Success comes from knowing how use management tools and procedures

I am absolutely positive that every customer, technician, service advisor, service manager and owner, has experienced the frustration of servicing a vehicle that should never have arrived in the condition it did. Customers are stressed as they face unexpected problems with their vehicle. A technician’s pride is damaged by not being able to perform the best service on the vehicle in a timely fashion. Service advisors are put on the spot to settle every one down and try to keep everyone happy when problems arise. And owners see less-than-desired profit and endure painful comebacks. This does not occur every day, but it does happen more than it should.

I have owned The Garage for 23 years. I grew the business by making every one happy with a ‘No problem’ attitude, the same way my grandfather, uncles and father did before me. I started in 1984 with two bays and one tech, and I handled everything else. The business grew to the point where in 2002, I had six bays, nine technicians, 1.5 service writers, a full-time book keeper and myself; and I still tried to do everything. The problem was I had no way of knowing what was really going on. Imagine dealing with 450 work orders per month, having a shop open six days a week from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., aging equipment, technician’s training falling behind and only managing a two per cent net profit.

I had to ask: “What was wrong with this picture?” I had computerization, post cards, Web site, email, training certificates, membership in all related associations, etc … and yet, I and my staff lacked the effective organization skills and management systems and procedures that would allow us to handle the work we booked.

What I have learned to be effective and profitable, a service shop requires more than just trying to fix every vehicle that comes in the bay doors. It requires proper management training and the implementation of effective management systems and work procedures for everyone in the shop, from the front counter service advisor to the technician working on the vehicle. It sounds complicated, but it’s not.

The first thing we did at The Garage was to slow down everything, capture information accurately and change the business we were in. We moved away from software time management to a mix of manual procedures and physical systems that the entire staff could use along with software to support this new organizational structure. Today I have five technicians, two service advisors a part-time book keeper along with me. Everything now runs more smoothly, the shop and workflow are better organized and our customers appreciate how professional things are. And the improvement to the overall profitability of the business has been enormous: five years of consistent change management training has given us a new business to proud of at 220 work orders per month maintaining customers vehicles very well with 20 per cent net profit in the business. This has left us all with more time for our lives and families. There is less chaos and stress for everyone.

Everyone in our trade can do this. In fact the opportunity we all have to be profitable and ethical, reduce stress and to be proud of whom we are in the Automotive trade has never been better.