What are the key features of modern shop management software?

The features and capabilities found in modern repair shop software fall into two main buckets: - Features that enable you and your team to work more efficiently - Features that enable you and your team to interact more smoothly with customers

What is the TM-500 Index?

The TM-500 Index helps shops analyze trends in Average Repair Order and Car Count.

The Ultimate Guide to Modernizing Your Shop With Repair Shop Software

The article explains how independent auto repair shops can modernize their operations and customer experience by adopting cloud-based repair shop software that enhances business flexibility, operational efficiency, and customer interaction, ultimately empowering staff and freeing owners to focus on strategic 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?

When we step back and think about the modern independent repair shop, we could sum it up with three core concepts:

1.The freedom to run your business in a more contemporary way with data, industry knowledge, flexibility, and independence to work in whatever way is best for you and your shop.
2.The power to simplify your shop's operations, gain complete visibility, control, and opportunity to determine the best path forward for every decision.
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.

What Makes Modern Shop Management Software?

The features and capabilities found in modern repair shop software fall into two main buckets:

Features that enable you and your team to work more efficiently
Features that enable you and your team to interact more smoothly with customers

Ultimately, the modern features we’re about to dive into will free up your time as a shop owner. Instead of stressing over small day-to-day details, you’ll be able to focus more on the high-level aspects of advancing your business.

1. Cloud-Based Shop Management Software

Cloud-based shop management systems make everything so much better. Unlike traditional software that needs to be installed directly on your shop computer and maintained by that specific service provider in your shop's physical location, cloud-based software can be used on any device, from any location that has an internet connection.

With cloud software, everything is hosted on the provider's servers, but completely owned by and accessible to your shop. Technicians can type inspection notes from their smartphones without having to leave their bays, service advisors can check on repair details, and owners can work remotely from anywhere with internet access. Because all of your data is on the cloud, you’ll have more peace of mind that your shop won’t suffer from data loss if the hardware breaks down, and the platforms are always improving.

2. Real-Time Control with a Streamlined Shop Workflow

Just as a dashboard in a car allows drivers to see what’s going on with their vehicle, auto repair shop software acts as your shop's dashboard with a streamlined workflow. Shop owners gain total control of their business in real-time, while allowing service writers, technicians, and shop owners to see what’s coming in, what vehicle is in the garage, and what’s ready for pickup.

Because shop owners have a granular look at the status of each job at any given moment, they can gain a strategic view of everything happening in their shops. Tekmetric also lets shop owners see the dashboard by day, week, month, and year-to-date, opening up a whole new level of forecasting with a complete view of how their business is performing over time.

3. Digital Vehicle Inspections For Enhanced Visibility

Digital vehicle inspections are an absolute game-changer for creating a modern customer experience at your shop. Instead of handing guests a paper inspection, you can send a digital one straight to their device, where they’ll be able to read all the necessary details about the proposed repair work.

Tekmetric’s digital vehicle inspection feature helps you bring another layer of transparency to every interaction. Technicians can attach photos and videos to each DVI, so guests can see for themselves exactly what’s wrong with their cars. As a result, they’ll have peace of mind and trust your recommendations.

4. Simplified Parts and Inventory Management

Modern shop management software gives you a holistic view of everything happening in your shop for the ultimate level of management. Successful parts management means you need to understand how your inventory is suited to the needs of your customer, the quality of the parts that are kept in the shop, and how to minimize inventory that is not being sold.

Modern shop management software makes parts and inventory management easy by combining every single aspect of running your shop, managing your inventory, and even ordering new parts into one streamlined workflow. If you don't have a part in stock while working on a car, you can quickly swap the part for a similar one in inventory, or instantly place an order for what you need and let you text the customer all in the same system.

5. Instant and Digital Communication

Customers expect updates on the services they receive, such as shipping updates on their packages. Repairs are no exception. Customers are busy and want to know when they can expect to pick up their vehicles.

Thanks to true two-way texting, service advisors can give customers updates and even answer any questions that customers might have about their DVIs. Service advisors can update customers on the status of their repairs in seconds. They don’t have to dial a number or try to find customers in person.

6. Built-In Payment Processing

When you can order a pizza online and pay for it in multiple installments, why shouldn't your shop's customers have that option for their vehicles' repairs? Text-to-pay is touchless payment—customers can pay invoices directly from their smartphones. They don’t have to physically walk into the shop to hand over cash or a credit card.

Shops can take advantage of alternative payment methods to provide their customers with flexible service and simplify the payment process. Not only does this make it easier for your customers, but Tekmerchant even provides necessary protections to help shops prevent chargeback fraud, so you can have peace of mind knowing you will get paid for the work your shop did.

Running a Modern, Independent Auto Repair Shop

The ability for shops to track financial information, payment, and customer history will affect their success, especially as they take on new types of repairs on new types of vehicles.

As they update their repair offerings in response to new vehicles on the street, shops will need to keep a close eye on their metrics to ensure they are meeting their profit goals.

And of course, shops will have to respond to updates in consumer technology to ensure that they’re keeping their teams and customers happy.

With Tekmetric, you can modernize your shop and give your team and customers the flexibility and autonomy they want.

Ready to grow your automotive business? Book a personalized Tekmetric Demo Here

FAQ

There are many reasons you might want to sell your auto repair shop.

You might be ready for another venture; you might be trying to fund your retirement; or you might just be curious about the value of your business if you do decide to sell.

Whether you're actively in the market to sell your shop, or you just want to know how to value an automotive repair shop just in case, you’ve come to the right place.

How to value your auto repair shop

The industry standard for establishing a sale price for an automotive repair business is to use total owner benefit (TOB) multiplied by four (or TOBx4).

So, if you took home an average of $50,000 a year for the past three years, the price of your business will likely be valued around $200,000. Keep in mind this TOB value does not include property value.

For those who are reading this with the hopes of selling in the near future, that valuation method might seem low to you. And it is.

The good news is that you can go above and beyond the industry standard, and sell your shop for a higher value, if you stay on top of your numbers.

Not only will diligent reporting and good customer service increase your TOB, but you’ll also have more leverage when negotiating offers from buyers.

Here are three steps you can take to improve the valuation of your business and secure the money that you worked hard to earn.

Tekmetric, a Houston-based auto repair technology company, offers a cloud-based platform that enables auto repair shop owners to enhance productivity and increase profitability through its streamlined workflow management processes.

Designed by a former shop owner, Tekmetric’s platform drives shop efficiency through real-time data, a customizable user interface and customer-centric communication tools.

Since its launch in 2016, Tekmetric has disrupted the industry with its robust fully-integrated system, developed with an emphasis on customer transparency and user collaboration.

For more information, visit www.tekmetric.com

OEConnection Holdings’ portfolio includes OEC, the leading parts ecommerce technology provider for OEM distribution networks, serving over 20 OEMs and 100,000 dealership and repair customers.

Providence Equity Partners is the majority stakeholder of OEConnection Holdings; Ford Motor Company and General Motors are minority stakeholders.

The company is headquartered in the greater Cleveland area at 4205 Highlander Parkway, Richfield, Ohio, 44286

Additional information is available at www.OEConnection.com

Strength in Numbers

If there’s one thing that makes us feel confident, empowered, and like we know what’s going on, it’s numbers. (Tracking shop performance and providing insights is kind of our thing).

We’ve seen the power of metrics in shops across America, and we know that customers, service advisors, technicians, and the entire auto repair industry benefit when auto shop owners can make informed decisions.

So we launched the TM-500 Index. The TM-500 tracks the Average Repair Order and Car Count of five hundred auto repair shops located across the United States. The TM-500 lets users sort data by time and region so they can quickly explore trends.

Want to know the ARO and Car Count between the months of June and November of 2020? Simply set the time period “by month,” and the TM-500 will generate an easy-to-read graph.

Want to know if shops in midwest states had a higher or lower Car Count than southwest states last summer? Simply set the time period you want to observe, and hover over different regions on a map of the United States to learn how they performed.

Just as the Tekmetric system for auto repair shop management gives shop owners better insights into their shops, the TM-500 gives Auto Repair Professionals better insights into their industry.

A Catalyst for Digital Transformation

The auto repair industry has lagged behind almost every other service industry in how we utilize technology. Almost anyone with a smartphone can order a pizza, sushi, enchiladas, or any other food they want and track it while it’s being delivered to their door.

Meanwhile, someone paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a new transmission still has to go in-person and deal with a half-legible piece of paper that feels greasier than the pizza and enchiladas put together!

For many auto shop owners, the COVID-19 pandemic was the “now or never” moment to fully digitize their shops.

In 2020, Tekmetric prioritized the rollout of several features to help shops provide their customers with the experience they’ve come to expect in almost every other part of their lives. In April of 2020, we rolled out Text-to-Pay, allowing shops to invoice and collect payment via text message.

In November of 2020, we rolled out True Two-Way Texting to make it easy for service advisors and customers to communicate throughout the entire repair process.

Combined, these two features enabled Tekmetric users to provide a completely touchless experience to their customers without sacrificing the quality of their work or customer service.

Much like in other industries, customers who bring their cars in for repairs appreciate the extra service and transparency of a more enhanced, digitally assisted customer experience.

As we watched many shops grow by using Tekmessage and Tekmerchant, we kept an eye on the overall performance of the TM-500. We were able to see when shops began to bounce back in summer after an early slump, and developed other understandings about where the industry was headed.

Over time, we have added new metrics to the TM-500 such as state-by-state Labor Margin, Parts Margin, Effective Labor Rate, and Car Count to gain a more complete picture of these high-performing shops.

What Have We Learned Since the Onset of the Pandemic?

When making conclusions about where the industry is going, we like to be informed by both quantitative and qualitative data.

The numbers give us a factual look at what’s gone up or down, and talking to people in the industry helps us make correlations between how certain behaviors, processes, and principles affect these trends.

Between the data we gathered from the TM-500 and the feedback we were able to gather from talking to auto shop owners, here’s what we have learned.

Tracking shop performance and providing insights is crucial for confidence and decision-making.
The TM-500 Index helps shops analyze trends in Average Repair Order and Car Count.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the need for digital transformation in auto repair shops.
Features like Text-to-Pay and True Two-Way Texting enabled touchless, transparent customer experiences.
Adding new metrics to the TM-500 provides a more complete picture of shop performance.