DealersEdge Professional Forums

Does anyone out there have a stand alone quick lube? If so how do you staff it, do you just have the tech deal with the customer or do you have a quick lube advisor that sells and writes up the order. What kind of services do you do? How many units do average per month?

It's really easy to do this. I ran a stand alone quick lube bay for years.
1. Hire a clean cut young tech - very contientous and polit.
2. Set up a stand alone desk (kiosk) in a clean stall near an entrance and put up signage indicating that this is a quicklube area. There should be a steel cabinet located in the stall with a supply of popular filters (inventoried by parts and given a bin#). Access to bulk oil is also desirable (on off switch in parts to control pilferage.)Much time is saved by not having to go to parts for oil and filters.
3. Pre-print pre-priced work orders that the customer can fill out as the car is pulled into the stall. The tech can then add the vin and mileage and tear off the filter box top (part#)to staple to the paperwork. He then checks the service (how many quarts of what oil)(pre-priced) the customer wants and gives the customer the paperwork, instructing him to go to the cashier and pay the bill.
4. While the customer is at the cashier, the oil change is completed and an inspection is done to identify additional work that will recommended.
5. The cashier keeps the paperwork and gives the customer a pre-printed receipt with date and miles on it as a receipt marked paid. Later, an R.O. can be created in your system to relieve parts and sell parts and service (can be done by the cashier, service receptionist, service manager.) Do not create the r.o. through an advisor. That puts a quick lube (no appointment customer in competition with a reservation customer and that is not good.) Shift the clerical time to a different part of the day - not while the customer is there.
6. For additional work recommended, offer to make a reservation to get it done or if there is time that day, negotiate with the customer to get it done by a repair tech. Don't tie up the quick lube stall doing time consuming work.
7. Pay the quick lube tech a bonus for additional work he sells. Many quick lube techs can drive a service department into a profitable month by the value of their observation and selling skills.

When customer realize they can come in and get an oil change in less than an hour, your quick lube business will grow. You give them the power to control their time and today that has a lot of value.

The profit generated comes in the additional recommended services - not in the oil and filter change. So, you need to get a guy that is willing to look every car over and make appropriate recommendations and work the customer in to the repair shop.

If you have any other questions, call me at 185-654-1450 or email me at pika68@aol.com.

John