Chris Collins explains why chasing more customers won't fix your shop. Most shops are already booked three weeks out. The real growth comes from better inspections, stronger communication, and higher maintenance sales per repair order.
Questions this video answers
January 31, 2024
Three weeks
~50% is a good starting benchmark (domestic); ~75% for high-line/luxury; 'one to one' cited as ideal for some cases
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So we're, we're hearing this more and more now all of a sudden. And this happens.
Especially around this time of year, where people start saying, we need more ROs, we need to work on our RO account. How do we get our ROs up? We need more traffic. The problem is traffic.
It's really funny when you give them all the reasons that it's not traffic and then they'll go back to its traffic.
So I can, I can think of a handful of times that I went into a service department and it was traffic. And every time it was a new point that had been there less than two years. So it was a point that was awarded to the dealer. They were starting with nothing and they were trying to build.
A clientele. But beyond that, traffic is rarely ever the issue. So, first of all, the average service department in the country is booked out how long?
Three weeks.
So you have traffic pent up, you just don't have enough text.
Yep.
Second of all, way before we talk about traffic, let's talk about what you're doing with the cars that are coming in. We have this odd sense in our industry that being super busy is success because most service managers don't know how to read a financial. They don't understand how to create profitability. So then let's just be busy, because that feels like winning. Being busy. Yeah, because we got stuff to do and we're behind and we got stuff to do and we're behind and we got stuff to do and we're behind and we never catch up. And so that's success.
Yeah. The R rated version of this podcast would be blanket harder.
Blanket harder.
Like covering yourself with a blanket.
No, blank is in.
Oh, a swear word.
Yeah. That's what I think about when they're like, we need more.
But that's not the answer, surprisingly. Yeah, like the 10X. Like just get it harder, hit it harder, whatever. There's. There's usually a better. There's a better way to do it because it's not scalable to just always blanket harder.
I always come back to just the. The easy way versus the difficult way. How hard is it to increase hours by writing higher quality repair orders on what you have coming in?
Not only is it easier, it's more fun. Less.
Stress.
Less friction.
And then we talk about not having enough technicians. What do technicians like when they're at work?
More hours per ro.
Because that means they can do more hours with less ros.
Because pulling cars in and out of the shop doesn't make them time.
Yeah. Yes, sir.
So what we need to do is a recruiting tool to get the problem fixed that we have in the first place.
Wait, wait. This shows about RO account, not recruiting.
You could make a case that it's all the same conversation.
Okay.
So before we chase repair order count, we want to look at what measurable. So we want to look at hours per ro.
Yep.
So could we be doing more with what we have? Which would mean better inspections, better communication from the advisors, a better process in the drive for the advisors to make friends with the customers, petting the dog and so on. Right. So hours per hour. Next one would be your maintenance penetration. So just a simple math is how many ROs did you write and how many alignments did you sell?
Yeah, yeah, we call that the wild card percentage.
Yeah. And so you know, anything around 50%.
Is pretty good if you're a domestic, 75% if you're a high line, one to one. But 50% is where you can start to have the conversation that you're getting.
Closer to capacity now about right now in every service department. We're done talking.
Yeah, like these three things. Like, you're booked out three weeks. You need tax. That will increase your RO account.
Thanks so much for watching this clip.
Of Service Driver Revolution.
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.
