Customer Stories

Aaron became an official part of the S&S team in 2006. He started handling the shop’s IT systems, and over the years, he slowly moved into management. By 2018, when Aaron’s father decided to retire (for real this time), Aaron was running much of the day-to-day operations while his dad was on the floor with his technicians just like the old days.

Since officially taking over, Aaron has worked to modernize S&S by going completely paperless. He evolved the shop’s management culture to help his employees better themselves. It’s this mentality that has helped Aaron and S&S Auto Repair grow in 2020, despite the challenges that his community has faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. In June of 2020, S&S Auto Repair opened its second location in nearby Hixson, TN.

We recently sat down with Aaron to discuss how his shop was able to grow during COVID-19, how he tries to make a difference in his employee’s lives, and why he thinks that a positive message will get you further in your community than any other. Here’s what he had to say:

Tightening Our Belts to Push Through

When we were in the heat of COVID and everything but the essential businesses were shutting down, we saw a little bit of a dip. But ever since June, we’ve seen the same growth patterns that we’d seen before the pandemic.

Even though we qualified, I decided not to take any of the money that Congress offered through the PPP and SBA. I felt like we were in a good position to be able to weather the storm and take the risk of what might happen. I wanted to move forward and push through. We buckled down and tightened our belt. We found ways to cut our expenses and trimmed the fat quite a bit. Since we had already gone paperless in February after switching to Tekmetric, it was easy for us to transition to a safe, touchless auto repair service. Thankfully, we made it through that whole time fairly easily and came out on the other side with a big gust of new customers.

Focusing on a Positive Message to Uplift the Community

I watched how my friends and mentors handled their messaging after COVID, and I decided to do none of that. I pretty much abandoned the normal automotive messaging. For me, it was all about “How can we help you?” I wanted messages that centered on being there to help our customers when they needed us. I posted on social media about community togetherness, perseverance, and pressing forward. Several of them were just one-word posts. One was “Forward,” another was “Perseverance,” things like that. They took off like crazy. People were sharing them over and over again because the message was positive. Instead of the fear that you saw in other places, it was “We can get through this together.” And I think people responded better to that than to the fearmongering.

I wanted messages that centered on being there to help our customers when they needed us.

On top of COVID, we also had a tornado come through this area. It was an EF3 tornado, and it basically leveled our entire area. Even my high school got crushed. We were already slow from COVID when that happened, so I let my employees off to help the community. Some of them went out with chainsaws and cut down trees. We invited the community college athletic program to come over and make sandwiches to distribute to those in need.

During that time, we kind of became more like a concierge service. We had elderly people who called us asking to get milk for them. One lady called us because her house was flooding and she wanted us to pray with her. We decided to go a step further and call our customers to check on them. We didn’t want to sell them anything, we just wanted to make sure they were okay. I had my whole service staff pick up a list and start calling to check on people.

Honestly, I think that’s the way we should be as auto shop owners. We need to be leaders in our community. As business owners, we interact so much with our fellow citizens. We need to put that positive message out there. If we believe in that positive movement and push that through to our communities, our customers will take it and run with it.

As a result, we’ve had a wave of new customers who heard of us because they saw what we were doing for the community. When our customers come in or call to pick up their vehicles, they’re like, "I see you everywhere." Then to open up a second location on top of that, we’re bringing in new customers in a new community.

Expanding to a Second Location

Everybody told me that I was either a genius or a fool for opening up a shop during COVID. In fact, the day we found the property was the same day that we switched our shop over to Tekmetric.

We found the property in February, and by March, we had signed a letter of intent. We based our intentions on how our customers would react to COVID. Since we had a big gust of new customers due to our messaging during the pandemic, we thought it would be good to open a new location. We took over the property on May 1st and opened for business 30 days later. We decided to do it old school; instead of hiring contractors, we built out everything ourselves. I’d work at our Chattanooga shop until about 4 o’clock, then go over to the Hixson location and work until 9 PM or 10 PM every night. My father even pitched in, tirelessly working alongside me during the month of May to get the Hixson location up and running by June.

Everybody told me that I was either a genius or a fool for opening up a shop during COVID. But it’s been gangbusters.

Many people were furloughed during COVID, and I knew that there were rock stars out there who were unhappy with the way their shops were treating them. So I heavily advertised that I was hiring for the positions that were available at the new shop. We got something like 10 applications a week, from parts people to technicians to service advisors. I brought in five new people from the industry and trained them on our methods during the whole month of May, so we were able to go into June fully-stocked and ready to go with employees. Since they were getting to know our culture at our original location and learning our paperless, digital systems, there was no real transition time.

Our two shops are only eight miles apart, but a river divides the two communities. Now that we have shops on both sides, we’re able to serve both communities. Some of our customers have switched locations because they live or work in one community or the other, but we didn’t really lose any car count at the original location. Our customer base is also telling their family and friends about us, and people are coming in left and right.

Going Paperless

We were a pen-and-paper shop up until 2005 when we decided to upgrade to a shop management system. Our first program had a lot of good characteristics and was great for a small shop, but as we grew, we needed something that was more robust and user-friendly. I wanted something that was as easy to use as Facebook, that would give me the reporting that I need, and would give me the option to change information on the fly right in front of the customer at the point of sale.

I vetted Tekmetric and another cloud-based software system, but I decided to go with Tekmetric because of their owners. They were very involved in creating the next generation of shop management software. They’re pouring their time, money, and effort into creating a great system. So I decided to jump on board with Tekmetric.

When we went live with Tekmetric, I was so confident that my guys would get it that I wasn’t even in the shop that day.

When we went live with Tekmetric, I was so confident that my guys would get it that I wasn’t even in the shop that day. And I got no complaints whatsoever. They didn’t even have to call customer service. Tekmetric was probably one of the easiest onboarding processes that we have ever had.

We went completely paperless when we went live with Tekmetric in February. Going paperless is pretty much unheard of in our town. There are only a handful of people who are doing it, and they're only doing it halfway. We use Tekmetric for all of our in-house communication, so everyone can talk to each other through their tablets or computers. All of our information is passed digitally between our service, parts, and technician departments. When we duplicated our system for our second location, it was completely seamless because the digital side was already working. I said I wouldn’t buy any more paper when we switched to Tekmetric, and I haven't bought any paper since February.

How Tekmetric Helps Us Organize

Even when we were on paper, our company has always prioritized our customers’ repairs for them. We divide our information into three categories: the reason for the service, the safety of the vehicle, and maintenance for future repairs. With these three categories, we can answer all our customers’ questions and help them prioritize what needs to be done.

Our goal is to help our customers budget their repairs. If a technician brings us a digital inspection and there is a lot of stuff in red, we can go through and break them down into the three categories of safety, maintenance, and repairs. In each category, we break it down further: this needs to be done today, this can wait until your next oil change, and this one we can work on in the next six months, but you need to budget for it.

Many repair companies want to go in and get every dollar they can at every sale. I want to go in and create a relationship. I talk to my guys about this, too. We're doing relationship automotive service. We're building a relationship and rapport with the customer. We’re saying, "Hey, these things can wait. We can check on them every oil change to see if they're getting worse or staying the way they are, and perhaps we can save you money down the road.

”We want to build that relationship and that rapport where we can actually help them save money towards their repair so they can keep that car longer. We may see them two to three times a year, where other people in our industry are seeing them once, maybe twice a year. I would rather see my customers more often each year and have them spend less money with me at every visit than try to grab everything out of their wallet that I can the first time they come in.

Tekmetric makes it easy for us to categorize repairs in the order that we want them before we give it back to the customer. Then, when we present their inspection to them, it’s in the order that they need the repairs done. We can break it down cleaner and easier for the customer, and give them a honey-do list for their car. It’s very simple and a lot easier than the way we used to work when we were on paper.

The Future of S&S Auto Repair

S&S stands for Smith and Smith after my parents, Steve and Melanie Smith. My family has been in the automotive business since the 1950s. My dad has been a mechanic since 1976. He started working for my grandfather that year, who at the time had owned four car dealerships. My grandfather actually started in the automotive industry by driving cars down from Detroit to sell in our city. I was literally born into the automotive business.

Not many people know this, but I had originally taken pre-seminary classes. I finished a program and got my certificate, but then I felt like I needed to take a different approach in life. I decided that, as a business owner, I could reach more people through principle than through preaching. So I decided to focus my efforts more towards a business approach to help individuals better themselves. It starts with believing in yourself and knowing your self-worth.

We're a very goal-oriented company.

I have big goal boards with all my employees. I'm always trying to help them reach their goals. I get excited when my employees buy a house, or a car, or they save their first $10,000. I mean, a house and a car are great, but saving ten grand can be a huge deal.

There's always growth opportunities. As a business owner, if you're not growing yourself then your business is not growing. We started an apprentice program here, where we’re training up the next generation of automotive staff. They’re growing in their knowledge and their experience, so if I want to retain those individuals then I need to grow myself. I understand there's going to be bumps in the road, especially opening new shops and putting in new policies and programs and things like that, but it's that commitment to our culture and our customer that is pivotal.

I want to change not only my employees’ lives but also the lives of their children and grandchildren. I want my top technicians to make six figures. You don't usually hear shop owners talk in that way. I don't care how much money I make. I'll make enough money. I want the apprentice who just started with us to be making $40,000 in a year, then $80,000 in two years. That’s the thing that’s going to matter. If you take care of those employees, they’ll take care of you, and more importantly, they’ll take care of your customers. If they take care of the customers, the business will take care of itself. It’s a lifestyle of taking care of those around you.

For more information about S&S Auto Repair Shop, visit ssautorepair.net

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In 2001, Artie decided it was time to own his own shop, so he purchased Performance Transmission & A/C Automotive Repair in Gainesville, Florida. Later that year, Artie brought Dustin on board to help run errands, fetch parts, and take care of general shop maintenance.

Over the years, Dustin worked his way up the ranks, just like his dad did. He was promoted to technician, then service advisor, and then assistant manager. In 2011, Artie and Dustin expanded the shop, and the next year, Artie put Dustin in charge of daily operations.

In 2019, Dustin bought into the shop, becoming part owner. At the end of 2020, Dustin and his wife, Colleen, did some research and decided to switch to a new shop management system. They switched to Tekmetric in December of 2020, and it paid off. After only four months, Performance Transmission & A/C had their most profitable months in the history of the company to date.

We caught up with Dustin to learn more about his principles as a shop owner, what prompted him to switch to Tekmetric, and how the Tekmetric system of shop management has paid off for him and his team.

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The Growing Pains of an Outdated Shop Management Program

We were using the same program to manage the shop for 19 years. It was very basic—great for generating and printing invoices, but lousy on the estimate side, and not very good for customer communication.

For example, we do a lot of work for college students. The kids are here in town, and dad or mom are out of town or out of state. We’ve even talked to parents in Europe before. And the parents want a copy of the invoice. With the old program, I would have to go in, turn it into a .pdf, save it, load my email, load the parent’s email, attach it as a .pdf, and send them a copy of the invoice. It was a five minute long process, but it slowed us down.

It was also difficult to keep up any type of constant contact with the clients. We always ended up playing phone tag. We would leave a voicemail, but when the customer called us back, I'd be in the shop working on a car, so then I’d have to call them back. Back then, we didn't have the volume we have now. It was a lot easier to juggle calls when we were only working on three or four cars a day instead of twenty.

One of the things that I love about Tekmetric is the fact that in one mouse click, I can send the estimate and the invoice. I will text someone the copy of the estimate while I'm calling them to explain everything on the phone and say, "Hey, by the way, as soon as we hang up, check your text. You have a copy of the estimate I just went over on the phone with you. Feel free to review it, and let me know if you have any questions." Now we can keep up that constant contact with customers.

Getting Rid of a Bottleneck

With the program we were using before Tekmetric, we did estimates with a calculator, a pen, and paper. At the end of the day, whenever all the jobs were done, we would actually have to enter it into the computer. It was an old school way to do it.

I've got a service writer, Jude, who helps me at the front counter. We noticed that we were getting bottlenecked between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. because all we were doing for two hours straight was entering invoices. Phone calls weren't getting returned; clients came in, and we were getting interrupted; and we would miss a part here or there.

So I told my wife, Colleen, "It's time. We have got to find a better system. We've got to break this end of day bottleneck.” She actually checked all of the shop management systems on the market. I told her to weed it down to the top three or four, come present them to me, then we'll pick the top two and decide, as a team, which was going to be the best route.

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The Efficiency Aspect

We reached a point where production was almost maxed out, so we needed to improve efficiency. During the summertime, we can only bring four cars into the shop at one time. So I always ask myself how we could save time?

“What can we do to cut five minutes on this job without actually cutting corners on turning the wrenches?”

Our guys are on hourly pay schedules, and they get overtime every week. So we try to build that team atmosphere. We don't look for our guys to cut corners on their work, but we want to improve efficiency. So that was another big driver in finding a shop management system—if I could trim two minutes per job that I write, at the end of the day with twenty or twenty-five estimates, that's almost an hour a day that I can save. So the efficiency aspect was one of the big drivers for us finding a new shop management system. Just like breaking that end of day bottleneck on actually generating the invoices, I wanted to trim a little bit of time.

“What You’re Looking for is Right There”

We went live with Tekmetric in the second week of December. I would say by the first week of January, we were really catching our stride. And then February, we just took off.

“We felt like we had known Tekmetric forever.”

Tekmetric is a very intuitive program. I liken it to smart phones: If you need to do something on a smartphone and you can't figure it out, you're probably overthinking what you're doing. I think Tekmetric is the same way. I love the three little dots when you're doing a return. You just click on the three little dots, and usually what you're looking for is right there.

It took a little bit of time to say, "Okay. On this date, we are fully switching over to Tekmetric appointments." So it was a little slow to jump on the appointment side of it. We now only make appointments in Tekmetric. And I don't even really have a reason for why we didn't make that switch right away. I guess in my mind, it was like, "Okay. Let's not change too many things at one time. Let's get our toes wet. Let's figure out how to use the program. Then we'll get up to our waist and start using it." Now that we know how to use the appointment calendar, I love it. I love how we can tie future repairs to it, and that we can tie appointments to repair orders.

“Trust the Numbers”

When we were deciding between Tekmetric and another shop management system, I knew we needed to get Artie on board with the reporting side of things. He wanted to make sure that he could "trust the numbers" in the report. So way back when, in 2001, him and I got together because he said, "Look. This is how I want to do my sales sheet." We made a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet together that had all the important numbers—everything we wanted on our daily sales. When we saw the End-of-Day Report in Tekmetric, no joke, it is almost block-for-block what Artie and I created almost 20 years ago. Of course, it has more. We didn't have the "Hours Presented" or "Hours sold", the “Close Ratio...” stuff like that. But as far as the actual sales numbers go, it was uncanny how close the two looked to each other.

So one of the other things that we've done differently, prior to Tekmetric, our “Car Count” was actually “Paid Invoices.” I thought that was a more accurate representation of what we sold. I know some shops do Car Count, even if they just check the brakes and never actually sold anything. We've always just gone off of "Paid Invoices." So when I saw Tekmetric and saw that that's how it did the reporting on the End-of-Day Report, I liked that. I was like, "Yes! Posted ROs. That's what we want to see!"

The Ability to Seize Opportunities and Reach New Heights

This year, after switching to Tekmetric, we saw that March was our best month ever. April was our second best month ever. March and April are tax time, so historically, they're very strong months. I think the timing of the stimulus had a lot to do with it, too. We noticed a lot of people were coming in and needing their car battery changed. Pretty much they’d come in and say, "I haven't moved my car in three months, and now it won't crank." So I think a lot of it was that so many people stayed in last year and did not take any trips, and didn’t do any maintenance or repairs. They were finally getting moving, and their cars said, "Hey. I haven't moved in six months. I'm not happy. We need some work."

Because we had hit our stride with Tekmetric, we were able to maximize the amount of production and actually get to all the vehicles coming in the door. It doesn't matter if a thousand people come in a day through the front door; if we can't get the cars out the back, that doesn't matter. So I definitely think the efficiency improvement with Tekmetric was a big part of being able to achieve the sales that we did.

I kept very detailed numbers going back to 2012 when I started taking the daily operations. $449 is our current year-to-date average, which is about $50 more than our historical average. I can say that, yes, some of that is the industry and all the things we talked about—the stimulus money and people delaying repairs from last year. But I also attribute a lot of our current success to Tekmetric: the efficiency, the presentation, how I can present everything to the client, the ability to quickly text them the estimate so they can review it. I do think that the ticket average increase has a lot to do with Tekmetric.

“Is It Really Worth It?”

I have always wanted to track a lot of the numbers that Tekmetric tracks for me, but with the old program, it took a lot of data mining to move these numbers over into a spreadsheet. At the end of the day, I would ask myself "Is it really worth it?" Without Tekmetric, it would take me an extra five hours a week to track these numbers. I get here at 6:45 a.m., and I leave whenever we close, which is usually 6:00 p.m., so my days are long enough as it is.

“To think about wanting these numbers and now having them in a few mouse-clicks is amazing.”

I like having the Close Ratio and Effective Labor Rate on the End of Day report right there at my fingertips. One of the reports that I like the most is the Service Writer Report. With that wealth of information, I can tell where we're at in the month. I can see what's been declined and spot trends. I can see if there’s anything I can do to help Jude sell better, and if there's anything he's having a hard time selling. What's being declined? What's being approved? What's taking forever to get approved? Now I know, and we can do what we need to do to close larger tickets.

Tekmetric is a great system for growing the team. I'm adding another guy in June. He's going to help us on the phones, then eventually, he's going to be a full tech. Not that long ago, we were a small team; I didn't have Colleen or Jude here. Artie and I did 100% of everything ourselves. So to have a shop management system that we can all grow within is definitely an asset.

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More Time for the Things that Matter

I was able to take a week’s vacation back in January. It had been a while since I had taken a full week off. Not to say I haven't taken vacations, but it's always been more of an extended weekend. My son turned five back in January, so we rented a cabin up in North Georgia and literally, for a straight week, spent time in nature as a family. With Tekmetric, I was able to stay in contact with my shop just enough. At the end of the day, I would check in on my phone and see that cars were making their way from the estimate side to the working side to the completed side. It gave me peace-of-mind. And that was just in the beginning. We had only been using it that little bit of December and January, so we were still getting our feet wet with the system.

For me to be able to log in for five minutes at the end of the day and say, "Oh. Good! They finished Mr. Smith's van” or “They finished Joe's truck" was comforting. To know that everybody was doing great, but I didn't have to call them every ten minutes and ask, "Hey. How are things going?" I was able to just log in remotely and look at stuff. I've got a talented team. They do what they do best. But I don't have to actually call them to check in. I can just log into Tekmetric and see what's going on.

Our family has a lot of hobbies. Personally, I love to garden. My son is a tomato junkie. He's got a $10 a week habit of eating cherry tomatoes, but we have a Lemon Boy tomato bush that’s probably got 40 or 50 fruit growing right now. I appreciate that Tekmetric gives me more time to focus on my family and our passions.

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Taking Care of People

When you own a company, there are a lot of people who depend on you. One thing that Artie has instilled in me is to not ever take that lightly. This shop was my first baby before I had a kid because I'm here so much. I put so much of my heart and soul into this company, taking care of all the people we interact with, whether it's our clients or our employees. We have people depending on us to meet payroll so that they can take care of their families.

This is my work family. I'm here every day with them. And especially going through 2020 with them, that re-solidified our family bond. We went through the pandemic last year, and we made it out the other side. We're back on track with where we were projecting from 2019 to 2020, and I couldn't have done that without the efficiency of Tekmetric.

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For more information about Performance Transmission & A/C Automotive, visit performancetransmission.net

After a few years of operating Prestige European, Eric realized that he was tied to the shop. When a friend told him “You don’t own a business, you own a job,” Eric realized he needed to get out of his own way if he wanted his shop to grow.

Eric teamed up with business partner Mike Difato and began to restructure Prestige Automotive by using innovative tools to empower his team. Their shop has grown from $300,000 in annual revenue to about $1.5 million in five years.

In recent months, Prestige European has been put to the test and had to quickly adjust business practices to address COVID-19. Luckily, Mike, Eric and his team have acted quickly and worked together to continue providing services to guests in a safe manner.

Why Auto Repair is Essential

People still need to work. They still need to provide for their families. There are lots of vehicles that still need to be on the road. It’s not just emergency vehicles. We're working on plumbers' cars, grocery store employees' cars, pharmacists, nurses, and doctors' cars, all of whom are on the front line helping our communities and their families. These are all essential businesses that we need to be there for.

A Chance to Let New Leaders Flourish

In January of this year, we promoted our head service advisor to shop manager. We wanted him thinking like an owner. And we promoted our lead tech to shop foreman. We just gave them the reins. We stepped away for about a month and let them figure stuff out on their own. Trust me, it was hard. That shop's my baby. But it's what you have to do if you truly want to step away from the shop and start to grow.

About a month after the promotions, my shop foreman came up to me and said, "Hey. I love you to death, but can you please not come in anymore? At first, I was kind of offended. I was like, "Excuse me?" And he said, "Listen. I'm trying to build my leadership, and when you come in, the people I’m trying to lead just go straight to you.

"So I gave him some metrics that I wanted him to meet, and as long as they were met, I said, "You got it. I'll come in once a week for your meeting, and I'll do everything else from outside the shop".

Now, we're using this as a chance to build up the newly promoted leaders. We're letting them deliver a lot of these messages so that they can grow. And honestly, we're letting them make the decisions.

Planning Together as a Team

My team brought their concerns to me and Mike. A lot of ideas and suggestions came from them. We're being very upfront because there's so much unknown out there. As we entered April, we made sure that they knew what our plan was. We had two weeks worth of cars to work on, and I presented a list of two weeks worth of shop projects like painting the walls, landscaping, and pressure washing the floor. I told the guys,

We're going to use this time to make our shop better.

How We Changed for the Better

We’re doing everything we can to limit the spread and keep each other safe. I told my guys to abide by the six-foot rule. We're in a big enough shop where we don't have to be on top of each other. My shop foreman can dispatch work right from Tekmetric, and everybody can see it from their own workspace.

We put a parts table out by the gate, so the parts guys can drive up, drop off the parts and go. We switched to touchless payment processing with Tekmerchant, so we can now use text-to-pay with our customers. I ordered a cell-phone locker to use for guest pickups. We text the customer the code, park their car in a neighboring lot, and let them grab it. We even ordered 1,000 little boxes of hand sanitizer with our logo on it to put in every car after we're done with them along with our Thank You note.

My team, my shop management system, my vendors, and my guests all played a critical role in helping us stay in operation.

For more information about Prestige European Auto Service, visit PrestigeEuropean.com

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Speeding Up My Business

When I became the owner of Import Auto, I wanted to make it more modern. One of the main ways I did this was by using Digital Vehicle Inspections. The first tool I used got the job done, but I realized that I needed a more robust tool that operated on the cloud.

That’s when I heard about Tekmetric, which I started using in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tekmetric has made life easier for my team and guests—and it’s also boosted our productivity and revenue.

Thanks to Tekmetric, we’ve gone fully paperless. We send every DVI, estimate, and invoice via text or email. It doesn’t take us twenty minutes to write a quote anymore, so we have no problem writing up a quote anytime there’s an opportunity to do so. We don’t put it off. And when we order parts, we can track them all in one place; we don’t have to bounce through multiple tabs.

Staying in Tune With My Guests Via User Profiles

Tekmetric has improved how we communicate with guests across the board.

Creating ROs takes just a few clicks, and guests can approve services over text or email. If they decline a service, we can quickly document it in the RO. If they come back a few months later and ask how much we’d quoted them for the service they’d declined, all we have to do is pull up the exact amount from our records and confidently tell them. And of course, once a job is done, we use Tekmetric’s text-to-pay feature to quickly deliver tickets and collect payment.

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Tekmetric also makes it easier to keep track of guest data. Tekmetric’s integration with Kukui enabled me to seamlessly transfer all of our guests’ contact information.

Because Tekmetric is cloud-based, I don't have to worry about losing years' worth of customer data if a piece of hardware breaks.

The cloud-based nature of Tekmetric has another benefit, too. While I try not to work in the evenings once I’m home, it’s comforting to know that I can check on appointments and order parts from my couch if I need to.

Taking Bigger Steps as a Business Owner

The COVID-19 pandemic has gotten me out of my comfort zone as a business owner. I realized that many people just weren’t on the road anymore. But my shop still had to make money. So, I got to work securing more fleet accounts. We’d handled some fleet accounts prior to the pandemic, but I wanted to drive more business in that area because it’s guaranteed income. We had a lot of success with it. We built great relationships with nearby companies by doing things we hadn’t done before, like picking up and dropping off their cars. It made a world of difference to those customers, and it made Import Auto more competitive.

Financial security, along with the time Tekmetric has freed up for us, has created the space for us to give back to our community.

When you’re worried about money and busy dealing with operations stuff, you can lose sight of paying it forward. For example, one of the things we did last year was get involved with Brakes for Breasts. We also began a lifelong discount program for public workers like teachers and firefighters.

Additionally, we have more room to continue the restoration work we do on classic cars, mainly for a classic car company up the street. It’s gratifying to work on getting cars like a 1964 Land Rover or a 1934 Chevy pickup truck back on the road.

This all ties back to something I advise shop owners—battle complacency. Look into the training and technology that will modernize your shop, so you can spend less time on operations and more time on fulfilling projects.

For more information about Import Auto, visit importautorepairs.com.

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Sam Craven, an automotive enthusiast turned entrepreneur, knew that when he opened his Houston-based automotive shop, Garagisti, customer service would be a key differentiator. 

“While fixing the car correctly is fundamentally important, the customer experience is what makes the real difference.”

From his shop’s beginning, Sam strategically leveraged Tekmetric to elevate his customer experience, yielding remarkable results in average repair order, customer feedback and more.

Driven by Customer Service

As a marketing and business development expert with a passion for cars, Sam recognized that exceptional customer service would be the key differentiator in the industry. 

He understood that trust and loyalty lie at the heart of a successful shop, and he wanted to target long-term customers by building those relationships from the beginning.

“Most people think we’re just here to fix cars, but that’s not actually the foundation of what we do,” Sam said. “While fixing the car correctly is fundamentally important, the customer experience is what makes the real difference.”

Determined to not just meet, but exceed, customer expectations, Sam set out to find a solution that would elevate Garagisti's performance in delivering a seamless and satisfying customer experience. 

Selecting a Customer-Centric System

Tekmetric's digital vehicle inspections (DVIs), customer communication tools and overall streamlined process offered significant value in transforming the shop’s customer experience.

“It was the most advanced system and easiest for our customer,” Sam noted. “I love the numbers side for business management, but the biggest asset I saw was the process – the show and tell process – of the DVIs, and how we could control the entire interaction, starting from the time the customer initiates the purchase decision.” 

By integrating Tekmetric into the everyday of shop life and leveraging its key features –, including DVIs and transparent communication tools, – Sam's team quickly gained their customer’s trust and confidence. Tekmetric’s versatile features proved invaluable to the experience they were creating.

“One thing that’s unique about our process: the advisor goes over the DVI on the phone with the customer,” Sam said. “They go line-by-line through the technician’s notes. The advisor makes recommendations he believes are important for the car to function safely. That’s the customer’s first interaction with Tekmetric – and it’s usually what wows people.”

That’s why when Joe Rush was looking to propel his Austin-based shops, Rush Automotive, to new heights and he knew he needed the right tools for the job. As a seasoned shop owner and entrepreneur, Joe quickly recognized the value of implementing a robust software solution. By leveraging Tekmetric, Joe and his team were able to enhance performance and delight customers with a modern experience. 

The right shop management tools are key to create an efficient process that keeps cars moving and provides a modern, frictionless customer experience.

Combine the right tools with the right mindset, and you have a real recipe for success. With 30 years in the financial industry under his belt, Andy Bizub knew that running a successful shop required more than just the technical knowledge of fixing cars, but also the operational knowledge of running a business.

That's why Andy took ownership of Midwest Performance Cars. As a new owner, Andy wanted to refresh the shop’s processes to make it as efficient as possible – and in turn, grow the business. He knew that the old pen and paper method had to go to make way for a powerful software solution: Tekmetric Shop Management System.

Efficiency is Key to Success

Before Andy bought the shop, Midwest Performance Cars was in a bit of a rough patch, and still relying on an older server-based software system.

Already familiar with how technology revolutionized the financial industry, Andy knew there was a better solution that could make his team’s daily operations far more productive. 

"I’m always looking for efficiency," Andy said. "I’m always telling our people to work smarter, not harder; we can do better without setting our hair on fire." 

With Tekmetric in its toolbox,  Midwest Performance Cars has been able to create a streamlined, consistent, and most importantly, frictionless experience -- both behind, and in front of the counter. Being a modern cloud-based solution, Tekmetric takes out all the roadblocks and speed bumps from before, serving as a stable, reliable, streamlined shop management system that simplifies processes at every step for an efficient flow.

For example, between the two shops, Andy's team has configured over 2,100 canned jobs for a variety of repairs. Because at least one canned job is used on each repair order, they can build estimates in just seconds.

In 2014, Matthew Carlson and Jeremy Jenson founded Fix It Forward Ministry, a non-profit that focuses on providing free cars and auto repair services to homeless and other at-risk individuals in the Morehead and Fargo communities.

A few years after founding Fix It Forward Ministries, Matthew left his job at Microsoft and focused his time on his non-profit work. Matthew and Jeremy soon realized they needed funding to sustain their work, so they opened up Fix It Forward Auto Care, an extension of their auto repair shop that allowed them to help more people than before. As of today, Fix It Forward ministry has given away 225 vehicles and has done more than 600 free repairs.

Tekmetric is proud to assist shop owners like Matthew in growing their business, especially when they can bring it back around to helping people in need. We had the opportunity to talk to Matthew about how both sides of Fix It Forward came to be and learn the secrets to his success.

Coming Together

I'm a car guy at heart. I own old cars and collect cars. My dad's a car collector, so I've always loved cars. But I was actually a computer programmer by trade. I went to school to be a software engineer, and I worked at Microsoft for 15 years. Cars were a hobby.

I have a bunch of friends who are also car guys, and we're working on these cars, and it's cool, except it seemed like, "How many cars does one person need?" We recognized that there were a whole bunch of car guys who liked to work on cars, and there's also a lot of people in homeless shelters who can't afford to get their cars fixed, and without their cars repaired, they can't get a job. And if they can't get a job, then they can't get out of the shelter. So they're stuck.

If you talk to the local women's homeless shelter, they'll say transportation is the number one barrier towards self-sufficiency.

We started our non-profit side, Fix It Forward Ministry, as a way to connect the people who enjoyed working on cars and the people who desperately needed their cars repaired. We started that out of a garage, and we would bring in volunteers, both mechanics and hobbyists, to help out. We'd work on fixing these people's cars and getting them on the road so that they could get a job and move on in life. And that kept growing. As we found out, when you give away free things, it's really easy to grow.

We kept getting more and more people who wanted to be a part of what we were doing. We kept getting more and more requests. We started raising money. We started giving away cars. People would donate cars to us, and we’d fix them and give them away once we got our 501(c)(3) non-profit status. And it really just grew and grew.

A Turning Point

There was a turning point that happened for me. When I was still splitting my time between Microsoft and the Ministry, I got a call from a woman who needed her car repaired. Long-story short, her life was in potential danger and she needed a car to move her family to another state. I thought, “Wow. That's a pretty big deal.” So I said, "Okay. We're going to prioritize this."

But then I went back to work at my computer. I sat back at the desk, and at the time my task was to fix a typo in some obscure warning message on a screen that no one really uses. It was going to take hours to get this meaningless thing fixed when my head was just spinning with how I was going to be able to help this woman in this situation.

Why am I spending this time doing something that just seems to be so unimportant when I have so many opportunities to do something that is huge and life changing for people?

I told myself that I need to do this stuff full-time. It still took a little while after that to leave Microsoft, but that was the turning point.

Sustaining the Ministry with a Business

When I started to dedicate more of my time to Fix It Forward Ministry, we started to hit some growing pains. First of all, our shop wasn't big enough for the number of volunteers we were getting in. We really could only fit four cars in our shop at a time. We had limited tool sets. We needed to get better equipment as we were getting more and more work. People were donating cars to us, which was really cool, but we needed a place to store those cars while we worked on them and waited to get them to the people that needed them.

There became a lot of administrative work to do this, and we had no place to do that. I do most of our documentation stuff sitting in a car on my phone. So we couldn't really get other volunteers to come in and help with that because we didn't have an office or a computer and a file cabinet for them to sit down and process that.

The biggest problem we had is that we learned that our entity as we designed it was uninsurable. If you want to get garage keeper's insurance, the first question they ask you is: "How many ASE certified technicians do you have on staff?" and "What's your projected monthly revenue?" And the answer to both of those questions was "zero" because we're all volunteer run, and we didn't charge for anything. Without having any information right for that, they were unable to assess our risk and nobody could touch us.

We also went to places that specialized in insuring non-profits, and we talked to them, and they asked what kind of work we're doing, and we said, "we're fixing cars", and they just hung up the phone right there. They wanted nothing to do with it because, again, they didn't know how to assess risk, and they just viewed us as a giant liability.

What we learned is that we needed a way to solve all four of those problems without drastically increasing our overhead. So we needed a bigger building with land and office space. We needed a way to get insured, but we don't charge for any of our services on the ministry side, so how do we pay for all that without having to spend all of our time fundraising and no time fixing cars?

That's when we came up with the idea of starting a shop and letting the shop pay for all those expenses. Then the non-profit can use that space after hours and really have no added cost to the shop. So that's what we did. I went out. We found a building. We hired some skilled technicians and some service advisors, and we started a shop. So that's how I got into the auto-repair business.

Making It Run Smoother

When we started the Fix It Forward Auto shop, we needed some sort of shop management system. There was a lot involved in starting the shop, so I delegated that off, and we ended up with an older piece of software that my service advisor was comfortable with. But it had a lot of limitations. It was difficult to use. It was difficult to find information in. And it was difficult to enter information in.

When we started with Tekmetric in 2018, it still had the same foundation and a lot of the great features, but every month it just keeps getting better and better. The thing that really impressed us right away with Tekmetric was the ease-of-use—the ability for anybody in the shop to see what's going on and be able to use it. Because it's cloud-based, everyone in my shop has a computer, and they know what’s going on.

I've heard people say that you'll hate whatever software you use after six months. We've been using Tekmetric for a year-and-a-half, and that hasn't happened because it keeps getting better all the time.

The big thing for us with Tekmetric was the texting. There are a lot of shop management systems that let us text quotes at some level, but Tekmetric lets customers approve the quotes, and that would automatically go back into our software. And that’s really useful because we have a lot of clientele that work in an office environment. They're in a lot of meetings, and they're very difficult to get a hold of. And now they didn't have to talk to us. We get rave reviews, still, from people saying how awesome it is that they're able to just get the repair order and hit a couple of buttons to approve it while they're in a meeting or some place where they couldn't talk on the phone. We’re able to quickly get their car repaired, and the more we can keep our customers happy at the shop, the more we can grow the ministry.

Exactly What We Want

The interesting thing is that Microsoft actually wrote business accounting software for larger scale businesses. And I was also a part of moving that software to be cloud-based. So I have a lot of background in this area. What really stands out with Tekmetric—and I'm so jealous of them for what they created—is they're so connected with the customers. When I worked at Microsoft, I would have given anything to be able to get customer feedback like they do, and develop features that actually do exactly what the customers want. We would spend so much time trying to come up with a great feature, and we'd get a chance to talk to two customers about it, and we'd get their feedback on how they think it should work, and then we'd write it and release it and find out it really wasn't the right fit for most of the customers.

Tekmetric has a user group with a voting system where shop owners can vote on features they want to see they want to see. Tekmetric’s team looks at that, and they'll come up with an idea, and they'll make screenshots and have people tell them how that would work with them, and they'd get that feedback. So when the features are released, they meet our needs. As a software developer, I am so jealous of that customer feedback loop that they have created. They built their support group with a clear intent, and it really is one of the key things that ensures shop owners get a lot of great features.

The Reward of Giving Back

Because we have given back to the community, the community has really supported us a lot, too.

We did over a million dollars in our second year of business, so we started from nothing and grew really fast.

We do more for the community than just fixing cars. That's by far our number one priority, but we also help with other things. We're working on having a blood drive. We donate to other charitable organizations. We did a Car Care Cruise where we actually had about a hundred cars drive through nursing homes and assisted living facilities because, with this whole COVID-19 situation, those people were stuck in those facilities with nothing to do, and so we actually brought a parade through those facilities. It was one way that we were able to use our cars to help brighten their days. That was a lot of fun. We have annual car shows that we use to raise money and raise awareness for things. A lot of organizations that support us, we support them and their projects and fundraising stuff that they do, too. And by being a part of the community like that, the community has really supported us.

Our shop has only existed for two years, but the word of mouth out there is just tremendous. We're getting to the point where a very large percentage of the people in our community are taking notice. People talk and share our stories on social media. It helps us build what we're doing, faster. We've given away so many vehicles and done hundreds of free repairs. Vendors like Tekmetric have enabled us to grow so much faster than we would have been able to otherwise.

When you give people that car, it gives them hope that good things can happen to them. It makes them want to make a difference. If they can get a car then they can get that job and they can get that housing and they can become self-sufficient. There's hope that these things can happen. It gives people hope that things work out, and having hope is the first step toward a better life.

For more information about Fix It Forward Ministry, visit fixitforwardministry.com

For more information about Fix It Forward Auto Care, fixitforwardautocare.com

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About Mike Wiggs Auto & Fleet Service: 

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Founded in 2015, Mike Wiggs Auto & Fleet Service started through Mike and Beth Wiggs. From the beginning, the operation was as chaotic as any automotive repair shop – and without the right shop management system in place, the team relied on handwritten tickets and manual entries into QuickBooks.

The process was time-consuming, prone to errors, and had no way to efficiently track parts, labor, or vehicle history.

"Initially, we were just running handwritten tickets... Everything had to be typed in after it had been handwritten. Looking back, it was just crazy."

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The Challenge:

Mike and Beth were extremely hard working and were stewards of customer service so naturally, the business grew. There came a time where it was clear that their system wasn't efficient or scalable. Invoicing was an extremely manual process, and tracking customer history was nearly impossible. They tried other software solutions and systems, but they all fell short of their needs.

The shop needed a change—especially when they would hear what results other shops were attaining. Something needed to be implemented that could help them operate smoothly and grow as they put more time and effort into the shop. A friend of Mike who was a commercial rep at NAPA asked them if they had hit $100K in revenue per month. They answered no and were surprised by the question.

“Before Tekmetric, we couldn't even imagine doing numbers like $100,000 a month. I remember getting so angry thinking, ‘Nobody does that in a month'." - Beth W.

The limitations of their previous systems kept them from reaching their true potential.

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Discovering Tekmetric:

‍Everything changed when Mike and Beth discovered Tekmetric in late 2019. It instantly stood out, offering the kind of integration and scalability they had been searching for, and with a very simple user interface. Back then, revenue was right under $500K annually.

“Mike and I were both absolutely blown away at all of the features. It brought organization to everything in our shop. Managing operations, tracking parts, viewing vehicle history...everything has become easier.” - Beth W.

Results Matter - Impactful Transformation:‍

Since implementing Tekmetric, the impact on Mike Wiggs Auto & Fleet Service has been profound, thanks to Mike and Beth’s diligence and hard work.

- Revenue Growth: The shop's revenue skyrocketed. What was once unimaginable—hitting $100,000 in a month—became routine. Today, they’re on track to achieve $1.7 million in annual revenue.

- Operational Efficiency: Tekmetric streamlined daily operations, from managing customer data to creating repair orders quickly with Smart Jobs. “It saves at least a minute or so every time, and those gains made in the margins add up,” Beth shared.

- Enhanced Customer Experience: With Tekmetric, Mike and Beth’s team can now provide a level of service that sets them apart, ensuring every customer receives top-notch care based on accurate and timely information. A testament to their 4.8-star rating on Google.


A Game-Changer in the Industry:

What truly sets Tekmetric apart is its ability to grow with its users. "The responsiveness of the company... that is a game changer," Beth emphasized. Tekmetric listens to its customers, continually adapting to meet their needs and refine the software based on feedback.

Conclusion:‍

For Mike Wiggs Auto & Fleet Service, Tekmetric was the key to turning chaos into control. By providing the tools needed to operate efficiently and effectively, Tekmetric helped them not only meet but exceed their goals.

“Tekmetric is a game changer for us. I highly recommend.” - Beth W.

With Tekmetric, Mike and Beth have proven that with the right system in place, there are no limits to what a shop can achieve.