Summer is a busy time in the auto repair industry, and 2020 was no exception.
But as the seasons change to fall and winter, we notice that fewer people are taking their vehicles in for repairs. Of course, this varies from state to state. Auto repair shops in colder climates may still see a steady flow of customers as drivers winterize their vehicles.
In most places, a slow down in business is to be expected.
While there may be fewer walk-ins, there are several ways shop owners and service writers can stimulate business and maintain a healthy sales funnel.
Looking at Your Sales Funnel
Your sales funnel can tell you a lot about the flow of your business.
Before ramping up marketing and lead gen tactics (strategies to get new business into the sales funnel), it’s important to look at what’s already in the funnel.
If you already have work in the shop or customers to follow up with, those jobs are going to be the easiest to target and move through the sales process because they’re already halfway there.
Also, by focusing on the bottom of the funnel first, you can identify any hold-ups and make room for new work to come in the door, leading to a more efficient workflow and overall sales process.
Work in the Shop Waiting to Be Completed
Before going out of your way to bring new business in the door, look at the current jobs already in the shop.
Are there any holdups? If so, be sure to take care of those so that you can get those vehicles repaired and out the door, and then collect payment on that work.
If there's a bottleneck at the bottom of your funnel, you probably want to address that before bringing a bunch of new work through the door.
Tek-Tip: Use Realtime RO Reporting on the Shop Dashboard
By looking at the “job board view” of Tekmetric’s shop dashboard, shop owners and service writers can see a snapshot of what’s going on in the shop at any given moment.
You can look at the number of dollars you’re sitting on in the “work not started” status.
If an RO has been approved but the work hasn’t been started and you’re not sure why this is a good opportunity to talk to your technicians to see what the holdup is.
If it seems like there are many jobs that are delayed, it might be time to consider hiring more help, provide coaching, or create a more efficient process.
Customers with estimates waiting to be approved
After taking care of work that’s already in the shop, the next easiest target for more work is going to be anyone who you’ve already sent an estimate to that hasn’t approved the work.
Chances are, these guests are shopping around for the best estimate. But in some cases, customers get sidetracked and may have simply forgotten to follow up.
Giving these folks a courtesy call to say, "I just wanted to follow up to personally answer any questions that you may have about the work that we're recommending" is a great way to earn their business because it shows that you care about fixing their problem and that you didn’t forget about them.
Even if your shop isn’t the cheapest by a long shot, customers who are shopping around are likely to see the value in going with the shop that is attentive enough to give them a call back to check-in.
Tek-Tip: Use the Tekmetric Job Board to See the Status of Estimates
Tekmetric’s job board uses icons to show service advisors the status of an estimate.
The paper airplane means that an estimate was sent to a guest, but it hasn’t been opened.
Once the customer opens the estimate, the icon will change into an eyeball. Near the icon, it will also tell you how long ago it has been since the estimate was sent or viewed. Service advisors and shop owners can use this information to start a conversation with their customers.
Tekmetric also has two different views of the job board: column view and list view.
In list view, you can prioritize the order of those estimates to put the people who have viewed it at the top, the people who received it next, and then everyone else who you haven't quite finished up with at the bottom.
So now you have a priority of who you can start calling.
Declined Jobs & ROs Saved for Later
Further up the sales funnel are your declined jobs and ROs saved for later. It’s important to remember that many vehicle owners wait until right before a critical event to get their vehicles repaired.
For instance, if someone brings their truck into the shop to fix their suspension and you notice that their brake pads should be replaced soon, the customer may wait a few weeks or months until they feel like their brakes are just about to scrape the metal.
Depending on the condition of the brakes, a service advisor might put it on the estimate (and in this scenario, the truck owner declines the job to focus on their suspension) or, if it seems like the brakes do in fact have a few months of mileage left, they may save it as an RO for later.
Declined jobs and ROs saved for later are great ways to reconnect with a guest.
A simple courtesy call to check in with an existing customer who may need work soon is an excellent way to remind them that their vehicle needs maintenance before a critical event occurs, and it's also an opportunity to bring more work in the door.
Tek-Tip: Use Tekmetric’s Declined Job Report and Customer History
Tekmetric’s declined job report consolidates all of your shop’s declined jobs in one easy to view list.
During slow months, your service advisors can open the declined jobs report and go down the list, using notes to determine why the customer declined the job and whether or not they might be interested in revisiting the work soon.
To take this one step further, the service advisor can also look at the customer’s history to determine if there are any hold-ups to getting certain repair work.
For instance, if the customer history shows that they come into the shop frequently but tend to spend small amounts at a time, you can make them an offer or throw in a free oil change to sweeten the deal.
Generate New Customers with Marketing
Once you’ve worked your way up the sales funnel to complete any jobs in the queue and catch existing customers who either haven’t responded to your estimate or need work soon, you can start focusing on catching the attention of new customers.
When it comes to generating new business, the initial questions to ask yourself are, “Where are my target customers?” and “Where is my existing business coming from?”
By keeping track of your marketing sources—referrals, promotions, mailers, social media channels, etc.—you can get a better sense of the best place to put your efforts.
Every time a new customer comes in, it’s good practice to ask them, “How did you hear about us?” If it’s an existing customer, you can also ask, “What brings you in today?”
They may just tell you that they need work done, but sometimes they’ll answer with a certain promotion or advertisement, which can help you gauge the effectiveness of certain efforts.
If it seems like a certain tactic works better than others, that may be the first marketing effort to invest more money in when times are slow.
Tek-Tip: Use Tekmetric’s Marketing Source Report to Gauge the Effectiveness of Your Marketing
Tekmetric’s RO Marketing Source report gives shop owners a clear view of how successful each marketing effort is in terms of total sales, new sales, repeat sales, GP dollars, GP percent, and close ratio.
These metrics not only show you where your audience spends the most time but also shows you which segment of your audience is bringing in the most profit.
For instance, you may notice that Facebook brings in a lot of ROs, but you have the highest close ratio with people who read Yelp reviews.
If that’s the case, you may want to solicit more positive Yelp reviews from customers.
Accelerating Your Shop’s Business Takes a Comprehensive Approach
It’s important to consider your entire sales funnel when trying to boost the amount of work and dollars coming through your shop.
While marketing is a great way to get your name out there and bring new vehicles and faces into your shop, it’s just as important to nurture the relationships that you already have.
If it seems like there’s an existing customer that you can help with service, it’s a good idea to reach out and check in on them.
As always, keeping track of your job history, customer preferences, declined jobs, work in progress, and how your customers hear about your business is going to make it a lot easier to make calls and pull the right levers.
While this may seem like a lot to keep track of, a well-organized, easy to use shop management software like Tekmetric can make collecting and reviewing this information feel like second nature.
The Tekmetric Shop Index allows auto repair shops to benchmark themselves against thousands of Tekmetric shops nationwide
Most shop owners have a feel for how their business is doing. They know the slow weeks, the strong months, and whether the bays stayed full. What they often don't have is a good way to compare those numbers against anyone else.
That gap is where opportunity hides — and it's exactly what the Tekmetric Shop Index is built to close.
The Tekmetric Shop Index is a free benchmarking tool that lets you enter your shop's key metrics and instantly see how you stack up against more than 10,000 auto repair shops nationwide. No Tekmetric account is required. No commitments either. It's just an honest look at where your shop stands on the four numbers that matter most.
Top-performing shops track these metrics religiously — and they know exactly where they stand relative to the industry. Here's what each one means, why it matters, and how your numbers compare.
ARO is the average dollar amount of each repair order — total revenue divided by the number of cars you serviced. It's one of the most direct measures of how well your shop is selling and completing work.
A low ARO isn't always a bad sign on its own. But if your car count is healthy and your ARO is lagging, you could be leaving approved work on the table, underquoting, or missing opportunities to present needed repairs. A high ARO, on the other hand, means customers are approving more of the work their vehicles need.
ARO is also the metric most directly tied to your digital vehicle inspection process. Shops that complete digital vehicle inspections (DVIs) consistently — and share them with customers — tend to see higher approval rates and stronger AROs.
"I like the ease and the ability to be more transparent with my customers with detailed inspections and photos." — Verified Tekmetric User, G2
Car count measures how many vehicles you service in a given period. It's the volume side of the revenue equation. ARO tells you how much you make per car; car count tells you how many cars you're making it on.
Both numbers matter. You can have a strong ARO and still struggle to grow revenue if car count is stagnant. And you can have a strong car count but a weak ARO if jobs aren't being sold thoroughly. Top shops keep an eye on both.
Car count breaks down further into new customers and returning customers — a distinction that matters when you're trying to understand whether your growth is coming from acquisition or retention.
"Customers can review inspection results, check estimates, and approve repairs with just a click. Everything is integrated, making our workflow way smoother than before." — Verified Tekmetric User, G2
Parts margin is the percentage of profit you're earning on the parts you sell. It's calculated as (retail price minus cost) divided by retail price.
This one is easy to overlook, especially if your shop has been using the same parts pricing for years. But small differences in parts margin have a compounding effect across hundreds of repair orders. If your parts pricing isn't keeping up with cost increases from your suppliers, your margin erodes quietly.
Top shops use tiered parts matrices that automatically adjust markup based on part cost ranges, protecting margin without requiring manual pricing decisions on every job.
"We were stuck at a certain level. … Once we made the switch, it just opened doors — payments, parts ordering, inventory — it all became more streamlined." — Tim Lanier, Lanier Auto Group, Tekmetric Customer
Effective labor rate is the actual dollar amount your shop earns per labor hour — not your posted rate, but what you actually collect after discounts, flat-rate work, and packaged pricing.
A shop might post a $140/hour labor rate but collect significantly less per hour because of how jobs are built, discounted, or packaged. Tracking effective labor rate surfaces that gap and gives you something concrete to address.
This metric also helps you evaluate how well your labor matrix is working or whether you need one.
"I value its cloud-based agility and the way its real-time shop management board eliminates the bottleneck at the service desk … handling parts tracking and labor margins seamlessly." — Verified Tekmetric User, G2
These four metrics are the foundation of shop performance analysis. But knowing what they are is only half of it. The other half is knowing how your numbers compare — not to a theoretical ideal, but to real shops in the real industry.
That's what the Tekmetric Shop Index is built to show you. It's a free benchmarking tool that lets you enter your shop's numbers and instantly see how you compare to shops across the country on ARO, car count, parts margin, and effective labor rate. No Tekmetric account is required.
"With the implementation of Tekmetric we have seen a dramatic increase in business and positive feedback from customers." — Verified Shop Owner using Tekmetric, G2
You can't improve what you don't measure. And you can't prioritize improvements without knowing where the gaps actually are.
Takeaways
ARO measures revenue per vehicle. Strong shops track it and act on it.
Car count captures volume. Both new and returning customers matter.
Parts margin erodes quietly if you're not tracking it against your costs.
Effective labor rate reveals the gap between your posted rate and what you actually collect.
Benchmarking against real industry data turns these numbers into a roadmap.
See how your shop compares. The Tekmetric Shop Index is free, takes less than two minutes, and doesn't require a Tekmetric account.
Similarly, your automotive service advisors might enjoy talking to people but feel worn down after a long day of helping customers and building repair orders.
We've talked before about how modern shop management systems make it easier for your team to communicate, collaborate, and get things done.
Going a step further, there's an opportunity for shop owners or general managers to help create a culture within your repair shop that not only boosts productivity and maximizes efficiency, but rewards success and contribution as well!
More than anything, partnerships should be mutually beneficial to everyone involved. When good partnerships are formed, the whole should be worth more than the sum of its parts.
Why Should Your Auto Business Partner with Other Brands?
For example, McDonald’s burgers make you thirsty enough to want a Coca-Cola, and sodas have a high margin. By partnering up, McDonald’s can lock in their costs on soda and improve their profit margins for the long term.
On the other hand, not all partnerships are beneficial. Partnerships can expand your opportunities but can also force you into making decisions you never intended to make. When McDonald’s decided to partner with Coca-Cola, they had to exclude other soda brands from their locations.
This exclusivity may have been worth it, but it meant removing options from customers, such as Dr. Pepper and Pepsi products. What may have made the partnership intriguing for McDonald’s is the fact that Coca-Cola owns a variety of beverages, including Diet Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Powerade, Minute Maid and Pibb Xtra.
Thanks to a variety of options, McDonald’s is able to satisfy most customers who ask for a Dr. Pepper by saying, “Will Pibb Xtra be okay?”
Partnerships in the Auto Repair Industry
In the auto repair industry, we face similar challenges when it comes to partnering with other businesses and brands.
Potential partnerships may include teaming up with parts suppliers, software companies, marketing and trade show affiliates, and any other service, resource or tool that could potentially improve your shop. In some cases, these partnerships will help shop owners enhance performance, save costs and drive revenue.
Other times, auto partnerships may bind you to an agreement that doesn’t pay off.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to determine whether a partnership is mutually beneficial or if they’re asking you for more than you’re getting in return.
1. Are You Free to Choose the Tools and Solutions You Want?
One sign of a bad partnership is being forced to do something you don’t want to do. If partnering with another company means taking valuable options off the table, then you may be at a disadvantage.
If your partner implies or directs you not to do business with their competitors because they would like for you to instead use their services or their partner’s services, think it through.
Before officially entering a partnership, imagine your shop one year, five years and ten years down the road. Where will it be then? What will happen if your shop grows? What if innovation has slowed down with your partner? Will you be allowed to innovate your business by using new tools and solutions that become available in the future?
If you’re restricted in a way that prevents you from innovating or adapting to market conditions by testing other products, tools, solutions, and software, you may be handcuffed and unable to compete with other shops.
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