[Jeff Ruffing]

For discussion, a similar point…..

A very successful shop owner that I know has said that any applicant that he reaches out to….if their “mailbox is full” or he gets the message “you have reached a user whose mailbox is not properly set up” he writes them off, tosses the resume and never thinks about them again.
He said that he’s never had one of those people ever work out in the past.

Your thoughts on that?

 

[Jeff Ruffing]

I hate people who are late…
But it sounds like he had a decent hair cut….and was articulate.   I’d interview him anyway.

[Jeff Ruffing]

We are up 42% over 2020

2020 was up 22% over 2019, we grew during COVID.   We kept advertising and stole market share that year.   We’re still reaping the benefits.

[Jeff Ruffing]

Great questions/thoughts, Tom.

Here are my thoughts:

How did you sell balancing in the past? 

How often?

How often do you rotate?  

Our basic recommendation, is balance every 5,000 – 7,500 miles, balance every other rotate.   Some follow it.  We are NOT very good about it.   More often than not, the ones that make a problem with the vibration ever since, are ones that were never here before, or only here rarely….we have spotty history at best….rotate is upsold based on tread wear differential, no complaints or history.

I kind of like the concept, but I’m afraid customers might get confused.

I wasn’t really planning on tell them.  🙂    Rotate just went up a few dollars, techs got an additional .1 hr, and we’ll have less “ever since”, and sell more tire replacements if we see belt shifts on tires that are still gonna see trouble.   I changed the verbiage on the labor operation to “ROTATE 4 TIRES (Includes 1/2 bal)”   then describes the labor operation in too great of detail.
I might change it simply to “ROTATE 4 TIRES”

Honestly, we don’t have a lot of problems…but the few that it did occur on, (That we know about!!) it takes rotating them back, or balancing them…..we end up losing at least time, and work flow is blown up.   Often losing money.    We make a bad impression….  Some people probably took a day or so to notice their steering wheel didn’t feel the same, or shook, or……and just didn’t like the way their car worked after we had it in…but didn’t really know what or why they didn’t like it.

WE KNOW that we really didn’t create this problem, their tires did, or our lack of proper information, documenting, and/or…..   They don’t care, they will blame us, at least partially.

 

This way, I get a few bucks, my tech breaks even, the customers will be happier with the way the car rides overall – most of them may not know it….it’s like wiping their dash….they don’t know why their car seems more likeable since you were in it, but they know it is.  We have less wasted time.   Cars are maintained better.   It requires little to no effort on my SA or staff.   We just deleted the tire rotation canned job that we had and replaced it.

 

 

 

 

[Jeff Ruffing]

Every time that we react to negative responses from the least targeted customer, we shape our offerings in a way that isn’t to our advantage, or to the advantage of our best customers.

You can change over your pricing to labor only/labor focused fees overnight.  The formulae involved are fairly simple.   The complications exist.

I don’t see a real advantage to being a pioneer on changing over to “labor only” pricing structure.

Pioneers die with arrows in their back, Settlers Take the Land.

Consider the outcome:
Say that you end up quoting $250 to install a battery.
You’ll label the battery at “$0.00” or you’ll call it “included” in the fee.
Many states call for itemized separations between labor and parts components.   Will there be a backlash that considers our “new and improved pricing” process to be working around that?

Really, honestly, that’s all that we’re doing.  We’re sick of the complaints about our parts pricing.   We’ve always been sick of complaints.

Will the guy that complained about paying $180 for a battery, or $70 to install it, suddenly be happy to pay $250 for a “Battery problem solution” that includes a battery and installation?

I doubt it.

If you’re charging $200 per hour, including all parts…will the battery work out?  If you get .7 for battery installation….you won’t even cover the parts…..
How will you reconcile the low labor/high part cost operations vs the high labor/low parts cost operations?
Just  using an average computation for parts cost?  Even if you get it to be very accurate that way, people will make decisions to get the best deal….and you will not be able to make it work in every case because of the invisible hand of the free market…

I’m in no hurry to get on this bandwagon.

The Amazon thing….   Convenience.   Only the convenience could hurt us.

Work on our convenience of scheduling, convenience of interaction, convenience of paying, and convenience of pickup.
Forget the pricing structure.
There’s a reason that we still price things based on our cost of labor and cost of parts.
The reason isn’t that we are cavemen.
The reason is that it reflects actual CODB.

[Jeff Ruffing]

I agree with TheTrustedMechanic.  I have tried all of the different angles to try to educate and convert.

Best answer:
“I am sorry, but we do not install customer supplied parts under any circumstances. There are too many problems that have arisen from doing so.”

Move on to people who want their car taken care of instead of people who want to devote 3 days to calling around and getting the cheapest phone quote.

[Jeff Ruffing]

We have decided to handle first time customers differently.

First of all, we need to be sure to let them know that we’re going to check it over.
Then, we ask if they’d like us to go over the findings of the inspection with them now, or just make notes off the recommendations.  Safety items get pointed out even if they don’t want to know.

 

[Jeff Ruffing]

Big local chain near me offers 99cent repairs.
They do a quality repair for that with removal,inspection, and patch.
Their theory is to get the people coming in, and also making a judgement that this place is priced better on repairs than other shops.

It does backfire on some people.  I’ve had customers say that they had tire trouble right next door to that place, but said “What can you expect for 99 cents?!?”.   Brought it to me anyway.

I get $20 for puncture repairs.  Free if you bought the tire from me.

Rim bead leak is $30 something and is not free, unless I put the tires on in the last 12 months and didn’t warn you about needing new rims for corrosion.

[Jeff Ruffing]

We were closed Thanksgiving Day and the day after.
We are thinking of being closed 24,25,26,27, and 28 for Christmas.
New Years Day off, maybe go a little early on NYEve, if it’s slow.

[Jeff Ruffing]

Aziz,
Your expenses are just so far away from what those sales can justify….

I do about $50k a month in sales.   We do that with 2 techs (with 1 right now) and a part time bookkeeper, and me as the SA.    My rent is around $3k a month.  

I’m not making enough money, and I’m looking to lower my expenses further.

I think it would be pretty difficult to increase your sales the amount necessary to make that rent figure work.  Everything everybody else has said it exactly right.
I’d consider moving to a less expensive location, and I think you need to cut staff from 27 people, to about 4 people.

That’s the easy stuff.     Pay plans do need to be changed, inspections & upsells need to be a part of the process.