4 minute read
Bunch: Focus on What You Can
Bunch: Focus on Controlling What You Can
I just got back from Vision 2022 and Worldpac STX 2022, the two largest industry training events. It was great catching up with old friends and mee ng new people. On the last night in Orlando, they sec oned off part of Universal Studios for all the STX a endees. It reminded me that we are on a WILD ride in the auto repair industry right now!
As a kid, I loved the thrill of adventure and the excitement of doing dangerous ac vi es with unknown outcomes. Rollercoasters and anything else that went fast and subjected my body to Gforces thrilled me! But as I walked through the park with a fellow friend and long- me shop owner, we saw the massive Incredible Hulk Roller Coaster overhead in all its glory. I looked at the roller coaster and said to my friend, “No more; that stage of my life is over!” I’ll s ll enjoy my Polaris RZR and Porsche 911 this summer, but I’ll be driving them!
Warning! Wild Ride Ahead, only the brave should proceed!
We agreed that the industry has been on a rollercoaster ride since early 2020. The ride will con nue as we see major events happening in the world, i.e., COVID-19, the Ukraine war, energy prices, infl a on, and, of course, the chip shortage that manufacturers are facing right now. We realized that, as long as we’re in business, we’ll con nue to experience roller coaster ups and downs and that we can s ll enjoy the thrill of the ride.
We can’t control how wild the ride gets, so, to some degree, we have to just strap in and hope we don’t get tossed off in a corner or as we go upside down on the roller coaster of business. As I talked to many shop owners at both events, the ques on I was asked over and over in my classes was, “How do we prepare for the future?”
We all need to ask ourselves, “What can we control and focus on in our businesses now and in the future?” I teach CEOs that it’s our job to understand the future of our business and what trends will aff ect it in the short and long term. I also teach that our sights need to be on the aspects that we can control. Continued on Page 69
Continued from Page 68 It’s great when we can look at the data for short-term and long-term trends in our business and our industry, but is there a way to know what is going on month by month? Yes! There is an area that I’ll challenge shop owners to look at that could have a drama c eff ect on their current business and help smooth out the rollercoaster-like days or weeks of being overbooked to having empty bays; something that is in our control!
We listened to 50 inbound calls a month coming into our shops and shared that feedback with our team so they could make the necessary adjustments and correc ons on how our service advisors are doing on the telephone.
A cri cal data point we accidentally discovered.
In January, we discovered that people calling in were primarily concerned about how quickly they could get their vehicle in for service. We heard that they were calling us because the local dealers were booked out for a month! The number of people asking for a price was at a minimum. However, as we moved into February, we learned that the number of people calling in and asking for prices quadrupled! Because there had been such a boom in business, we found that service advisors were not as empathe c as they should have been with our clients who couldn’t schedule immediately or who asked for a price before a needed service or repair. We also saw a temporary drop in their phone call-to-scheduled appointment ra os.
I believe one of the best ways to level out the roller coaster ride in your business is to make sure your staff is doing a fantas c job providing excellent customer service on the phone and in person, no ma er how busy or slow your shop is. We will all need to con nue to invest in tools and equipment to do the job of fi xing vehicles correctly, but don’t neglect the most cri cal tool in your shop … the telephone, and the team members who answer it!
We went through this monitoring, scoring, and coaching process with my stores to evaluate how we are performing, and what large and small trends we could uncover when it comes to the phone conversa ons happening every day. We are learning a lot through this process! It’s me-consuming, but if you want to know what’s happening at your shop’s fi rst point of contact, there is no be er tool than listening to your calls.
We have a great future ahead of us in the automo ve repair industry. Let’s band together and commit to being the best we can be for ourselves, our businesses, our team members, our customers, and our industry.
Greg Bunch is the founder/CEO of Aspen Auto Clinic, a six-shop opera on in Colorado, and the founder/CEO of Transformers Ins tute, a training, coaching, and consul ng company for the auto repair industry.
