Alex, a service manager at a Detroit Chrysler dealer, wants to convince his GM to fund a shop expansion. With 16 stalls, techs running 80-120% efficiency, and a 3-4 week booking backlog, Chris and Christian show him how to calculate the gross profit per technician and argue that most incremental revenue goes straight to the bottom line. They also suggest trying alternative schedules like three 12-hour shifts or four 10s before spending capital, claiming schedule changes alone can add roughly 30% production.
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To service. Drive revolution in your Friday drive by. I am Chris Collins and this is Chris John Better. Hello everyone. Streets says Papi Chugo and this is where we answer your questions. What is on your mind that's keeping you from being the best version of yourself or just overall being happy and feeling like you're doing a good job and contributing in the world? We want to help you with that. The number is 8, 3, 3, 3, ask STR. That's 8, 3, 3, 3,. And if we answer your question on the big show here, we will send you some swag. Elite swag.
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Let's go to the question of the day.
Hey, Chris. My name is Alex. I'm a service manager of a Chrysler dealer in metro Detroit. I currently have a shop with about 16 stalls. I have certified techs in all of them to about one and a half stall to tech ratio. My question is, I'm still three to four weeks out on appointments. My guys run at 80 to 120% efficiency.
My dealer, principal and GM do not want to spend money for a few years on an expansion of the shop. I tried to make sense to them that, you know, if we can use.
More bays and I can get more technicians in there, I can add more net profit to the dealer. I can't get my appointment down any further with the efficiency my guides are running that. So I'm just looking to see what I can do to make it make sense to a dealer or a GM that, you know, adding more stalls and hiring more techs is more of an immediate need now than something you can wait three to five years for.
Let's start with the last part first in the sense of how you sell it. So the easiest way to sell something like this is take your total gross and divided by how many techs you have and come up with a average gross per tech. Right, because everything we're doing in service is we're selling technicians time. All the gross is created by, by technicians. With the exception of, you know, a little tiny bit of sublet gross. It's all technicians. So if you're doing, you know, a hundred thousand in gross and you got five technicians, so your technician average is 20,000 of gross per month. And so if you're booked out a couple weeks, let's just say you need another 10 tax and you're averaging 20,000 per tech, you're going to add an additional $200,000 in gross. That is should, should. Now remember this isn't sales, this is gross. Should go right to the bottom line because you shouldn't have to add a lot of overhead. Maybe if you add 10 technicians, you need another parts guy, but you don't, you know, service advisors, if your pay plan is good there, they're paid as a part of that. So Most of that 200,000 should go right to the bottom line. So that's, that's how I'd make the business case. And so.
The other simple answer is rents going on 24 hours a day. So you can go to three 12s, four tens, you can do split shifts, you can be open seven days a week. There's all kinds of things that you can do to maximize that.
Doing a complex schedule, I, I would suggest you.
You know, maybe get on a strategy session and, and think about our coaching group for something like that. Because it's, you know, it's not something. Without knowing more stuff, it's not something that Christian, I would be able to lay out for you here. But alternative schedules.
Are pretty easy. And most of the time, just on the surface, we can add 30% to your production without even any difficulty whatsoever. It's pretty easy. Do you agree with that, Chris? Sean?
Yeah, I love the whole, we pay the same rent for 24 hours. I think that that's the first thing that I've seen with people that really grow out of that three week thing and is that they're not constrained by the 9 to 5 that it's like, oh, okay, so we can work earlier, we can work later, we can work another shift. You know, there's cases where some dealers are working overnight, but the other thing to remember is that the longer you're out on appointments, the lower your RO value. I guarantee that that's the case because imagine waiting three weeks to get in for service and then someone talks to you about preventative maintenance. You're like, no, I waited three weeks to get in here, I'm not going to wait any longer. You know, at the end of the day, I think that, that there's a lot of ways to slice the apple. The other thing, I think that was interesting. Did you hear him talk about his tech to stall ratio?
1.5.
Yeah. So 1.5 to 1. So if he has, I'm just using a round number. So if he has 15 stalls, that means he's got 10 texts. So I would also make sure that, you know, every, the people that have two stalls that they need them because a lot of people can do a lot of damage on a one stall and they just don't know it yet.
So.
So there might be some opportunity for growth without even doing any crazy stuff like. But you got five ways you can attack this, so.
Well, yeah. He might have a heavy mix of truck. Right. Cause it is. It is. He said he's in Detroit. Yeah.
And it's a cdjr, so they it was possible.
Great stuff. Thanks, Alex. So remember the numbers 8 3, 33 Ask SDR. And if we play your question on the big show, we will.
Setting you a swag bag. Yep.
Soon we'll be sending my socks. My dirty socks.
Nobody wants that. Yeah, it's a good point. Thanks, Alex. We'll see you guys all next time on service Drive Revolution. Thanks for watching this week's Drive By. I hope we gave you something to think about over the weekend. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 8333 Ask SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333 Ask SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins and I'll see you in the next video.
