What to Look For When Selecting an Auto Repair Digital Labor Guide

The article titled "What to Look For When Selecting an Auto Repair Digital Labor Guide" from Tekmetric, published on May 16, 2024, discusses key considerations for choosing an automotive labor time guide, emphasizing features that help standardize repair processes and improve average repair orders across multiple shops.

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Our Automotive Labor Time Guide: What to Look For When Selecting a Digital Labor Guide

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May 16, 2024

Read time: 1 min

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Does It Pull Comprehensive Labor Times From Industry Leaders?

Reliability is crucial when it comes to labor guides. If the times are way off, your shop could either underestimate labor times and lose money, or overestimate labor times and overcharge customers.

Reliable times come from reliable sources. So, one of the most important features to look for in a labor guide is where it sources information about its labor times. If that labor time data is from an unreliable source, you’ll risk creating labor rates that are either too low or too high.

But with a labor guide that pulls comprehensive labor time data from industry leaders, you can keep your shop profitable with the peace of mind that you’re basing your labor rates off of accurate labor times.

Does It Add New Labor Times in Realtime?

The auto repair industry is constantly undergoing changes. To stay competitive, it’s crucial that the labor guide you pick adds labor times for new vehicles and jobs periodically.

For instance, let’s say you use a labor guide that hasn’t been updated since 2015. If a customer walks in with a 2019 Honda Accord, your shop’s service advisors won’t have a good foundation to use when creating labor estimates.

When researching different labor guides, find out how often the teams behind each guide add new times. Ideally, you want a labor guide that pushes updates in realtime, right alongside rapid shifts in the industry. Realtime updates will ensure that you’re always working with the most relevant information.

Is The Labor Guide Built Into Your Shop Management Software?

Chances are that you’re already using a shop management system that includes features such as repair scheduling, parts ordering, and DVIs.

Having a shop management system with a built-in labor guide has several advantages. In short, you’ll:

Avoid spending time painstakingly digging through multiple systems. Instead, you’ll be able to access everything via one login.
Get better functionality. Since the labor guide is built-in, navigating through everything will be more intuitive.
Be able to quickly pull labor times as you build labor matrices, and will then easily be able to incorporate that data into each new repair order.
Have an easier time training your team because they’ll be learning how to use the labor guide in the context of a system they’ll be using every day.
Gain high value for the money you’re paying. Rather than making separate payments for separate solutions, you get a better deal by sticking with one solution that has a built-in labor guide.

Here’s how Tekmetric user Stephane Grabina of Excluservice puts it: “We saved a bunch of money, and the estimate writing process is much faster because the labor guide is built into the system.”

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Is Your Labor Guide Easy-to-Use?

Think about the times you’ve had to deal with a clunky piece of software. It probably involved lots of wasted time and frustration as you tried to figure it all out.

Labor times are one of the most important data points for your shop. If you and your service advisors have to hunt down the information you need from a difficult-to-navigate user interface, you risk losing valuable time that you could instead be putting toward growing your business.

An intuitive automotive labor time guide also has a major benefit when it comes to training service advisors. The easier a labor guide is to use, the faster you can train your team—and have them building accurate estimates and repair orders in no time.

Always seek to get a demo of the labor guide you’re considering so you can see first-hand what the interface looks like, and what it’s like to navigate it. During the demo, pay attention to these factors:

Does the labor guide have repairs categorized in a clear, logical way?
Is it easy to find the repair type you’re looking for?
Does the labor guide list all labor operations associated with a job?
Does the labor guide list all parts associated with a job?
Does the labor guide make it easy for you to view the average times associated with each repair?
Can you easily pull the information from the labor guide into a labor matrix?

Is Your Shop Management System Backed by a Responsive Customer Support Team?

No matter how intuitive and reliable a software solution is, it’s important that it’s backed by a responsive customer support team. With any type of software, there will inevitably be feature updates and bug fixes.

If your team ever encounters an issue with the software, you’ll want to have access to a steadfast customer support team who can help you quickly work through those challenges. Dependable support will minimize downtime at your shop—you’ll spend less time trying to reassure annoyed customers who just want to get back on the road while you’re trying to figure out why your shop management system is down.

Additionally, having a responsive customer support team means you’ll be able to suggest new features, as well as tweaks to existing features, for them to consider. A team that’s receptive to your feedback means that your voice will be heard as the labor guide, and the solution it’s built into, continues to evolve.

Tekmetric: Shop Management System with Built-In Labor Guides

When it comes to accurate labor times for auto repair shops, Tekmetric has got you covered.

With Tekmetric's built-in labor guide, you can access trustworthy labor times in seconds, and seamlessly incorporate them into your workflows for building labor matrices and repair orders. No third-party labor guide subscription required.

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

FAQ

One of the most important parts of building a thriving auto repair shop in today’s industry is knowing how to interpret your shop’s data well – and often. Understanding how to leverage and report on your data can help you transform your business overnight through informed decision-making, financial health monitoring and strategic planning. Large corporations invest in tools to provide them with business intelligence to grow their bottom line and it should be no different when it comes to running your auto repair shop.

Through data analytics and predictive reporting, organizations can gain a deeper understanding of market trends, customer behavior and emerging opportunities. Integrating these capabilities into running your business can be quite intimidating. Fortunately, Tekmetric’s shop management system provides the tools you need to run reports, monitor your shop’s performance, and make strategic decisions that promote increased efficiency and profitability. Read on to discover how you can leverage data to enhance efficiency, improve customer engagement, identify growth opportunities, and drive profitability in your shop.

1. Identify Business Objectives

Identifying a clear target of what you’re looking to achieve in your business is the most important starting point when it comes to measuring performance and success. To effectively leverage data for your business, start by clearly defining your goals. Identify what you aim to achieve, whether it's improving customer satisfaction, increasing sales or optimizing operations to save you time or even looking to expand your auto repair shop to a new location.

Once your goals are set, establish specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure your progress. This step is crucial to ensuring you are able to evaluate progress clearly and objectively. Once you’re able to track your performance accurately and measure success, you can now move onto formulating a data-driven strategy to reach your business objectives.

2. Analyze Data & Establish Baselines

For an auto repair shop, analyzing data begins with collecting detailed information about various aspects of the business, such as customer demographics, parts usage, Digital Vehicle Inspection (DVI) metrics, technician efficiency, as well as sales trends. This analysis helps in understanding the current performance levels, pinpointing areas for improvement, and optimizing resource allocation. For example, with Tekmetric’s real-time insights you can quickly identify repair orders by status and identify bottlenecks before they occur in your shop.

Establishing baselines involves setting standard performance metrics against which future performance can be measured. By using historical data, the shop can determine average repair order (ARO), parts margins by vendor and employee efficiency. These baselines serve as benchmarks for evaluating progress and identifying deviations that require attention. ‍

3. Make Data-Driven Decisions

An auto repair shop can make data-driven decisions by leveraging data insights to inform its business strategies and decisions. Tekmetric built its reporting suite with a focus on helping shops identify key areas for growth and opportunities for innovation. For example, thorough and efficient digital vehicle inspections can strongly enhance your customer experience by building trust and transparency.

At Tekmetric, we've discovered that shops sending eight to twelve photos to customers on over 50% of their repair orders achieve a higher average repair order (ARO) compared to those that don't. By measuring DVI quality through metrics like photo quantity, you can increase your ARO while building trust and transparency with vehicle owners. Leveraging Tekmetric's reporting tools, you can identify your own trends and implement a growth strategy driven by data-backed decision making.

4. Monitor and Review Progress Regularly

To ensure ongoing success, an auto repair shop should prioritize monitoring and regular review of its operations. This entails creating regular reports to track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and measure the impact of data-driven decisions. By consistently monitoring performance metrics, the shop can stay proactive in addressing challenges and capitalizing on opportunities.

It's crucial for auto repair shops to remain agile in their approach. Tekmetric’s reporting enables its users to be prepared to pivot and make quick decisions based on real-time data and insights. As the automotive industry evolves and customer needs change, shops must adapt their strategies accordingly. By staying agile, the shop can swiftly respond to market shifts, customer preferences, and emerging trends, ensuring its continued relevance and competitiveness in the industry.

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Tekmetric, a Houston-based leading auto repair technology company, was named the winner of a silver Stevie® Award in the Achievement in Growth category in The 20th Annual American Business Awards®.

Tekmetric was nominated in the Achievement in Growth category for the company’s tremendous growth and expansion in the last year.

The American Business Awards are the U.S.A.’s premier business awards program. All organizations operating in the U.S.A. are eligible to submit nominations – public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small.

Co-founded in 2016, Tekmetric offers an all-in-one SaaS business management system for auto repair shops. As the auto repair industry’s leading cloud-based solution, Tekmetric has grown from just a few customers to more than 3,000 shops across the U.S.

In the last year alone, Tekmetric’s revenue has increased by more than 115%, a reflection of its role as a trusted industry solution for increasing shop efficiency.

“Tekmetric strives to deliver premier service and value to auto repair shop owners who partner with us, and this unmatched level of care wouldn’t be possible without the outstanding team we have built,” said Prasanth Chilukuri, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Tekmetric.

“To experience an expansion that more than tripled to more than 95 talented professionals from across the U.S. and Europe has been an incredible journey. We are honored to have been recognized in the Stevie for our continued growth and leadership in the auto repair industry.”

More than 230 professionals worldwide participated in the judging process to select this year’s Stevie Award winners.

Nicknamed the Stevies®® for the Greek word meaning “crowned,” the awards will be presented to winners at a gala ceremony at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York on Monday, June 13. Tickets are now on sale.

“We are so pleased that we will be able to stage our first ABA awards banquet since 2019 and to celebrate, in person, the achievements of such a diverse group of organizations and individuals,” said Maggie Miller, president of the Stevie Awards.

Tekmetric Community

Tekmetric Honored as Silver Stevie® Award Winner in 2022 in American Business Awards®

May 9, 2022

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With Digital Vehicle Inspections shops can go the extra mile and introduce a new level of transparency through a frictionless experience for the customer.

They can get clear pictures or videos to show them what's wrong, have the inspection results sent to their email, and approve or decline work with just the click of a button.

However, while this is super simple for the customer, for Service Advisors, finding the right inspection can be time-consuming. Especially when your shop is training new service advisors and introducing them to your standard operations.

To save your Service Advisor's time and effort, we are excited to announce our newest feature: Default Inspections.

This feature streamlines the inspection process and makes it easier for you to provide great service to your customers.