Fixed Ops Journal - August 2016 - (Page 4)

FIXED OPS JOURNAL LONG-TERM THINKING ■ Hitting numbers, or giving customers reasons to return? F or years, I went to the local Jiffy Lube for oil changes. When the shop changed hands under a lesser-known brand, I was greeted by the new owner. He told me that he was an expert in automotive glass. After a courtesy inspection of my car, he came back with bad news. Those microscopic chips in my windshield (I had never noticed them) were a sure sign of future trouble. Let me DAVE fix them for a bargain price of $25, he said, and you'll be spared a big bill down dversical@crain.com the road when those little defects turn Editor into dangerous, long cracks. Fixed Ops Journal I said no, thanks. I bring this up in light of a lament I heard from a veteran fixed ops director a few months ago. He said there's a lot of (corporate) pressure out there to hit numbers. And customers are helping to reach those targets by paying for unnecessary repairs. "It's just nice to sell people what they need from time to time," he said. Dave Wright would echo that. He's the fixed ops director at Shaheen Chevrolet, a few miles south of Michigan's Capitol in Lansing. He has spent nearly two decades at Shaheen, with more than 10 years in Florida with some AutoNation stores sandwiched in between. He jokes about his PHD ("papa had dealership") pedigree. Now, at VERSICAL Shaheen Chevrolet's new, $2.2 million quick-service center aims to bring customers back for bigger repairs, repeat vehicle sales. SAM TROTTER PAGE 4 AUGUST 2016 59, his thesis on pleasing customers, shaped by a lifetime in and around dealerships, is being put to its biggest test. It's in the form of a new, $2.2 million, eight-bay fast lube and tire center across the parking lot from Shaheen's traditional service department, the one that used to struggle to do an oil change in less than two hours. Two million dollars is a lot of money for an operation that isn't seen as a moneymaker. But as you'll see on Page 36 of this issue, it's all about giving people a reason to come in, and to come back. To borrow Wright's phrase, you farm for customers by planting seeds for future visits. You don't count the size of their bill as a hunting trophy. "We want to tell you good news three times before we give you bad news," he told me last month during a tour of his facility (see Pages 40-44). "We don't want them to feel like we're selling them something every time." Put another way: Fixed ops, like any other retail business, is a three-legged stool. Those legs are customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and profitability. If one of them comes up short, well, the whole enterprise can topple. That thinking is central to a philosophy that runs through Wright and his team all the way to owner Ralph Shaheen. If customers come to you for little stuff, they'll come to you for big repairs. The more they rely on you to take care of their current car, the more likely they'll be to buy their next car from you, too. The bar at my old oil-change shop, I'm sure, is much lower. A visit every 3,000 miles should have been enough to keep them happy. But I've never gone back. And my windshield is still intact. ■

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Fixed Ops Journal - August 2016

Fixed Ops Journal - August 2016
Contents
Editor’s Letter
Service Counter
Legal Lane
Treading confidently
'Tis the season
Profit Builder
Valet service
Richard Truett
OEConnection
Changing oil:
Photo story
Trade-off
Toyota way
Feedback
Lone star
Airbag recall
Forging links
Top 50
5 Minutes With
Shop Talk
Fixed in Time

Fixed Ops Journal - August 2016