Digital Dealer - September 2019 - 44

S A L E S & VA RIA BL E OPS: F ixe d Op s Continued from pg. 43

thing you can do for your
techs is to feed them lots of
hours.
The current efficiency
benchmark is 125%, meaning the technician produces
50 flat-rate hours during a
40-hour work week. When
that happens, everyone
is happier. And having an
occasional 55-60 FRH week
is even better!
To be absolutely clear,
the main issue with technicians is money! The good
news, my friends, is that
this is very easy to fix.
There is a simple, proven
formula to put more money
in the technician's pockets
each week: sell services!
STEP 1: Thoroughly
inspect every vehicle.
STEP 2: Review the
inspection with the vehicle
owner.
STEP 3: Ask the owner
to buy every tech-recommended service.
Okay, you've heard that
before, right? This isn't new
information, yet most A-level and B-level techs think
inspections are beneath
them. They just don't do
them. Inspections lead to
maintenance sales - and
that's where the gravy is.
Most maintenance services
are 200% efficient (the job
flags an hour and takes 30
minutes).
Efficient maintenance
services are the way your
top-tier techs can make up
for the diagnostic work that
"eats their lunch."
I have always believed
a technician should do his
own inspections. However,
maybe it is time to bend
a little bit on this issue.
44

SEPTEMBER 2019

AFTER ALL, MONEY
IS MONEY, SO WHY
NOT PURSUE THE
LOW HANGING FRUIT
OF PREVENTATIVE
MAINTENANCE?"
Maybe you could consider
having an apprentice do the
inspection for all your A and
B level techs. Or, you could
require every vehicle go to
the lube rack for inspection
before it goes to the tech
bay.
For your hourly lube techs
and D-level techs, maybe
you could pay them a $10
bonus for every maintenance need they find and
maintenance service they
perform. Or, maybe they
could get flat rate pay when
they are doing maintenance
work.
However you choose to
implement the process, one
thing is necessary: every

D I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M

car must be thoroughly
inspected, and the results
presented to the customer
in a professional manner
that leads to a sale.
Vehicle owners are buying maintenance services
and they'll buy them from
you, if you ask. To prove
the point, another survey
by DealerRater quoted in
Fixed Ops Journal in April of
2019, showed one-third of
consumers who were asked
to buy additional service
work said yes.
By the way, I did my own
survey and I found that no
vehicle owners bought additional services when they
weren't asked.

One of the dealers at a
recent dealer 20 Group,
said the landscape of
profitability is changing and
that their dealership was
becoming a retail automotive service outlet (meaning
new car sales were taking a
back seat to service sales).
This isn't surprising
considering labor gross is
north of 70% and new car
gross is less than 5%... and
for many dealer's new-car
gross is a negative number!
Most dealers and general
managers grew up on the
variable ops side of the
business; so, I am always
encouraged when they get
serious about the service
department. I'm even more
excited when they start
viewing fixed ops personnel
as their service sales staff.
After all, money is money,
so why not pursue the low
hanging fruit of preventative
maintenance? The survey
said three out of 10 will buy
if you ask; and with a little
bit of service sales training,
you'll get that to five out of
10 in no time at all.
Happy sales to you!
My personal thanks to
David Kushma for allowing
me to quote statistics from
several of his articles over
the past couple of years.
CHARLIE POLSTON is an
Automotive Customer Retention
and Proﬁtability Consultant
with BG Products, Inc. Charlie
has been with BG's Fixed
Operations Division for over
36 years. He has trained over
7,500 dealers, managers, and
technicians - and has been a
frequent workshop leader at
NADA's annual convention.
http://www.DIGITALDEALER.COM
Digital Dealer - September 2019

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