[Bill White]

It’s a customer by customer basis. Some want to know how something works and why they need a new one, but I’m finding less and less people care to know these days. I cancelled autonet tv and autonet menu board with pictures and videos, because people didn’t care. We were constantly asked to turn off the tv or switch it to regular tv. My service advisor likes to educate people on what they need and why, or if they are here, show them. Some people are interested and some seem irritated.

[Bill White]

I don’t feel companies like Openbay, RepairPal or similar others is the answer either. In many cases, it’s the opposite. I see that both from the reviews and from experience with being a Repair Pal certified shop. Just as it was stated that consumers don’t know what parts to buy to fix their cars, they also don’t know what to ask for in an online quote and the shop does not know the condition of the car, certain options, etc. So quotes are wrong and when the price changes, some customers understand but some have left reviews feeling baited and switched. There is also a lack of loyalty, and a lack of a single shop having a history of service. This is pointed out in reviews of people saying they have used a service such as open bay or repair pal on more than one occasion at different shops each time. Customers have no idea how much it can help having full vehicle history in certain situations. The online thing just does not promote communication or relationships.

[Bill White]

I agree with Rick. That”s what I said in my first post. Shift the profit to labor. It’s all about the cost of the total job and it doesn’t look like we are price gouging on parts. I’m anxious to see a pricing strategy presented.

 

[Bill White]

Several of the posts talk about no warranty if the owner supplied parts. As much as you may preach this and have the customer read and sign this, if there is an issue and they sue, you will likely lose. If you have your hands in it, you have liability. Cut and dry. You are the professional. If you don’t want any liability, don’t touch it. If your insurance won’t cover you when you install outside parts, don’t touch it. If you do have coverage or are willing to take the risk and can be profitable, then you can do the job.

 

 

[Bill White]

I had the conversation with Amazon just this week that whoever the team was that started this program, they have no idea about vehicle service. This is what I sent them.

“Seems this selling of service wasn’t thought out very well, or didn’t have any automotive professionals involved in the set up. One vehicle may take an hour to do a certain job, but another type of vehicle may take 3 hours to do the same job. It’s nearly impossible to quote a generic price to replace a listed part that applies to all vehicles. A process where a customer could request an install quote based on vehicle facts, would be much better.

Next is the rules say it is not allowed to solicit additional parts or services to the customer while we install the part the customer brought in. That is just not realistic for multiple reasons. One is that if we see something that is either unsafe or could cause a breakdown, it would be irresponsible and unprofessional not to present that to the customer and could be cause for a lawsuit in the event of an accident. Next issue is it is highly likely that a customer will misdiagnose their vehicle and provide a wrong part, unneeded part or not all required parts to do the install. At that point, any shop would proceed with selling a proper diagnosis, parts and/or labor.

Again, this selling of services was not thought out and will no doubt create bad experiences and unhappy people. Vehicle service is not a commodity where everything on every car is the same. ”

They replied that they would take my concerns into consideration and review their policies. As far as a Amazon door rate, I think we all need new door rates. Our pricing system is ridiculous. I think to provide tools for the technicians and pay a real fair wage for the skill and training, along with still being profitable, and then adding in that the internet is providing customers with more access than ever to information and quality, name brand parts for less than our cost from local vendors, I think everything with our pricing model has to change. I think we have to price off labor. Take other professions like accounting or lawyers, who pretty much have no products to sell, only service. Basically, we create our own problems because our pricing is top secret and not at all transparent. It’s a shell game of excuses on why our parts prices are so high and every excuse is really a load of crap. Forget about making so much money on the parts, double the labor rates, look and be professional. Much more could be changed. Cars and technology has changed drastically just over the last few years, but our business models have remained the same since the wheel was invented.

[Bill White]

I must have been at the same meeting as rlucyk. While I understand both sides of this, I feel it comes down to the way young people shop and their lack of education on not only vehicles, but on anything that needs maintenance or repairs. I grew up when many things got fixed. There were TV repair men and repair men for just about anything. Now we throw just about everything away and buy new. Young people grew up in a world of everything being a commodity and have no reason to think auto repair is any different. I think shop owners need to educate these young people, and to do so, will likely require them having a bad experience with allowing them to bring the Amazon part and having an issue with any number of things, be it quality, fit, more parts needed, etc. The staff at Amazon that has set this up is also just as clueless. The agreement states  that no other parts or services may be solicited at the time the customer comes in for the Amazon service. This is not even a little bit realistic. It is our job to advise people of other needed repairs we see, especially safety issues. Beyond that, it is highly likely the customer didn’t get everything needed for the job, and that’s assuming they even diagnosed it right. Much of the backlash at the meeting I attended was the parts vendor putting on the meeting wanted to go after online business. I see no reason why they shouldn’t. NAPA, AZ, Advance, and all the others have consumer sites they sell on. They also all sell to walk in customers. The vendor at this meeting was wanting to add installation services to be directed to their Certified Service Centers. I understand that the attendees of this meeting seen it as their own supplier was going into competition with them, along with all the other issues of wrong parts, misdiagnosed problems or any number of other things. Fact is that young people shop by price. We are not the only industry with this issue. Plumbers and electricians also have this issue with customers seeing endless options on display at all the home centers with low prices. This industry is just too focused on the parts margin. We all need a certain margin to remain in business. There is no law that says we have to make a certain amount on parts and a certain amount on labor. The easy solution is sell parts at cost and increase the labor rates. Then you no longer have to explain why the Monroe strut you’re selling for $200 is better quality than the exact same part number Monroe strut that the customer can buy for $100, from just about anywhere. It just proves to the customer that we are all liars about low price meaning low quality.

[Bill White]

I was a technician at a Toyota store when they implemented a team system. I quit as did a very large number of top producers all over the country. I went on my own and have been in business 20 years now. Others went to different car lines. I am all about being a team player and I’m happy to help the guy next to me, but do NOT set up a team pay plan that ties my pay to what the low produer on the team does. The system plan is to create competion between two or more teams and have both high and low producers on a team and then the high producers will light a fire under the low producers to make the team as a whole more productive. The only thing that ever happened when I was with Toyota is that all the high producers made less money, got pissed off and quit while it was a bonus system to the low producers. I would never consider it in my shop. I have a bonus I pay if the shop as a whole hits a goal. Everyone gets a percentage of the bonus based on the hours they contributed to the goal.

[Bill White]

Go to mfsfred.com It’s easy to use and the suport per quarter is about the same as some of the other companies are per month. I have the multi user version. Works great. I started 12 years ago with their dos version and switched to their windows version about 5 years ago. No complaints and a live body always answers the phone. You can demo it and I don’t think you will be disappointed.