Repair Shop Advice

It’s been an eventful year in the automotive world, but the big story hasn’t changed for independent automotive repair shops.  Successful shops understand their customers, understand their community, and understand how to run a profitable business.  Our most popular infographics of the year reflect the reality that auto repair shop owners are trying to better understand all three.  Here are our most popular infographics of 2019!

Five Steps to Becoming Known For Auto Repair In Your Community

When you open a new shop, it can take years for locals to think of you when they hear the words auto repair. But there are steps you can take to increase your visibility and memorability, which will speed this process up considerably. This infographic provides five of the most effective techniques to become known more quickly.

Boosting Customer Confidence

Most people don’t know enough about cars to know the difference between a great repair job and a subpar one.  Unfortunately, a large part of a customer’s perception of the quality your shop provides comes down to their confidence in your knowledge and professionalism.

When customers see (or hear) something that causes them to doubt the quality of your work, they are less likely to be satisfi­ed with that work – even if it was exceptional. Learn how to maintain the appearance of an experienced, high-caliber shop by reading this infographic.

2019 Automotive Repair Shop Customer Survey: Key Findings

We surveyed 600 auto repair shop customers to learn how they choose what shop to go to and what keeps them coming back.  This infographic covers the most important findings of our research.  The most exciting part of this research is that customers of independent auto repair shops are happier with their shops than customers of franchises or dealerships!

To learn how Repair Shop Websites can help bring new customers into your shop, call us at 855-294-6397 or email us at Team_RSW@RepairShopWebsites.com.

It’s that time of the year when everyone makes resolutions.  Most of us make too many of them to ever accomplish them all, and they fall off our calendars one by one, until they’re all gone by the end of February.

That’s doesn’t mean it’s not worth the time to plan and execute some changes to improve your shop – and your job satisfaction – in the coming year.  Here are three suggestions for things to leave behind as you move into 2020.

Customer Nearsightedness – It costs a lot of money to bring a new customer into your shop.  When most shops aren’t getting enough traffic, that’s exactly where they put their focus.  Those new customers are important – but make sure you put just as much focus on how to get them to come back a second, third and fourth time, establishing a habit of visiting your shop (and a new home for their vehicle) in the process.  Those follow-up visits cost much less to earn than that first one.

Short-Term Budgeting – No matter where your shop is in the US, odds are that one season is worse on vehicles than the rest of them.  And if you do happen to be in one of those places where the weather is always beautiful, you’ve probably got a tourist season.  Either way, some months probably bring more vehicle traffic to your shop than others, and you probably already have a good idea of which months those will be in 2020.

If you’ve got any major purchases to make, try to make them during the good months.  Try to move as many expenses out of the bad months as possible, and make sure to build up an extra cash buffer going into them.  An annual budget helps to make those slow months less painful – and if it’s managed well, it can also help minimize your tax burden!

Negativity – Life is too short to work with a hostile technician or service writer.  One of the advantages of running your own business is that you can shape the culture, improving the lives of yourself and your co-workers.  If you’ve got an employee that’s angry, disagreeable or dishonest, it doesn’t matter how much they’re producing for you, they’re not worth it.  They’ll send employees, recruits, and customers running faster than they can ever make money for you.  Get rid of them.

To learn how Repair Shop Websites can help your auto repair shop bring in more customers, call us at 855-294-6397 or email us at Team_RSW@RepairShopWebsites.com.