Saturday hours

[Denny]

I would like to get some feedback on implementing Saturday hours. I know it's good for customer convience but it's hard to convince techs. I have a small 4 tech shop and they are threating to walk. In this day and age techs are not beating my door down looking for jobs so I cannot afford to loose anybody. Does anyone have ideas on scheduling or pay plans? Is it profitable?

[JimD]

We cuurantly have Saturday hours (9am-2pm).

I went to each tech and gave them the option

to work on Saturdays on a rotation type basis. I had 4 techs to agree to do this. Therefore they work every fourth Saturday. I also gaurantee to pay them at least 4 hrs. The advisors are aware of which tech will be working that day and schedule accordingly.

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[RCARR]

We currently close on Saturday, and I hope we can keep it this way! In some markets I suppose it is essential, but if you are better than your competion maybe it is not! But consider this, most of your techs probably work 50-60 hrs per week, we should all consider that given their long hours, they have a right to their uninterrupted weekends, or another day off in compensation!
I guess one would need to compare the "possible" gross profit to the blow to employee morale. I know the customer convienence and profit look good on paper, but everything that looks good on paper is not good for your business. Just remember your employees, and their lives away from work!

[Michael White]

We are open on Saturdays 8 to 5. Have one
advisor and 4 techs. The techs all get overtime. I do not want to loose the weeday hours. We do make alittle money. We will write 25 -30 ros for that day. Most of them are waiters and for quick, low profit, but important to the customers items. There are only 3 GM dealers in the San Francisco Bay Area open on Saturdays.
Advisors rotate Saturdays. With six advisors, the committment is not to difficult. they get the following Saturday off. They actually like this.
Mike White

[jrcal]

We are also a small shop of six techs. Some of my techs work here instead of other places because we are closed on weekends and they have Sat and Sun off.
If you are a large dealer and have the staff, I can understand being open on Saturdays. Otherwise, you have to consider your techs feelings on the matter. I hope we don't change until we are a big shop.

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JC

[Chuck Hartle]

How about looking at 4-10's or 3-13's?

Lloyd Schiller had some scheduling on this last year at the ISPS summit.

Before I left our dealership, I was seriously considering going to the 4-10 schedule. This would give everyone 3 days
off and cover the Saturdays.

We had a dealership in our 20 group that was on 3-13 shifts. Talk about a great benefit for employees and techs. Three day work weeks! He was the first one to do it in his metro area and the techs flocked to his store. It sounds like the ultimate way of ESI and CSI. You are open 13 hours per day 6 days a week and your staff is not burned out....

Anyone out there doing either of these schedules? One of stores I work with just went to 7 days a week. They are open 7am to 12am Monday through Friday and 8 am to 4 pm on Saturday and Sunday. The experience I have seen so far is that they are organized chaos and struggling with it.

Chuck Hartle'

[RMARTIN]

3-13 work schedules! I love it. I was unaware anyone had actually done that but I have always thought it would be great for all concerned. Chuck, could you plese e-mail me with the name/location of the store with this schedule. I would like to see how well it works for them. Every tech I talk with re:proposed alternate hours indicates 3-13 or 4-10 would be welcome. Thanks for the info. Randy

[Tom H.]

LET ME ASK SOME ????
IF WE PUSHED SATURDAYS TO BE BUSY. WOULD WE BE STEALING WORK FROM THE WEEKDAYS OR WOULD THAT OPEN US TO NEW CUSTOMERS SUCH AS THE PEOPLE WHO USE THEIR VEHICLES DURING THE WEEK AND CAN'T SERVICE THEM MON-FRI
ARE WE AFRAID TO BE OPEN SAT. LIKE A NORMAL WORKDAY BECAUSE WE WANT OFF OR IS BEACUSE ITS NOT A DAY WE CAN BOOK FULL AND MAKE MONEY.. IS SATURDAY WE COULD DO FLEET WORK??? IS SATURDAY A GOLD MINE WAITING TO BE CLEAN UP ON !!!! WHAT IS SATURDAY ???? WHAT CAN IT BECOME????

IM THINKING OF GOING FROM 8-12 ON SATDURAY TO 8-5 GIVING THE SATURDAY CREW WHO WORK OFF ON MONDAY I WOULD ROTATE 4 CREWS SO EACH CREW WOULD ONLY WORK EVERY 4TH SATURDAY.

[Chuck Hartle]

Tom,

You bring up some very important points about Saturdays. First of all, in every instance where I see dealerships open on Saturday, it is a skeleton crew to say the least.
I was at a 20 group meeting several years back when a general manager for a very large dealership made a comment about his sales operation.
First, he wondered why most of the dealers put the salesman "spiffs" on for the weekend when this is when your traffic is the highest? He suggested putting the spiffs on Monday through Wednesay, the slowest time of the week for sales.
In short, everyone said that you just don't sell cars on Monday and Tuesday nights. He changed that paradigm by dressing up his sales staff in football uniforms, putting two wide screen TV's in the showroom, and advertised "Monday Night Madness" in ads and television spots. Bottom line, next to Saturday, Monday Night was his best sales time.
If you go into Saturday with the thought that it is just another day and you put a full crew in to work it, wouldn't that be the best way to approach it? I have seen some wonderful schedules out there for 4-10 schedules that could accomplish that. Your crew still gets 2 days off a week at staggered times and you have a full staff for an extra day a week.
Just a thought....

Chuck Hartle'

[David Henson]

One of the stores I've worked with has a crew of one advisor and three techs that were hired to work Tuesday thru Saturday. Their theory is that the Saturday customer is a different person than the regular M-F customer and they appreciate having a familiar face to deal with. Seems to work well for them and sometimes the Saturday techs will come in on Monday too.