boost Your Efficiency

When AutoStream Car Care Center Director of Operations David Askwith finished the trial presentation with BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY, he immediately resolved to take action: “We literally threw away every piece of paper that we had,” Askwith says, “and decided that this is how we’re moving forward.”

For Askwith, BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY helped him overcome one of the most common—and troublesome—KPIs for any shop: technician efficiency.

He describes getting the “big work out” and the all-too-often lack of communication between technicians and the front counter.

How much time was sold on the vehicle?

When will we get an update? What does the customer know or need to know?

“Through Bolt On, we are able to get accurate estimating and conversation rate results,” he says.

“The ability to track the number of pictures taken helped us drive ARO from $439 to $546 in less than ten months, and the Bolt On dashboard showed us—figuratively and financially—that our technicians were more efficient, not only selling more but working in more productive ways.”

“Bolt On single handedly changed our business for the positive,” Askwith says, “and for us, there is no other option.”

More than anything, Askwith is confident that BOLT ON can do a lot more than simply increase his team’s efficiency and raise the RO a hundred bucks—he’s confident BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY is the team he needs to handle the bottlenecks of the future, whatever they may be.

“These guys have bent over backwards to help us become great and challenged us when we thought that we were good to be better.”

As the shop of the future and the cars of tomorrow continue to streamline, update and evolve from the outside in, where will you be? How will you handle your own bottlenecks? And do you have the tools you need for when the demands of tomorrow’s business outstrip the capabilities of yesterday’s technology?

Blow Open the Bottleneck with BOLT ON

In the nineties, digital was the future of film.

Today, digital is the crux of contemporary car repair, though not for what it offers to the vehicle, but rather what it offers to the customer.

“DVI [digital vehicle inspection] builds trust, more than you can imagine,” Gerald Martin continues. “When people can visualize what they need to have done, it answers so many questions.”

To Martin, Mobile Manager Pro from BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY is the tie that binds his whole shop together.

“Mobile Manager Pro has probably been the single biggest game changer for us,” he says, “because it helps us take our workflow electronically. I couldn’t imagine working without Mobile Manager Pro and the ability to create digital inspections.”

Martin emphasizes that loyalty to a tool or service is only as valuable as the service itself. “I’d turn the key in the door and walk away,” he says, “but we use Bolt On Technology and I know they’re going to innovate further; if I felt like they were happy with where all their software is now, I’d probably start looking elsewhere at other systems. After all of these years, they’re still listening to me. They’re nimble enough to innovate to bring new features and work with the repair shops to stay ahead of the game while being stable enough that I know that they aren’t going away.”

Martin feels the bottleneck of the future is communication; no matter which system or practices your shop has in place, it won’t matter if owners and managers don’t have the ability to communicate effectively with their staff, their customers and communities. He doesn’t know what the tool will be, or how it will be implemented, but he’s confident BOLT ON is looking ahead on behalf of its customers.

“I look at their suite of products and there’s not a single piece of the software that I would want to be without.”

THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY WON’T SOLVE ALL YOUR PROBLEMS—JUST MOST OF THEM. Mobile Manager Pro - Give your team the power to access the data they need from anywhere in your shop. Perform digital vehicle inspections, access repair information, track time, and much more—all from connected mobile tablets that integrate in real-time with your shop management system. Selling more services and getting timely approvals has never been easier.

Review Manager - A positive online presence is critical. Review Manager provides all the tools you need to manage your online reputation, and the easyto-use dashboard enables you to request, view and respond to online reviews.

Pro Call - Know your customers from the moment the phone rings. Pro Call gives your service advisors all the information they need by pulling critical data from your shop management system, including caller ID, customer spending habits, past service recommendations and more. Empower your advisors to deliver efficient, personalized service.

BOLT ON Pay - BOLT ON Pay enables you to securely process credit cards and bring transaction processing directly to your shop’s management software. The program syncs with your shop management system to streamline the invoicing and payment process. Capture important customer data, complete transactions, and accept payment via text message with this encrypted, easy-to-use software.

NextGear - No BOLT ON-compatible shop management system? No problem.

NextGear allows access to most BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY legacy products, including DVI, two-way texting, advance appointment scheduling and more.

BOLT ON Effect - BOLT ON products are designed to work together so that you can achieve The BOLT ON EFFECT—stronger relationships with vehicle owners, maximum efficiency and higher profits. Find out how easy it can be to integrate BOLT ON with your business.

For more information, visit boltontechnology.com/products.

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NextGearNow.com | 610-890-7266 The wait is over. Literally. With BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY’s new digital vehicle inspection, customer communication and mobile payment tools, you can say goodbye to workflow bottlenecks and hello to better customer experiences. Now any automotive professional with or without a compatible management system can tap into our award-winning digital vehicle inspection, two-way texting, and advanced appointment setting tools, as well as our SecondGear Text to Pay feature, with just a smartphone or tablet.

Shift your shop into high gear with NextGear.