Warranty Oil Change Rant

Warranty Oil Change Rant

Postby FixedManager » Wed Jun 10, 2015 1:12 am

I am tired of unprofitable oil changes under the manufacturers guidelines for warranty. I do the same job for less money, more work is involved, and must wait for payment.

I want to be upset with the manufacturers for this but the truth is they were only following the example set by the lemmings of the Service management community. The thought process of giving away oil changes to get customers in the door has been going on for so long that the manufacturers decided to jump in. What a great advertising scheme!

There are so many better ways of bringing customers through the door. Be creative, be direct, be unconventional, be nice, but be profitable; your competition is.

What is your best idea for bringing customers into your service lanes?
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Re: Warranty Oil Change Rant

Postby btk » Mon Jun 15, 2015 3:43 pm

I can understand your frustration, although with the great advisors,the cheap oil change is easy to overcome,I cant say that I have a great idea for bringing in customers other then I really push the internet appointments and the service and parts app as well as our express service app. I have in the past offered service clinics that worked well for me. I also do not advertise oil changes at all... even though my manufacturer does and forces me at times to do the same on the manufacturer sponsored mailing but they are a small percentage of the advertising budget. I advertise SERVICES- not oil change, we wont even offer oil change unless customer is adament, and even then it is not discounted heavily.
I also have alot of pricing on the service page of my website which seems to be where I see alot of dealers miss the boat, at least on our website-80 % of the traffic is clicking on the service page... why not have the pricing out there on alot of the things you do everyday. Saves a phone call to the advisors or BDC and creates trust up front. I try to make it transparant and easy to do business with us using our website.
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Re: Warranty Oil Change Rant

Postby MR2048 » Wed Jun 17, 2015 6:45 pm

Yes I completley agree with your position, we should always promote our benifits rather than the CHEAP STUFF. The question I asked in another post was, how do you expense the factory lofs

Mark
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Re: Warranty Oil Change Rant

Postby FixedManager » Wed Jun 17, 2015 11:09 pm

As they are; I do not hide my true figures with policy or advertising adjustments. If a job is a winner it shows as well as the losers. I do have labor operations or payment types created so I can track the success or failure of all programs.
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Re: Warranty Oil Change Rant

Postby MR2048 » Thu Jun 18, 2015 6:22 pm

just asking with a first service, vehicle has 6000 miles your cost of parts and labor exceeds the reinbursement from the factory.
Where do you expense the difference?

Mark
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Re: Warranty Oil Change Rant

Postby FixedManager » Fri Jun 19, 2015 1:44 am

Nowhere. The dollar figures for sale and cost of sale are not adjusted allowing me to see the true profit and loss. Why do you make your adjustments?
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Re: Warranty Oil Change Rant

Postby FixedManager » Fri Jun 19, 2015 11:37 pm

BTK I am glad to see I'm not the only one that does not promote give-a-way oil changes. I really like your idea of the internet Service pricing :D ; I assume it's for the maintenance and common repair work.

Does your website allow a customer to schedule an appointment themselves?
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Re: Warranty Oil Change Rant

Postby btk » Sat Jun 20, 2015 4:05 pm

You are definately not alone... our website does allow for web appointments... we typically see 40 web appointments on day on average and we also have a parts and service app that is starting to get some traction now. By the way, the app is probably the cheapest thing I have done in a long time-50.00 a month and thats it... if I stop paying they just turn it off- no contracts and pretty good app that they can customize for you and link to website for coupons and appointments . Push notifications are pretty slick too, pretty much what ever message you want to relay to customers on the app you can do within minutes.

I also did not include sales in the app at all, they would just bastardize it by blasting push notifications constantly about new sales event causing people to delete the app. I try to be strategic about what I send out so I dont overwelm with push notifications. Is is a white label app so you do have to call them when you want changes to coupons, they do not monitor expiration dates. So you get the app at wholesale but it does take a little of your time but still better then buying the rebranded version from a vendor and paying for their markup and maintenance.

I have a second app that is technically live now I just havent pushed it to the public... this is a separate stand alone app for now, but when people click on the app it will show them current wait times for express service, they can then reserve their spot in line at home.... I am hoping this will help address one of our bigger problems with 50-80 drive ins that that I get daily. Our wait times on many minor services or tire repairs or emergency repairs can swell to 3 hours real quick. We are testing it now internally and seems to work pretty good.
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Re: Warranty Oil Change Rant

Postby MR2048 » Mon Jun 22, 2015 4:55 pm

Looks like everyone is avoiding the question. If I don't receive enough money from the factory to cover the sale of my lof and rotations how am I suppose to account for the difference. This is a factory based lof and rotation for 2 years.
Mark
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Re: Warranty Oil Change Rant

Postby btk » Mon Jun 22, 2015 6:21 pm

Mark,

I looked like fixed manager answered yuor question.... it sounds like he doesnt adjust cost at all-so if he looses money the repair order reflects that. So if your cost is 45.00 and the factory reimbursement is 40.00 , you submit the claim for 40.00 and have a 5.00 write off on the warranty schedule. But it really depends on what you want to do and if you want true costing or if you want to track it. You could also create a different labor type and different pricing code just for those type of services...ultimately it all comes out of your Wip account anyway. But there are a million different ways to do it. How much is the factory reimbursement on an lof and rotate?- I am in California and I have some high wages but I would think factory reimbursement would be at least be able to cover cost.. but then again-GM I guess.
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