Midwest Performance Cars Created a Frictionless Experience Across Multiple Locations

Managing Your Shops with Ease

For Andy and his team, shop management is all about simplifying the process so they can focus on the tasks that really matter: providing amazing service and getting cars back on the road as quickly as possible.

With instant access to all his shop's information, Andy can generate the financial reports and operational data he needs to make "course corrections on the fly. If something is trending the wrong way, we can correct that before the end of the month."

And while both Midwest Performance Cars locations are Euro-focused, the downtown Chicago location is focused more on general repairs, and the Northbrook shop in the Suburbs of Chicago is focused on performance and vintage repairs. With such a clear separation of focus, Midwest Performance Cars has created an efficient process to get customers the right service they need.

"For both of our shops, they work hand in hand and pass information back and forth," Andy said. "We have a technician at Northbrook who is our top performance engineer. If we have someone at a downtown shop that is looking for that kind of work, we can route them straight to Northbrook for specialized service. Because everyone is in full communication, the downtown shop doesn’t have to explain anything to our specialist before he starts looking at the customer's car. I really like that all our people can really see things globally, so we don't have any information silos." 

The ability to manage both shops from the same platform makes it easy for Andy to understand the financial side of things. It also makes it even easier to refer customers between shops, so they can get the right care and have continuity-of-care cross over.

Technicians at Midwest Performance Cars mostly run Tekmetric directly from their phones. Technicians can spend way more time working on the cars in their bay using their phone to access everything they need, instead of wasting precious time running between their static workstations and the bay. Plus, technicians can use the upcoming appointment calendar to plan out their workflow for each day.

And for his "people in the front office, it’s really more about saving them time," Andy said. "They don't have to go through multiple screens and clicks to go back and get data – it’s all right at their fingertips. They’ve even customized things in Tekmetric to set them up the way they want to work, like color coding what's most important to them."

Growing Your Business With the Right Mindset

With the right mindset, almost anything is possible. At Midwest Performance Cars, Andy's business-first mindset not only helped rescue a shop that was down on its luck, but even positioned them for growth.

"We are business owners. Don’t think of yourself as a shop owner; think of yourself as a business owner," Andy said. "And what's important for me as an owner, especially an owner who isn't in the day-to-day workflow, is getting into the overall global management of the business."

As a business owner, Andy also knows that success isn't possible without a talented team supported by the right leadership mindset to position them for their own growth. In fact, Andy mentioned that Tekmetric has made running his shop so efficient, that his new 24-year-old General Manager entered the business as a Service Manager with zero automotive industry experience, and has grown to managing their current two locations.

"We hire first for attitude, second for aptitude, and third for skills, because we can train skills," Andy said. "Having a really user-friendly interface like Tekmetric makes bringing someone from outside to inside the industry that much easier."

This unique mindset of running not just a shop, but an overall business, has enabled Midwest Performance Cars to adapt to a modern approach, offer an amazing frictionless customer experience, and eventually open up an entirely new location.