Auto Repair Shop Owner's Daily Dose 40: Tracking Numbers

Tracking Numbers by Rick White, President 180BIZ

Today’s Daily Dose is your business tip. I’ll talk to you about tracking numbers. There are numbers you should be tracking all the time and probably aren’t tracking.  These numbers will help you determine how well you and your team are at selling the work.

Call Effectiveness.  If your conversion rate is low, you might need to do a better job at connecting with your customers.

Incoming Call Conversion Rate. Tracking this number will help you to see how effective your team is at converting an inquiry into an appointment. Now has never been a more important time to understand these numbers and know what they are

-  Count the number of incoming calls

-  Track the number of appointments you made with those incoming calls

-  Divide the number of appointments by the number of incoming calls to see the percentage.

-  The Conversion Rate benchmark is 50% or higher.

Outgoing Call Conversion Rate. Some shop owners tell me that they aren’t getting any phone calls at all. Now what?  The phone works both ways.  You can make outgoing calls to your customers. If you are making outgoing calls, you should track the number of calls made to the number of appointments made.

-  Count the number of outgoing calls

-  Track the number of appointments you made with those calls

-  Divide the number of appointments by the number of outgoing calls to see the percentage.

-  The Conversion Rate benchmark is 30% or higher.

Number of No-Shows.  That's important because you might need to do a better job at making sure your customer feels safe and taken care of and that you have their best interest in mind. Now the other thing that can cause no-shows is if you're kind of barreling into the phone call and the person on the other end feels like it's just easier to say yes to you to get you off the phone.  But they have no intention of coming in.  They feel like strong-arming them.  Instead, step back and really evaluate how you're doing with these calls.

Number of Recommendations. When the car comes in, measure the number of recommendations your tech makes. This will help you find that sweet spot and will give you an idea of how your techs are doing.

Close Rate. Next, track your close rate when you're making recommendations. If you have an estimate and you've made a presentation on those recommendations, you should be able to track how well you're doing.  In other words, if I have an estimate for $1,000 and the customer buys $200 then you have a 20% close rate. This is a great indicator of how well you sell the job. Your benchmark is 80%.
It's the advisor’s job to create trust or build an environment where trust can foster and grow.  The advisor should also create need and urgency.  That doesn't mean scare people. It means talk to the customer about what's going on, what they should do, and what are the ramifications if they don't so that they can be fully informed.

Follow-ups. I want you to call every customer three to four days after they've been in to thank them to make sure that they're overjoyed with the way they were treated and ecstatic with the quality of the repair. You just want to make sure that they are 100% glad that they were in.

Now we got into some numbers today because I think this is important. I think it's time for you to stop thinking survival and start thinking growth.  Start thriving and yes, you may have to do things differently. That's okay. Nothing ever stays the same. Nothing does. You must adapt and overcome. Pivot.

I hope you have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow. Have a good one. Go make some money. God bless.