If I had only 60 Days to TURN AROUND a Service & Parts Dept – and drive MORE Retail Labour and Parts Sales, here’s what I’d do:
1. I’d launch or re-launch your BG or Wynn’s supplemental service interval products/services. They can set everything up, and do all the leg work & training if you can’t. Step 2’s dollars per avg appointment below will tell you if you need a re-launch or not. Key Point – the ELR and Parts Gross on these services can be your ELR (ie. $150/hr) and retail parts gross percent, or just short of it. Don’t think you need to set it up at $110/hr on labour, and 30% parts gross.
2. When the BG/Wynn’s trainers are there training Advisors, also train ALL your Appointment Co-Ordinators/Service BDC reps too. They need to sell too. They can easily sell $100/average retail appointment booked. Easily, your Appt Co-Ordinators can pre-sell $10,000 of Parts/Labour for every 100 Retail Appts booked. Get them to report it daily manually (yes – holds them accountable), and work with them to get there. Report on the service sold, the customer’s name, and how much the service was that was pre-sold and booked. Start low, at say $50/avg per appointment, and stair-step your way to $150/avg appt. You can go higher, but start at a lower $$/appt.
3. Appt Co-Ordinators/Service BDC doing outbound calling/touches. 150 customer touches per day per Rep. This measurement includes inbound/outbound, and of all channels (calls/email/text), but not just heavy on one channel (ie. Email). Get them to report that daily via the same email daily as mentioned in Step 2. If you’re not measuring this, and their contacts/day are not measured, the average Appt Co-Ordinators is likely doing around 60-80 touches (or tasks as I’d call them), per day. 150 is an average, and a normalized target. They can do more per day, but then they skip process, and only focus on text or email as a communication channel. So, stair-step this goal too, if they are not close to 150/day per Rep.
4. Remove DMS discounting from 100% of the Fixed Ops staff, except the ones who are the managers in the monthly DP/GM meetings. Any discounting is done by only them. You’ll find everywhere you think there isn’t discounting – there is of some sort – and there are exceptions everywhere that are leaking dollars. This kills gross, and ELR. If there isn’t any discounting, then shutting down the discounting function won’t be a problem.
5. As a FOM, GM, or DP (store size dependent) I would have Daily 1:1 meetings for 15 mins a day, with my Service Manager & Parts Manager reviewing yesterday’s goals, what was hit, what was discounted and why, and what they plan for the current day. This will keep the organization’s focus and goals aligned. They should have the same 1:1 meeting daily for a max 15 mins a day with the key people that are driving these same goals forward. Those 1:1 need to focus on the items above and keep on track.
6. Review a daily report of all parts and labour sales & gross. Ideally, it’s in Excel, and you can filter it easily and quickly. Look at anything that is less than your target ELR, and Grosses (both parts and labour side). You’re not looking for reasons to justify why a particular item is low. You’re looking to take that information, and remove the reason it made the list in the first place; key point.
7. Run all the Op Codes in the DMS. Personally, I’d kill every Op Code that isn’t used or where there is overlap. In particular though, ensure ELR, tech hours, and parts and labour gross are what you want them to be. Use NADA/NCM/20 Group guidelines as the goal post. Then have your DMS lock down the ability to change anything within the Op Code.
8. Do a competitive study on all your common Op Codes. It’s ok to be a bit higher than your aftermarket competitor. Moving the ELR needle by just a few dollars is hugely impactful across all the retail work orders you do in a month. A $5.00 increase in your ELR is massive at the end of the month, across all the retail hours you sell. Be sure not to minimize the effects you think even $5.00 will do for you on even one Op Code.
9. You have thousands and thousands of customers that have been lost. From 9 months ago to even 10 years ago Contact them all. Set up a recurring schedule, with an offer to get them back in the door. Everything you do is for not, if you don’t have a customer’s vehicle sitting in your service lane. There are regulations on contacting customers over 18 months and even 24 months – but you can still contact customers over 24 months old – even those that are 10 years old. But follow the laws.
10. Labour Matrix/Parts Matrix: I’d ensure not discounting – ensure these are implemented and being followed. I can almost bet you can dial it up a few points, without any push back. The key is that it’s implemented.
11. BONUS – pull your outstanding recalls, and run through the list and touch those customers every 3 weeks until they book an appt, or until they tell you it’s sold, written off, they moved, etc. But then make that note in the CRM and the OEM website so you don’t keep calling them. This is low-hanging fruit with HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of customers that need recalls completed.
12. BONUS 2: Make sure the Service Manager and Advisors don’t have Parts discounting functionality. Likewise for Parts dept with service.
13. BONUS 3: If discounting needs to happen because of an X situation. Only have the dept where the error occurred do 100% of the discounting for the customer. Don’t let both parts and labour participate in the discounting. It’s harder to keep people accountable, and track where the bleeding is originating from.
Everyone focuses on cost-cutting. Shrinking your way to growth doesn’t sound fun to me. There is so much business already coming in the door, and so many customers you’ve lost that are easier to convert than the general public. In just the items above you can find tons of (easy) money and a ton more customers. Growing is fun – cost cutting, new pay plans, and shrinking = no fun. Humm – I almost wrote a 2025 Fixed Ops Page 1 Plan Summary here in 10 bullet points. Almost.
Now – Get After It!
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