Carcare Business April 2019

TECHNOLOGY Service Plans
Planting Seeds
A maintenance plan can make all the difference. — ROB INGRAM
It’s very easy for many of us to say we
don’t have time to do something. We’re
too busy running the shop, we have
too many R/Os we need to get through,
we’re two technicians short, and the list
goes on.
Yet, when you get through that list
of vehicles, it’s February and the shop
is quiet, you’re often sitting there waiting
for the phone to ring. And have
you asked yourself why? It could be for
a number of reasons, but one of the
most important ones might be because
you don’t have your customers on a
maintenance plan.
No brainer
Let’s take an example. You have a customer
that has a vehicle equipped with
gasoline direct injection. Over time, the
valves build up with carbon deposits,
which can cause serious drivability issues.
To take the engine apart and clean them
takes several hours, and your customer
will likely end up with a repair bill for $600
or more. Alternatively, you can explain to
the customer that every 40,000 km you
can run an additive through the engine
and prevent carbon build-up at a cost
of $158. When you have a service advisor
and/or a technician that is able to
explain that, it becomes a no brainer
for the customer.
At the end of the day, your
staff need to have the right
tools to do their job properly,
whether it’s a wrench or
impact gun or strategies for
talking to your customers.
When you have a maintenance plan
for your customers, no matter the time
of year (even during traditionally slow
periods) it can make a difference, such
as being $20,000 ahead this February
versus the previous year.
Executing a maintenance plan successfully
requires input from the whole
team, from the owner/store manager
down to the front-line counter staff and
the technicians.
Level of comprehension
Every customer who comes into the shop is
different. Some might have fairly extensive
automotive knowledge while others might
have none at all. It can be very intimidating
for some customers to take their car into a
repair shop if they don’t know much about
vehicles. If your counter staff are able to
explain to them at a level they can comprehend,
it can make all the difference. A
good example is changing a cabin filter. You
could say, “I need to remove the accelerator
and pull out the cabin filter and it will take
an hour to do the work.” But doing so could
still leave the customer wondering why it
needs to be done. If, alternatively, you were
to say that “your cabin air filter performs
a similar function to the furnace filter in
your house and needs to be changed every
40,000 km so it works to keep dirt and
other foreign objects from entering your
car,” it can completely change the situation.
Maintenance plans can represent a win-win for everyone.
At the end of the day, your staff need
to have the right tools to do their job
properly, whether it’s a wrench or impact
gun or strategies for talking to
your customers. If there is some sort of
procedure you have in place and your
staff are able to articulate that vision
at the front counter, you can plant the
seed within your customers and show
them what their vehicles need and why.
Better efficiency
You can then provide a plan for when they
need to schedule maintenance, how much
it will cost and why. The result allows the
customer to budget for the repairs, and
it allows your technicians to work more
efficiently because they know ahead of
time exactly what the vehicle needs and
when to expect it in the bay. There’s less
pressure on them and less pressure on
the customer. It’s a major reason why we
perform inspections every time a vehicle
enters our facility.
ROB INGRAM
Rob Ingram is the owner/operator of Eldon
Ingram Ltd. NAPA Auto Pro in Stratford, Ont.
You can reach him at autoingram@gmail.com.
36 | CarCare Business | Autosphere.ca