6 Ways to Maximize the Efficiency of Your Auto Repair Shop Team

Many shop owners believe that their Effective Labor Rate (ELR) is the ultimate way to measure shop performance. If you want to boost your ELR, you have two choices:

• ​Pay your employees less
• ​Improve your shop efficiency

Since your employees are the lifeblood of your company, team efficiency is the way to go. The more efficient your business is, the better your month-over-month performance will be, positively impacting not only your bottom line but also your peace of mind.

Here are 6 strategies that you can use to boost team efficiency and enhance your ELR.

1. Improve In-Shop Communication

Communication is key to providing good service. It is up to your service advisor to make the best first impression on your guests. When a guest walks through your shop’s doors, your service writer should immediately greet them and learn what’s wrong with their vehicle.

But if that service writer has to then leave the desk to carry a message to the technicians, there may not be a service writer available to offer a friendly greeting to the next guest that walks into your shop.

The moral of the story is that while some communication tasks require the human touch of good old-fashioned face-to-face conversation, others can be automated with technology.

The less time a service writer has to spend jumping through hoops, the more time they can spend providing a quality service experience to your guests. Your team also needs to be able to take care of simple tasks quickly.

If a part arrives, and the person you have in charge of receiving that part is busy, you might have a tech waiting for the part to get to work. The funnels in your shop should help you complete repairs, not clog up your process.

2. Foster a Supportive and Collaborative Environment

Oftentimes, the people who have the best ideas for improving your shop are the people who work there day-to-day: your team. The people who are directly greeting guests or working on their vehicles sometimes see things that management doesn’t see.

They know where small inefficiencies are and how those small inefficiencies can snowball into large service delays.

When you set up a foundation for your team to confidently let management know where the hold-ups are, they can begin to work together and open up a whole new way of doing business.

Conversely, if your management and individual team members are broken into siloes, problems remain unsolved, causing labor operations to drag and potentially bringing down team morale.

3. Support The Dreams of Your Team

Often when we’re looking at our balance sheet and our shop’s Effective Labor Rate, we lose sight of the fact that our team members are not just numbers but are also people who have their own dreams: their goals, their wishes, things they want to do, and places they want to go. When was the last time you asked them about them?

When employees know that you care about what they want for their future, they tend to do a better job. They feel more motivated. They take pride in their work and bring a positive attitude into the shop.

They pay more attention to detail. And they are more likely to support other team members because they have a greater sense of solidarity with one another. They are also more loyal, reducing overall turnover and angst among your ranks.

4. Assess and Upgrade Communication with Your Guests

Let’s face it: spending money on car repairs isn’t fun. People would rather spend their money on something they’ll enjoy, so when they are spending money on auto repair, they want to be certain that their auto repair costs are worth it, especially since they will not have their vehicle for at least a few hours.

If they don’t understand their estimate, their repair order, or the progress of their repair, and don’t feel confident in the information provided to them, your guests may become frustrated or even decide to take their vehicle somewhere else.

On the other hand, good communication by service writers can make guests feel more comfortable with your overall guest experience, making it more likely that they will stick with your shop and refer their family and friends. After all, word of mouth is one of the most powerful ways to get new customers.

In other words, good communication with your guests can exponentially improve your revenue.

5. Incentivize Service Writers and Technicians Based on Metrics

Chances are that your technicians have a passion for working on cars. But working on the same dozen models day in and day out can become monotonous and make work less exciting. Similarly, your service writers might really enjoy talking to people but feel worn down after a long day of talking to customers and building repair orders.

One way to reignite your team’s spark is by giving them something to be excited about—friendly competition. According to TalentLMS’ 2019 Gamification and Work study, employees say gamification makes them feel more productive (89%) and happier (88%) at work.

Imagine your mechanics ending each week by comparing who received the most customer compliments or which service writer upsold the most tire rotations. And what if you rewarded weekly or monthly winners with gift certificates or a party for your entire team when everyone does a great job as a company?

Gamifying gives you the chance to have fun while you work and reward your whole team for going above and beyond. And when auto repair teams feel rewarded, they are more loyal and more likely to provide quality service with a smile. And what shop owner doesn’t want a team like that?

6. Empower Service Writers to be More Independent

Processes are a huge help to bringing order to day-to-day operations, but processes with too many checkpoints or too narrow a funnel can slow the business down. For example, if service writers are required to get your approval to lower an estimate or make other changes that may close the deal, they can’t move orders as quickly as they want, leading to frustration and lowering their overall performance.

Meanwhile, you may find yourself spending more time directly managing employees instead of doing what shop owners should be doing: innovating and making enhancements to their auto repair business.

FAQ

"Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity—not a threat.” - Steve Jobs

Like any business owner, auto repair shop owners must consider all aspects of their business: operations, marketing, collections, bookkeeping, payroll, profitability, and customer service.

But how do you track, monitor, and gain control over these various business functions and analyze the relationship between them? Many shop owners turn to automotive computer programs as a solution, but there are a lot of options to consider. As you research automotive computer programs, you may be asking yourself:

• ​Is it better to have one program for each business function, or one system that covers various aspects?
• ​What is the right mix of programs?

Tekmetric is a cloud-based shop management system; but that doesn’t mean all other software and systems out there align with what our software can do. Some automotive computer programs cover diagnostics, some focus on marketing, some focus on digital inspections, and there are some systems out there that check off most—if not all—the boxes.

There is a lot to consider when determining which automotive computer programs are right for your business, and we want to make sure your shop’s needs are met.

How organized is your shop’s schedule? When you look at it, is it easy to see gaps? Is it cluttered or organized?

Appointment scheduling should be a quick, simple process that gives you and your team more time to focus on customers and their vehicles.

Automotive scheduling software gives auto repair shops the ability to bridge the gap between saying “yes” to customers, while not overwhelming their team. Although “saying yes” is a simple concept, the ability to not turn people away will have a lasting impact on your customers.

Humans are not computers. As much as we try to keep up, the impact that smart software has on our day-to-day workloads is impalpable. What may take us hours to create, log, and plan can take computers minutes, if not seconds.

Although you have the ability to plan exactly what repairs need to be done, automotive scheduling software can help you coordinate times, notes, and schedules faster than it would take with a whiteboard or pen and paper. Implementing software into your shop’s scheduling routine can significantly improve your team’s capacity.

As your repair orders (RO) start to stack up, your team will need reliable scheduling software that can keep up with your shop’s growth.

It might sound simple, but it's true: smartphones and digital experiences have revolutionized the way people interact with businesses. We've all come to expect near-instant responses, simplified checkout processes, and visibility into what we're paying for.

And independent auto repair shops aren't any different. There's a unique opportunity where your business can meet customer's expectations with modern service and modern operations.

How Can You Make Your Auto Repair Shop More Modern?

We keep saying that word "modern," but what does that really mean for auto repair shops? When we step back and think about the modern independent repair shop, we could sum it up with three core concepts:

1. 1.The freedom to run your business in a more contemporary way with data, industry knowledge, flexibility and independence to work as in whatever way is best for you and your shop.
2. 2.The power to simplify your shop's operations can gain complete visibility, control and opportunity to determine the best path forward for every decision.
3. 3.The best experience for your customers, every time, for every job, whether that's a coolant flush and pad replacement, or a turbo rebuild.

With the right tools in place, your team members won’t have to stress about extra oversight and can feel empowered to take the reins at work. And your customers can have a more active say in the repair process.

One of the best tools for modernizing your business is a modern, cloud-based shop management system.