There are a lot of moving pieces in a service department, but at the end of the day, you are selling time. The more time you can sell, the more profit you make.

But there are only so many hours in a day and your bays are full, so how can you increase your sales? The answer is simple. Increase the efficiency of your technicians.

There are a few ways to do this.

First, look at how your technicians are communicating with other employees in the dealership. Do they have easy access to the parts department, or are they stuck walking back and forth? How do they communicate recommended work to advisors? Create a clear and easy process of communication for your technicians and save them time that is usually wasted on trying to reach other people.

Dispatching also plays a big role in technician efficiency. It is important to ensure you are dispatching work to the technician who can best handle the job and complete it quickly. The better a technician’s skills are matched to their jobs, the more likely they are to beat the clock.

You should also consider how you utilize technology in your service department. Don’t waste time rekeying customer information or having to manually look up parts pricing or availability. Having connected technology allows for jobs to be completed easier and faster because everything is running out of one system.

Finally, make sure your customers are staying informed about the service being done on their vehicles. Do they know what work is being done to their car and why? Do they know if a technician is waiting on their approval to continue the work? A technician waiting for a customer’s approval may make the job feel longer for the customer since work is not being done to their car. Keeping a customer informed is going to get the work done faster, within the time promised to the customer, and allow the advisor to reactively answer any questions about recommendations.

Everything discussed above has a direct impact on your effective labor rate and the profits coming into your dealership. Having a profitable ELR is one of the best and easiest ways for a dealership to increase gross labor profit.

Fixed operations is a huge revenue center for dealerships when it is operated properly. Bringing in a consultant may help you fine tune your service processes and see where you have areas of improvement in your workflow. You can’t create more time, but you can sell more time by eliminating old and manual processes.

Related Articles: