Top 6 Strategies to Increase Your Auto Repair Shop’s Yearly Revenue

For many people, a new year is a time of change—and that change often comes in the form of resolutions. With that in mind, you could consider making some resolutions for your independent auto shop, like boosting your auto repair shop yearly revenue.

Would you like to increase your garage’s annual revenue in 2023 and beyond? Here, you’ll find six strategies built with that very goal in mind. Read on for all the info you need as you gear up to make the new year your shop’s biggest year yet!

1. Create Appointment Reminders

If you’ve been running a garage for long enough, you already know how much no-shows can impact your bottom line. Still, most people aren’t deliberately trying to skip out on appointments they went to the trouble of making in the first place. The real culprit behind the majority of missed appointments is simple forgetfulness.

That’s why it’s wise to send service reminders to your customers—but not just any service reminders. In today’s fast-paced world, email and text message reminders are far more effective than traditional phone calls. Better yet, you can automate these reminders, allowing your crew to spend as much time as possible providing billable services.

2. Add New Services

Speaking of services, the beginning of the year is the perfect time to think about the jobs you’re willing to take care of for your clients. If you’re still offering the same barebones service slate you did when your garage first opened, it’s probably time to add some new services to your lineup.

When you’re looking at new services to introduce, it pays to look for highly profitable auto repair and maintenance tasks. Oil changes, brake jobs, and suspension work are obvious candidates, but there’s more where that came from. 

No matter how many services you decide to add, it’s wise to make sure your clients can afford this work by adding consumer financing options, too.

3. Conduct Thorough Inspections

In many cases, your customers only think they need one or two services when they stop by your shop. Still, that doesn’t mean their vehicular issues necessarily stop there. A careful investigation (especially one powered by Digital Vehicle Inspections) could turn up all kinds of other problems—and opportunities to provide additional services.

It’s not hard to see how doing more work will improve your ARO, but the benefits of doing this go beyond the short term. By finding and resolving problems your customers didn’t even know they had, you’ll keep them safe on the road while earning their trust in the process. As a result, you’ll boost your chances of getting repeat business.

4. Improve the Customer Experience

These days, no business can afford to skimp on customer service—and that certainly goes for independent auto shops. By making even minor enhancements to your customer experience, you’ll set your company up for increased loyalty and positive word of mouth.

Are you wondering how to pursue this goal? Some step you can take to modernize your garage and keep your clients happy include:

• Providing speedier service
• Making sure your waiting rooms are comfortable
• Thoroughly (and digitally) inspecting cars
• Building a modern website
• Offering convenient services like online booking

5. Implement Marketing

Stop us if you’ve heard this one: to bring in new customers, you’ll need to invest in marketing. 

While just about every business owner already knows this, it’s surprisingly easy to forget how vital your company’s marketing efforts really are. That’s doubly true if you run a small auto shop—and every dollar you put into your marketing strategy needs to count.

Print and TV ads may have formed the bedrock of your marketing efforts in the past, but it’s best to meet potential clients where they are. In today’s world, that means focusing on digital platforms like social media, email, and text messages. 

Fortunately, you won’t have to build a comprehensive digital marketing strategy while juggling the various duties that come with owning a business. Instead, you can find a partner for marketing while continuing to focus on what you do best!

6. Track KPIs

Let’s say you’ve managed to implement the strategies listed above. If so, you may have one more question: “Now what?” 

No matter how much effort you’ve put into making these changes, you’ll need some way of understanding whether or not your work has actually paid off. By tracking your metrics, you can use this data to diagnose your auto shop’s performance and adjust your management strategy in the future.

A few of the many KPIs your shop should be sure to track include:

• Average repair order (ARO). Your ARO focuses on measuring the average amount of money you bring in per job. If you have a high ARO, your garage is set for financial success.
• Billable hours. If you keep a close eye on your billable hours, you’ll have an easy way to track the productivity and efficacy of your techs.
• Effective labor rate. Your effective labor rate is related to your posted labor rate, but these statistics aren’t identical. Instead, you can find your effective labor rate by dividing your labor-related income by your mechanics’ total billed labor hours.
• Customer retention/acquisition. These are some of the most straightforward—but most valuable—stats your shop can track. Customer retention measures the rate at which your customers come back for additional services. Meanwhile, customer acquisition looks at how quickly your business attracts new clients.

Ring In the New Year With AutoVitals

Of course, resolutions are synonymous with the arrival of a new year. However, there’s a reason why all too many of these resolutions fail. If you push yourself too hard, you won’t be able to accomplish your personal goals—or your business goals, for that matter.

The key is not pursuing your resolutions without help. For personal resolutions, that might mean finding a workout group to encourage you to stick to your new exercise routine. Of course, you’ll need a more specialized partner to help you increase your auto repair shop yearly revenue. 

Luckily, AutoVitals can help with everything from making your shop more efficient and profitable to improving your customer experience. Find out more about what AutoVitals can do for you this year by scheduling a demo today!