DealersEdge Professional Forums

I am trying to determine the maximum capacity of our parts countermen as it relates to the number of technicians they have to "service" at the counter. Could all of you respond with the number of dedicated technician counter personal you have vs. how many techs and whether they also do body shop or you have dedicated personal for the body shop? Also do you use an intercom system or parts request printer for communication?

Thanks for your help!!!

Mark

I have our back counter split. We currently have 4 franchises and 15 techs.
One person takes care of 8 Chrysler techs.
He sells about $100,000 a month. Another
person takes care of 5 import techs, 2 Chrysler techs and the Quick Lube man. He sells about $80,000 a month and occasionally
answers the phone. It's similar to a team system but service does not hav teams. The service advisors deal with the parts

Sorry. I hit a wrong key. The service advisons deal with the parts spec that help the tech working on that RO. The service dept seems to like the set-up and our people are usually not stressed out.

Joe R

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30 techs and 3 dedicated back counter parts personnel. They're paid on a percentage of their individual gross profit so there's an incentive to sell and keep profits up, also an incentive to create a relationship with the tech inorder to insure repeat business from them.

I've watched them actually take parts out to the tech to insure they retian their loyality. They actually retrieve cores as in engines, transmissions and such to insure the tech can remain active, producing labor time therefore utlizing parts.

JUST A FIX LOST ALL DATA

Currenly have 2 counterpersons to handle 16
to 18 techs. Looking to add a third counter-
person to handle Bodyshop (3 bodymen) and be
a relief for the 2 service counterpeople.

We have 1 counterman for the shop, 1 for the front counter, & I personally handle all the Body Shop orders. We have a recon shop that has a split parts person/service writer/shop foreman. By the numbers, we have 7 techs in the shop, 3 in the recon shop, 2 body tech, 1.5 painters. The front counter person covers the shop counter overflow, and I help on the front counter at breaks and when it is busy. Works pretty well for us.

We have two counter men ,one with 14yrs in the business the other 3yrs,and a trainee with outside exp. plus a driver.There are
7 tech's in service and two writers besides
the service manager,and myself.So in close we have five guys in parts including myself
in a small store ,but with a large wholesale
business.They each sell about 60 to 70 thousand

Mark,

We have two for the Service Counter and Two for the Retail Counter. One on the Retail Counter looks up the Body estimates and we have a person that delivers the parts directly to the Service and Body Techs. Having somebody to deliver parts to techs is the best money we have ever spent. What really makes it work best are radios for parts, the service advisors, technician group leaders, and the delivery person.
That's for 18 Mechanical Techs, 5 Collision Techs, and 6 Reconditioning Techs.

Sam

In addressing the staffing issue, I have used a ratio of 1 counterperson to 5 techs to determine staffing levels.
Hope this helps