Download Technician Productivity

Service drive technology – Increase
Revenue and Improve Customer
Satisfaction
CEO Gratis Technologies
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
That’s the attitude But can you really deliver on the
promise!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
Obviously you are here as you are seeking improvements in your
fixed operations! That is the beginning of success to question the
status quo
The book “How to Fly a Horse” indicates the following
“Sales+ Customers= Nothing Broken is a formula for corporate
cyanide. Most big companies that die kill themselves drinking it.”
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
When working on a complex machine that is not
“delivering”, we must first break it down to
smallest parts, examine each for efficiency and
then reassemble!
The “Machine” here is the “fixed operations”
department
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
What does “Fixed Operations” mean?
And
What are its parts!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
article written by Don Reed in Auto Dealer Today
on line magazine titled “The Meaning Behind
the Term "Fixed Operations", they described
fixed operations called as such “ because you
don’t have as many variable conditions in service
and parts as you do in sales.”
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
Does this name still hold?
Are there less “Variable Conditions” in this department than
sales?
I beg to differ!!!!
That is thing of the past!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
I believe “Fixed Operations” is actually called as such as it has
delivered “Fixed Results”
A Highly limiting name
Our Expectations and the fixed results has earned this
department that can be highly lucrative this name!
We are going to refer to this department as “Vehicle
Maintenance or Service Department”
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
Historically any entity delivers the expectations of
those “important” to them. Mediocrity brings
“mediocre” results! To say that we have a 50 RO
per day “fixed” department will make it almost
certain that you do not exceed that number!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
So Let’s make a 50 RO per day department into a
90 or higher !
Why not? What is to keep us from it?
First lets find out what affects the size and hence
number of RO’s
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
Variables that Affect # of RO’s
A survey of Service Directors and Dealer principals
Revealed
•Vehicle population in market
•Vehicle sales by that store
•Owner retention- Customer loyalty
•What causes them to be loyal
•Why are we losing them
•Extended hours
•Proper marketing to lost customers
•Proper marketing to older cars that are going
elsewhere –
•Competitive pricing with other sources not
necessarily other dealers
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
Variables that Affect # of RO’s
A survey of Service Directors and Dealer
principals Revealed II
•Technician Productivity
•Service advisor efficiency
•Efficient accurate marketing tools that work for Service
Department
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
We Also asked the same group of people
to score the above for most influential to
least and they are as follows
Score of 10 is most influential and below 5 is
least
The order in which they were scored follows
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Owner retention- Customer loyalty
•What causes them to be loyal and why are we losing
them
•Proper marketing to lost customers
•Proper marketing to older cars that are going
elsewhere
•Efficient accurate marketing tools that work for
Service Department
•Vehicle population in market
•Vehicle sales by that store
•Extended hours
•Competitive pricing with other sources
•Technician Productivity
•Service advisor efficiency
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Owner retention- Customer loyalty
•What causes them to be loyal and why are we losing
them
So, the most pressing matter is as we sell cars and
those customers usually have to bring the car in,
We are just as quickly losing customers whose cars
go out of warranty
The answer to the second point is the crux of the
matter!
•What causes them to be loyal
and why are we losing them
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
What causes them to be loyal and why are we
losing them
In order to grow, we must stop the bleeding
To do that
You must find the answer to the above question!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
Lack of “timely”
communication
causes separation
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
American Management Association Document named the
five steps to conflict resolution indicates the following
•
•
•
•
•
Step 1: Identify the source of the conflict.
Step 2: Look beyond the incident.
Step 3: Request solutions.
Step 4: Identify solutions both disputants can support.
Step 5: Agreement.
All of the above has to initiate first with
“Communication”
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
SO
If you want to know why
What causes them to be loyal and why are
we losing them
Start by opening the lines of true dialogue
and communication with your customers
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Proper marketing to lost customers
•Proper marketing to older cars that are going
elsewhere
Both of above again point to the lack of communication
But Once you have communication under control then the
above become very important
Essentially You lost them but how do you bring them back
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Proper marketing to lost customers
•Proper marketing to older cars that are going
elsewhere
Solution to this initiates with
•Who are the lost customers
•Why did they leave
•What specific services had we provided them
So
We must build a database of the above that is
comprehensive and usable.
And
A system that can handle this data
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Proper marketing to lost customers
•Proper marketing to older cars that are going
elsewhere
Once you have your database
You must make sure its accurate
And
Have standards for your marketing
Such as
•Never send reminders to a customer concerning a car
already traded in at your own dealership
•Do not initiate communication with greeting “Dear valued
customer” if he is so valued how come you don’t know his
name?
•Do not call them by first name if the signature at the
bottom has full name and title!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Efficient accurate marketing tools that work for Service Department,
Now that is a tough nut to crack!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Efficient accurate marketing tools that work for Service Department, Now that
is a tough nut to crack!
As most database management tools such as CRM
are sales focused and cleanliness of data becomes
highly crucial in the service department
communications.
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Vehicle population in market
Although this is a great factor in the number of
repairs you might have, it is hardly anything that the
dealership could affect, other than selling more and
more and more
Which most are doing!
But the customers are still not coming in!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Vehicle sales by that store
Well you might say that this is hardly anything
Service Department can affect!
The answer is Yes Indeed IT IS!
Service Department is where more relations are built
or destroyed than anywhere else in an automobile
dealership!
They might love buying the car experience but never
buy another car from that dealership after their
dismal service experience!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Communicate with customers every single
time after every single transaction
•Make it your mission to work hard to assure
lines of communication are open
•Make it your mission that more than one
person “touches” the customer
•Make it your mission to watch your
reputation scores and drive attention to it
•Test systems used at your dealership
YOURSELF see how user friendly they are
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Call your dealership leave messages for your employees and see
“how easy” it is to get response
•Set service appointments on line and see how many clicks it
takes
•Your OEM might force you to use something, but if it adversely
affects your business, you do not have to adhere!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Extended hours
•Competitive pricing with other sources
•Consumer “friendliness” in all aspects of doing business with your company!
Obviously if your service department is not open when people need you and
can come for service, they will take their cars elsewhere. Remember most
successful companies work on projects that makes lives of others easier and
not necessarily one that is convenient for them or their employees.
So, one easy place to make a difference is extending your hours to comply
with times people can easily bring their cars in!
Another is to have highly competitive pricing not necessarily comparing your
department with other dealers but other independent service companies.
Don’t ask your 20 Group what their prices are, look around your city!
Install systems that make life easy!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Technician Productivity
5 Factors That Affect Your Employee’s Productivity
National Business Research Institute
Attitude Is Everything: Happy employees are productive employees. And it doesn’t
take a rocket scientist or a consulting firm to figure that one out. Negative attitudes
can torpedo employee productivity much faster than nonstop basketball being
streamed over the Web.”An employee with a positive attitude usually enjoys the
work that they do and feels empowered and recognized for their contributions,”
said Henning. “An employee that is complacent and does not really enjoy their
work, but is simply there for a paycheck usually does not produce at a high level,
develops a bad attitude and generally drags a team down.”
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Technician Productivity
5 Factors That Affect Your Employee’s Productivity
National Business Research Institute
Boss Is the Barrier: How can you improve employee productivity when the
boss stinks? A recent poll found that, among other things, an employee’s
productivity is determined by their relationship with their immediate
supervisor. When the bad boss fails to keep promises, never gives credit when
due, makes negative comments, or blames others for their mistakes, the
productivity level of their employees is significantly impacted.”A poor
supervisor is definitely the No. 1 factor that causes low productivity,” said
Barry L. Brown, President of a Florida-based consulting group. “It’s been my
experience that a good supervisor will motivate, inspire, encourage and
reward good performance. Poor management , of course, is just the opposite,
only in multiples. Employees who do not have a direct connection with the
company begin to lose all the reasons for wanting to do that little bit extra and
take the additional time to make something right.”
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Technician Productivity
5 Factors That Affect Your Employee’s Productivity
National Business Research Institute
Productivity: In Sickness and in Health: Health concerns, naturally, are a big drain
on an employee’s ability to be productive, and companies know it. At the SHRM
Conference and Exposition last June in Washington, D.C., a survey showed that 85
percent of U.S. employers said they were interested in services to increase
employee productivity, minimize absences and enhance the health of their
employees. Estimates show that 18 to 20 million American adults age 19 to 64
are not working due to a disability or chronic disease, or are not working
because of health reasons. Roughly 69 million workers reported missing days
due to illness last year, for a total of 407 million days of lost time at work.
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Technician Productivity
5 Factors That Affect Your Employee’s Productivity
National Business Research Institute
It’s the Tech Tools, Stupid: All the feel-good, psychological methods of improving
employee productivity are great, but they’re useless without the right tools. And
the right tools mean the right technology. For an employee to be efficient and
productive in today’s job environment means equipping employees with the right
gear. Companies that don’t upgrade or ignore the necessity for tech tools like
PCs, Blackberries, cell phones and other 21st century software tools, run the risk
of diminished employee productivity. Intel, the world’s largest semi-conductor
maker, found that wireless notebook PC users increased their productivity by 100
hours per year. They studied the work habits and productivity of more than 100
Intel employees who were upgraded to wireless notebooks and found a gain of
more than two hours per week, more than paying for the cost of the upgrades in
the first year. They also found that when workers were able to control more of
their time, that productivity increased as well.
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Technician Productivity
5 Factors That Affect Your Employee’s Productivity
National Business Research Institute
Downsizing and Outsourcing Morale Ever vigilant of saving a buck and satisfying
Wall Street, corporate America has turned to cutting corners by downsizing and
outsourcing. Simply put, downsizing expensive labor while outsourcing a cheaper
version. For employees remaining in those offices and factories, their morale and
motivation can take a big hit. Translation: Will the moves to save money be
contradicted by a loss in productivity from disgruntled employees? In most cases,
employers fail to recognize that if they downsize or outsource, they need to
provide support to the employees that remain. The psychological impact on
employees can directly impact productivity, forcing many to focus on their second
careers instead of the job at hand.
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Service advisor efficiency
•Research conducted by Automotive management network indicates the
following!
1. Number of repair orders written per day
2. Quality of the information captured on the RO
3. Understanding shop loading
a. Communicating the readiness time from a place of knowledge,
4. Revenue generated
a. Total revenue per day
b. Understanding the types of repairs that generate more revenue
c. Revenue generated from jobs containing more customer pay
5. Most importantly consumer satisfaction!
Remember previous discussions you cannot grow the department without
stopping the bleeding! They leave if they are not happy!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Service advisor efficiency
1. Number of repair orders written per day
I am not sure that this is a factor that could calculate advisor
efficiency, unless he actually turns people coming to
service away.
As if service advisor could actually single handedly affect the
number of RO’s solving the problem that this workshop is
tackling would be easy!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Service advisor efficiency
2. Quality of the information captured on the RO
This is extremely important as sloppy data collection leads to a
great deal of double work and time wasted.
Solid training and use of systems that force clean data entry will
be of tremendous value here.
For example, customers a great deal of time like to
communicated via text, getting the cell # and their consent to
receive text is of outmost importance in both time saving and
customer satisfaction
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Service advisor efficiency
3. Understanding shop loading
Communicating the readiness time from a place of knowledge
Telling customer what they want to hear, can be a major problem.
The advisor has to have tools at his disposal that enables him to
communicate accurate ready time and have access to proper shop
loading tools that does not allow him to possibly promise wrong
completion time.
This again plays into the reason there is customer bleeding in
service!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Service advisor
efficiency
4. Revenue generate
•Total revenue per day
•Understanding the types of repairs that generate more revenue
•Revenue generated from jobs containing more customer pay
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
•Service advisor efficiency
5. Most importantly consumer satisfaction!
This simple statement is by far the most important as it should be
the total focus of the whole department!
Satisfied customer stays
And
Dissatisfied Leaves
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
Recap!
•Owner retention- Customer loyalty. As “retained owner base grows so does #RO”
•What causes them to be loyal and why are we losing them “Communicate”
•Proper marketing to lost customers “Communicate”
•Proper marketing to older cars that are going elsewhere “Relevant proper
marketing tools”
•Efficient accurate marketing tools that work for Service Department
•Vehicle population in market “Keep on selling”
•Vehicle sales by that store “Keep on selling”
•Extended hours “Must Happen”
•Competitive pricing with other sources “That fits your business and area”
•Technician Productivity “ Very important should be addressed”
•Service advisor efficiency “ Very important should be addressed”
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
Service Parts and Maintenance Department
A
Highly lucrative and complex environment
That
Should and can deliver monthly “recurring”
revenue each and every month
And
Support the total cost of operation of that company
and deliver profit!
This is the definition of the Service Department of
millennium!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
How do we get to the above?
Set your expectations right, if the previous slide
describes what you wish your Service Department
to be, then you have your work cut out for you.
It will begin like drinking from a fire hose,
But first break the issue to its simplest component
and address each separately.
Remember
Not two departments are identical and for that
matter you do not want it to be!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
Have the courage to think outside
the box and affect change
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
The book “How to Fly a Horse”
Has a great quote
Think like a beginner!
“Beginners mind is not the mind of a beginner
but the mind of the master. It is an attention
beyond the selection and blindness of expertise,
one that notices everything without assumption.”
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
How many RO’s do you want?
How much revenue you want to generate
$
$
$
Is the very wrong place to start
The driving question to success in this business is
How many loyal happy customers do you want to
have
Once you decide that and drive for it, the rest will
happen!
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
Saphura Safavi Long| Gratis Technologies President| [email protected]
CONTACT INFO
Full Name: Saphura Safavi Long
Company: Gratis Technologies
Job Title: CEO/ President
Email: [email protected]
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