Whether your shop specializes in tires or auto repair, one of the most important metrics you’ll need to keep on track is technician efficiency. It isn’t hard to see why that’s true for auto shops, either: the more efficient your business is, the more customers you can serve.
Keep reading for a rundown of techniques that can help supercharge your technician efficiency and turn bays faster than ever.
Decrease Non-Billable Hours
In any business, productivity–or the lack thereof–starts at the top. That is to say, each task you give your employees will have a positive or negative impact on their efficiency. Making sure to match each job with the right person is crucial–and for technicians, that means avoiding non-billable activities.
If one of your technicians is helping you unload a shipment of parts or providing assistance to customers while they shop, they’re not working on tasks you can bill to clients. At the same time, you’re still spending money for this time in the form of their wages. Even a few minutes of non-billable time can add up, so avoid asking technicians to help you with these tasks whenever possible.
Streamline Your Parts Department
To get their jobs done effectively, technicians need access to a wide range of parts. No matter how efficient your technicians are once they’re able to get started, having to look for the parts they need can seriously slow them down. At worst, it may force them to reschedule a job. That means your parts department can have a direct impact on your customer satisfaction levels.
Fortunately, minor improvements to your parts department can go a long way towards helping technicians get their jobs done quickly. One of the best ways to enhance your shop’s parts department is using a computerized system with inventory management and tracking capabilities. Today’s tracking systems can even help you track part cores, making it easier than ever to get refunds for these used parts and create a new revenue stream.
Provide Updated Equipment
Parts aren’t the only thing your technicians rely on to do their jobs. In most cases, they’ll also have to have access to certain types of specialized equipment. Whether your shop’s technicians use computer systems, heavy lifting equipment, or diagnostic devices in their daily routine, it’s essential to provide them with what they need.
However, equipment for technicians isn’t a one-and-done expense. By spending the time and money necessary to keep this equipment up to date, you’ll save yourself countless headaches in the future.
To ensure your equipment is maintained and efficient, set up reliable inventory tracking and reporting processes. That way, if a technician is at risk of running out of essential supplies or if their equipment is running into problems, they’ll be able to get these issues resolved ASAP.
Incentivize Your Techs
Even if you have a highly professional staff of technicians, everyone works harder with a bit of extra motivation. After you’ve eliminated the workflow issues described above, it’s a good idea to create incentives for your technicians to go above and beyond.
Consider creating rewards if they hit a certain number of cars in a day. Your shop’s incentives could be as small as a cup of coffee, as big as some extra vacation time, or anywhere in between. You could also consider making it a collective effort–if the entire team reaches a certain number they each get half a day of PTO.
The key is choosing rewards your technicians will consider valuable enough that they’ll be willing to work harder to earn them.
Leverage Technology
Each efficiency tip has one thing in common–they take time to implement. If you’re already overwhelmed by the stress that comes with running an auto shop it may feel like you have no time to make these improvements, even if they’ll eventually have a positive impact on your bottom line.
The good news is that expert technicians created software as a solution. With BayIQ you can automate all sorts of time-consuming tasks related to your shop’s marketing efforts. From the creation and management of a loyalty program to email and text marketing to online reviews, BayIQ enables you to streamline your efforts all while tracking purchases and showing you how to increase your shop’s car count.
With the conveniences that come with automation, you’ll have more than enough time to improve your auto or tire shop’s technician efficiency and increase car count.
