Back to Basics: It's Time to Review the Services You Offer
Even when business is running smoothly, it is still worth evaluating the services offered to customers to determine what is working and where a shop might find better efficiency and improvement. In some cases, the answer might be to grow the business by moving some services to a second location. In other instances, cutting a service because it takes time away from other tasks might be necessary to tune up the shop.
The Offering
A quick lube shop, by definition, needs to be quick with service. Speed helps increase car count, and also increases customer satisfaction and loyalty. It may be tempting to add more services, however keeping the shop to basics such as oil change, fluid checks, and filter changes can help maintain efficiency.
"Originally, we just did the quick lube, which is our Duluth location," says Pete Popoe, GM of Auto Ace Express Lube with locations in Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin.
It made more sense to add more services with the acquisition of a second location, where the service center offers mechanic and tire services. The original location remains focused on quick lube functions to keep up efficiency.
"I guess with the quick lube, there's not much more to add," Popoe tells National Oil and Lube News. "We do the lighting, air filters, cabin filters, wiper blades, batteries."
With plans to expand the business to a second location, Auto Ace Express Lube decided after evaluating its services that the Duluth shop would remain a pure-play quick lube offering, with the acquisition of a new location in Superior, about a 15-minute drive, that could handle mechanical and tire services in addition to quick lube services.
"Originally, we just did the quick lube, which is our Duluth location," Popoe explains. "Our Superior location we were doing quick lube, and expanding to tires and mechanical."
Expanding With New Location
"We were looking to expand in Kenwood, and wanted to buy another quick lube, or open another," says Popoe, who is the GM for both locations.
The new location was an existing service center owned by a gentleman who wanted to retire, Popoe tells NOLN. "They were doing mechanical and tires already. We decided to purchase and get into doing the tires and mechanical repair."
The transition took up to a year, with Popoe working in rotation with existing staff and taking time to evaluate each service offered by the shop.
"We personally spent time with the guys working with the quick lube side," Popoe details. He also worked with the service writer for the shop, the mechanic, and the other owner, who was head mechanic of the shop before it changed hands.
"It took almost a full year to get things changed over," says Popoe. "I spent quite a bit of time here—two or three days a week."
Popoe says he spent time talking to customers.
Evaluating to Grow the Business
Both locations have continued to grow.
"With the Duluth location, the reason we wanted to expand is we got to capacity (and) couldn't handle any more cars," recalls Popoe. "We added so many customers. We had a lot of customers from this area that have moved over here to the Superior Side. Still continuing growth in the Duluth location. We gained customers more local to the new shop."
Auto Ace Express Lube continues to grow in both of its locations. It has become almost necessary to cut services such as transmission jobs in order to keep up with the rest of the business.
Where evaluation of services has become necessary is with mechanical services.
"We stopped doing a couple things, just because we were at the point where we were too busy, leading to more of a profit loss than a profit gain," says Popoe.
It was transmission service that ended up being cut due to the time-consuming nature of the task.
"We eliminated that because of the time it would take," Popoe explains. "It tied up a bay for an hour to two hours.
"That was the big one. The other ones we can do and get done a little more timely," he says.
In addition to the time it takes to complete a transmission service, "If you didn't do it right, it was a big issue," Popoe states.
Auto Ace Express Lube refers customers to a nearby specialist. "Referring them to a specialist and getting it done the right way. I think the customers were more receptive to us telling them we can't do it. It's a trust issue," he says.
Settling Into a New Shop with New Business
Now in the second year of building the business, Auto Ace Express Lube is ready to evaluate its second location and see where efficiencies can be improved.
"A metric stat I use for sales and goals is purely of percentages," explains Popoe. “It's easy to track that way. It's not that we need to sell 200 this month, it's [that we need to increase] 10 percent this month."
Maintaining business is where Popoe looks to see efficiencies. "Our real goal for the year is to keep up on our current sales and current matrix or our sales. Employment has been our biggest issue," he says. "It's hard to have enough employees to ensure that things are getting done properly and there is a lot of time spent on training. It's getting employees trained properly, and maintaining quality of service for our customer."
Still, employees are keeping the business booming. As the second location approaches completing its second year under new ownership, the car count continues to go up.
"Last year at this time we were doing about 500 oil changes," Popoe reveals. "Now it's between 700 to 800. Our auto repair is getting quite a bit bigger."
The shop is typically booked out about a week in advance.
"Now we have next week already booked and are going into the week after."
