Are you a gearhead with an entrepreneurial spirit? If so, you might be thinking about opening an automotive repair shop. With millions of motorists on the road, it’s guaranteed to succeed. Right?
While natural mechanic ability and learned business savvy will get you far, it won’t be enough to ensure an independent repair shop is successful. You’ve got established competition in the form of dealership service departments, corporate chains, and fellow mom-and-pop shops. In order to turn a profit and stay in business, you’ll need to draw customers away from your competitors, convince others to give you a try, and give them reasons to keep coming back.
Fortunately, we have you covered. The following are seven essentials for running a successful automotive repair shop:
Customer convenience
Automotive breakdowns can happen anytime, anywhere. They’re also a major source of stress and inconvenience. The last thing your customers need is a hard time booking an appointment. To streamline the process while also providing great convenience to your customers, consider using 24/7 answering services, online appointment portals, and other ways to ensure folks can easily set up a time to bring their vehicle in for repairs. That way, you don’t have to worry about missing out on potential business or bend over backward to provide convenience to your customers.
Prime location
While it’s easier said than done, finding the ideal location for your repair shop will prove essential for its success. A repair shop out in the middle of nowhere is unlikely to get much business, no matter how affordable or reliable. Start by looking for available lots at busy intersections and work your way outward. Stick to dense population centers, but avoid bad parts of town. Sooner or later, you’ll find the perfect location. You might even find an existing structure with everything you need; a building meant to be a repair shop is difficult to repurpose, so they often sit around vacant until another repair enterprise comes along.
Skilled mechanics
This goes without saying but needs to be said anyways. You need a team of skilled mechanics to perform the maintenance and repairs for your customers. Assess their credibility and skill level with a thorough background check and interview process. Monitor their work for the first week to ensure they aren’t cutting corners or making sloppy mistakes. There’s too much at stake to hire sub-par mechanics.
Comfortable waiting area
While many customers prefer to drop their vehicles off and pick them up later, others will stick around until the work is finished. Since the general pattern suggests half of your customers will wait, you’ll want to provide a clean and comfortable waiting area. Seating, magazines, television, and Wi-Fi are absolutely essential. Having a vending machine and coffee maker doesn’t hurt, either.
Fair pricing
The biggest complaint among auto repair customers is that the costs for maintenance and repair are too high. Outrageous price quotes are a sure way to lose customers fast. Resist the urge to match the price point established by your competitors. While you can only go so low and stay profitable, do your best to offer lower prices. Their customers will come running. And when they realize your shop does as good a job or better, they’ll keep coming back.
Friendly front desk
While outsourced customer service is an affordable way to secure business after hours, your customers will still need to interact with someone when they drop their vehicle off and pick it up. Make sure this individual is friendly and helpful. Not only will this make customers feel welcome, but it will also help smooth over the sticker shock of finding out how much the repair is going to cost.
Efficient operations
Profitability and productivity go hand in hand. An oil change should take less than 30 minutes. New tires should be installed within an hour. Major repairs – like replacing the transmission – will take longer, but there should be a general understanding among your team regarding the expected turnaround time for certain assignments. The faster you can get vehicles fixed, the more customers you can process in a single day and the more money you can make.
If you’re thinking about opening an automotive repair shop, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Luckily, making it work is possible. Julie Steinbeck is a freelance writer from Florida. She enjoys covering topics related to business, finance, and travel.