3 Strategies to Boost Workshop Success in A Tough Business Environment – Part 1

Perhaps the one thing that every service manager or workshop owner seems to agree on is, running a workshop successfully isn’t getting any easier. The challenges of staying profitable, meeting targets, keeping customers happy, (or less angry) and especially finding good staff seems to be getting harder by the day.

If keeping your workshop running successfully feels like you’re trying to push water up hill with a toothpick (yes, it is possible, just really difficult), then I would like to offer three strategies that – in our experience – most workshops don’t do, or unfortunately don’t do very well.

I would also like to point that those workshops we do see doing these three things well are actually being successful with fewer problems and less stress.  So here they are:

1. Retention, Retention, Retention!

I can’t say this enough. If there was one strategy and only one strategy you put into place to improve the success of your workshop, make it a retention strategy. I wish I had a dollar for every time an automotive service business has told me how hard it is to get good people; I could buy out the royal family. (or flip a coin for their fortune – double or nothing.)

When I ask in return if the business has a deliberate staff (and especially a technician) retention strategy, I get either vague responses about bonus systems, above award wages or training, or looks of total bewilderment.  The fact is, THE most disruptive and costly event in any workshop is the loss of a good technician. Don’t let it happen to you! (Again!)

Here are three elements to consider in a retention strategy:

1. Finding good people only becomes a problem for two main reasons, – you’re growing strongly and you need more ‘good’ people OR you aren’t looking after the good people you have well enough, so they leave – and that’s the cold hard truth. Face up to it or lose more people. (Sure, peoples life circumstances change – family issues, having children etc. but this is perhaps 5% -10% of the cause.)

2. The cost of retention vs recruitment in a workshop is at about 1:4 by our estimate. Investing say $20,000 p/a in a retention strategy for your workshop team will likely save you at least $80,000 in recruitment and lost revenue costs. Or don’t invest in retention and lose a technician or two and spend the $80,000. Ultimately you will have to spend money one way or the other, so why not make an investment that pays you back in sustained profitability?

3. The best retention strategies are actually imbedded into the way a business does business and always do three things well – meaningfully listening to their people; mitigate the things that piss them off; and nurture the things that make them want to stay and grow. Retention ultimately comes down to people leading their people, not merely managing them.

Retention strategies can take many forms, but the best ones are often uniquely adapted for individual business.  If you aren’t sure how to go about working out a retention strategy or the steps to take to implement a strategy, we would love to have a chat with you and see how we can help. You can contact us here

To continue to the next strategy in this series, you can find Part 2 here.