Why Auto Shops Get Overwhelmed (And How to Prevent it)
Why Auto Shops Get Overwhelmed (And How to Prevent it)
Auto shops experiencing an influx of new customers can make them victims of their own success. Sustained increases in regular tune-ups, check-ups, and drop-ins, the kind of traffic you hope for, can stress your finite number of bays and human resources, slamming the brakes instead of accelerating your growth.
There are many subtle signs that your shop’s customer base is outgrowing your operational ability to serve it. Your shop might be overbooked week-after-week. Your lead times might have grown so long that customers walk away from necessary maintenance. Your technicians and office employees, stressed out and harried, might start missing messages, or communicating inaccurately to each other (or to customers, requiring an apology).
Such problems are frustrating and costly. They translate into time spent fixing miscommunications instead of fixing cars, customer attrition, and even negative reviews; things that make auto shops hemorrhage cash.
Oftentimes these problems start with inadequate auto repair manager software. Let’s explore how old-fashioned processes and outmoded tech tools slow your shop down and prevent you from scaling, so you can then learn how a software revamp can fix it.
The Problem With Legacy Tools And Processes
Many auto shops have legacy tools and processes in place simply because they were once the only option. Technicians checking off paperwork with a pencil and older point-of-sale and calendaring software work “well enough.” They get the job done, until they don’t.
The limitations of these tools become obvious when your customer base expands.
Paper-based vehicle inspections or record keeping leads to paperwork damaged, lost, or misfiled. This might be handled easily at a smaller scale, but with more customers, more bays, and more staff, little errors send ripples through your operation, taking more time and money to untangle. Scheduling through a manual, locally-stored calendar works for a few cars a day, but when that number increases, things can spiral downward. Scheduling errors become inevitable. Customers arrive at the wrong times, leading to stress and bay congestion.
That’s why current smart automotive repair shop software offers more than an “upgrade.” It actively enhances how the shop does business, solving for age-old inefficiencies and enabling efficient service no matter how many customers show up.
Elements of Excellent Auto Shop Software
Top-tier software solutions for managing auto shops have a few stand-out characteristics. First, they facilitate communication seamlessly between the garage, the office and, when necessary, the customer, around both service and scheduling.
Second, they track KPIs, so that technicians can see how they’re meeting objectives, and management can incentivize and reward good performance, and identify and address nagging customer service issues.
Third, they support digital vehicle inspections (DVIs). DVIs let technicians perform vehicle inspections with a tablet instead of on paper. They’re way more convenient, lead to improved satisfaction and increased maintenance approvals, and are becoming the gold standard for technicians, shop-owners, and customers.
Auto Shop Automation Software That Lets You Scale
Auto shop-specific software gets all your operations working within an organized framework, letting shops focus on growth. Reducing time-consuming customer service debacles, eliminating confusion about which customer received which services, and having all information easily accessible in one place, leaves more time to spend on services for customers and strategies to build the business.
Such software is built to match your customer throughput, so more customers won’t lead bottlenecks or backlogs. It’s the essence of scalability.
How To Tell If Your Shop Needs a Software Revamp
To know if your current processes and tech solutions are limiting your shop’s growth, ask yourself the following questions:
- Do you use manual processes (i.e., vehicle inspections, work orders) that sometimes create confusion, oversights, or errors, impacting service and customer satisfaction?
- Do your software solutions require many logins and sometimes require duplicating work between them to keep records consistent?
- Do you have difficulty communicating throughout the office and garage, leading to misunderstandings or service mistakes?
- Can even short-term staff absences throw off your ability to do business and extend your job completion dates?
- Do you treat frequent dropped acceptances and mis-scheduled appointments as an inevitable part of doing business?
If the answer to some of these questions is yes, new auto repair manager software can improve your operations, eliminating costly bottlenecks and letting you build your customer base without getting overwhelmed.
The right auto repair shop software package makes everything the office and the garage need easily accessible from any device. It has reliable vendor support to answer your questions. And it’s flexible, so that when you get more customers, add more bays, or when new demands become industry standard, your shop stays on top of the changes.
BOLT ON’s auto repair manager software does all of this. If you would like to see how it can help you get bigger and better, give it a spin! Schedule a personalized demo today!
