From the Magazine: The trust factor

Building a profitable auto repair business isn’t just about the work you do, it’s about the trust you build with your supplier, team and customers

In the last issue of CARS, I wrote about the importance of picking a main supplier and creating a long-lasting partnership with them, regardless of their pricing. This strategy is good for you, good for them and good for our industry.

This is also good for your clients, let me explain.

You may believe calling around for the best price is helping your clients. However, consider the negative effects of this practice: Your advisors are spending time looking for cheaper parts instead of taking time to build relationships with your clients. Meanwhile, your techs are sitting in bays waiting for work to do. The inevitable result is that your clients have to wait longer for their vehicle to get done or you’re rushing the techs to get work out, creating possible comebacks.

As well, your advisors may end up rushing through work orders, forgetting to add parts or not advising on all repairs or maintenance that is required. These situations are a financial loss for your shop, both by lost time and by lost opportunities. This often results in having to raise labour rates to compensate for efficient practices. This is not good for your clients. 

To build a long-lasting business in this industry, you need clients who are willing to pay what it costs for safe and reliable transportation.

To build a long-lasting business in this industry, you need clients who are willing to pay what it costs for safe and reliable transportation. The best part is that you can sell this to them at half the price of new vehicle payments. Our competitors are the car manufacturers, not the guy down the street with an inexperienced tech using YouTube to install white box parts. Resist the urge to compete with those shops; they will bring you down with them.

Remember this: The only thing the manufacturers can sell that we can’t is “brand new.” But unless the vehicle has legitimately come to the end of its life or it no longer serves the client’s needs, a new vehicle is not necessary. We can provide our clients with what they need. 

The best way to start selling clients the value of higher-priced parts is to sign your service advisors up for sales training. This training should focus on selling value, not parts, as the goal is to increase profit ethically by ensuring our clients’ vehicles are maintained at a higher level.

The service advisor is as important as the technician. There may be a bunch of technicians reading this and thinking that I’m out to lunch (I probably would have thought the same thing when I was a tech). But think about it: The service advisor needs to translate technical terminology from a tech into average-person language, while building trust and ensuring a client is comfortable parting ways with their hard-earned money. This is not an easy task.

When hiring a service advisor at Kinetic, we look for someone who possesses excellent communication skills, can explain value and can quickly build trust. Service advisors are responsible for keeping the bays full. They need to convert a phone call to an appointment, build a trusting relationship on the first appointment and book the next appointment to ensure we have future work.

Our competitors are the car manufacturers, not the guy down the street with an inexperienced tech using YouTube to install white box parts.

Of course, they can’t do this on their own. They need a solid marketing plan that draws in clients who want a higher level of service, as well as a skilled, organized technician team working efficiently to get the vehicles in and out without comebacks. 

Our clients just want to know that we have their best interests at heart. We show them this by hiring staff that care about them, sourcing quality parts for their vehicles, being as efficient as possible and backing up our service with a great warranty.

This level of service has a higher value and will come at a higher cost, but if we can effectively explain this value to the people who are willing to pay for it, our clients will be much happier, our days will be much more pleasant and our bottom line will be much healthier.

Erin Vaughan is the owner of Kinetic Auto Service in Regina

This article originally appeared in the October issue of CARS magazine