IS MENU PRICING BETTER ?

[AJHORNE]

How many of you use a menu pricing system? At this time I am using the scheduled maintanance guide and upsell flushes and ad-on items such as balance with a rotate.

I am now being TOLD to addopt a menu pricing guide to stick under my customers noses.I am a Saturn dealer. Our Chevy store is 2.5 hours per ro. we are at 1.5. They seem to think this is the reason.

I guess my question is: Do you find a menu helps you sell more services than working from a scheduled maintanance book?

[Mike Vogel]

Menu pricing should only include what's recommended by the manufacturer. Any dealer recommendations should be promoted seperatly from the menu. When considering your pricing make sure that if you break out what is done individually that your menu price is a better deal than if the customer did each item seperatly. Hope that makes sense.
Also make sure in regards to your Chevy store that you are comparing apples to apples.

[This message has been edited by Mike Vogel (edited 10-13-2004).]

[ronc925c]

Most dealers stress hours per RO and ignore effective labor rate.

Yes, I think you should use a service menu, based on time and mileage, with addition recommendations based on driving habits.

Imagine going to a new resturant service 25 items, but there is no menu, you have to remember what the waiter says. Finally, you going to ask what he recommends, and his favorite (which is also the best "deal for the money" and lowest profit) is the only thing they are going to sell to you.

When considering the pricing of the items, along with a better deal for the customer, it is also not just the sum of the individual times allotted for the individual jobs for the tech. He only had to drive the vehicle in and out once, and hopefully 1 trip to parts.

This means it should be at a higher effective labor rate than the individually priced items.