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Running an auto repair shop isn’t the simplest thing to do. While you mightn’t have a problem fixing and improving an engine, you might struggle when trying the same with your business. There’ll be quite a few moving parts that may be outside of your control, after all.
That doesn’t mean that figuring out how to improve an auto repair store has to be so difficult. Focusing on a few specific areas could be more than helpful. Doing so should offer a wealth of benefits to your repair shop. Some of the most notable include:
- Improved branding.
- More motivated and productive employees.
- Increased revenues.
With those kinds of benefits, you’ll naturally want to know how to improve an auto repair store. That’s easier said than done. Customizing different approaches and adapting them for your needs will be highly recommended.
Some things could be relatively minor, such as having Ford Do It Yourself shop manuals for your mechanics to learn from. Other approaches will be much larger than this. These will make the largest impression on your auto repair store.
That’ll help you improve your storefront much more than you’d expect. Some approaches come much better recommended than others.
How To Improve An Auto Repair Store
Become Community-Oriented
Car repair stores benefit significantly from developing relationships with their customers. You’ll want to be seen as a trusted place, after all. Becoming community-minded and embracing these relations can be one of the best ways to improve your auto repair store.
You can do this in multiple ways. One of the most notable is to offer regular classes focused on simple repairs your customers can do themselves. While this might seem counterintuitive for your business, it can help you in the long term.
Not only will it make people more familiar with your repair store, but build up goodwill. That’ll generate quite a few sales over time. You could also consider sponsoring local events and charities.
Donating to a local sports team, for example, could be a great way to generate brand awareness while becoming community-oriented.
Reassess Distributors
All auto repair stores will have quite a few common expenses, though the exact costs of these will vary from one to another. One of the more notable of these will be your parts distributors. You could find that these will cut into your profits more than you’d want.
That could lead you to increase your prices to maintain a certain profit level. That isn’t a recommended approach, as it could be off-putting to customers. Not only will it stop some potential clients from buying from you, but current ones mightn’t come back.
Instead, it’s worth reassessing your distributors. While your priority for this should be quality, there are more than a few companies that provide high-quality parts. You shouldn’t stick with the first one you find.
It’s worth getting to know your potential options and how they operate. You could need specific products that might only be available through certain distributors. That’ll narrow down your options significantly.
Once you’ve done this, then you should consider the price. While the highest quality might be too expensive for you, you can always find a nice middle-ground based on cost and quality. Depending on your client base, you could go for higher-cost options.
That’ll only be the case if you offer premium services and repairs to well-off customers, however.
Add Extra Services
You might have a core number of services that you offer customers. These will typically be the common repairs and maintenance that many other auto repair stores you can come across. You’ll need to stand out from these.
Adding extra services and specializing in many of these could be more than recommended. Keeping up with trends in the automotive industry can help you identify what new services you can offer. With electric vehicles becoming increasingly more prominent, you could consider focusing on this.
Regardless of what extra services you decide to add, you’ll need to make sure that your customers know about them. Make sure to start advertising them on each of your platforms. You could even base a marketing campaign around this, which could garner more interest in your auto repair store.
Look For New Markets
Once you’ve built a loyal customer base, it can be easy to coast on this. You could make a decent amount of profit with this with relatively little effort. If you want to improve your auto repair store, you shouldn’t take this approach.
Instead, once you’ve got a dedicated customer base, it could be worth looking for new markets. The key here is not to alienate the clients you already have. If you live near a college town and your core buyers are middle-aged couples, for example, you could branch out into the college market.
That could involve adding more affordable repairs and specializing in lower-cost vehicles. If you can lock-in these younger customers, then you should find that they’ll stick with your auto repair store for quite some time. You could get yourself a life-long customer.
Advertising in these areas will be paramount, as will making sure that you have rates that your new market can afford. Alternatively, you could go for a higher-end market, should that be more appropriate.
Conducting market analysis will be vital to this. If you can identify your core audience, expand it, and then branch out into further areas, you’ll see a significant rise in business.
Improve Your Auto Store: Wrapping Up
Once you know how to improve your auto store, you shouldn’t have a problem bringing in new customers and increasing revenue. You shouldn’t expect this to happen overnight, however. Like many other things, it will take time and effort.
That wait will be more than worth it, though. You’ll not only see your auto repair store operate much more effectively, but you’ll have happier employees and customers. That’ll have a knock-on effect on your customer loyalty and overall sales.
Increased revenues should be on the horizon, provided you’ve put the work and time into it. What’s stopping you from reaping the rewards?