How to boost Profit Sales in Service Bay

Throughput — that is, getting service work done quickly and efficiently — is the key to profitability in dealership service departments, said Brett Coker, president of Coker Automotive Consultants of Pensacola, Fla.

Dealers complain “We can’t get the work out,” Coker said. “The No. 1 issue that comes up, it’s not our labor rate, it’s not gross profit, parts gross profit, CSI, retention — and those are all important issues, for sure — but the No. 1 issue everybody is concerned about is throughput,” he said.

Coker presented tips on how to measure and how to increase throughput in a Fixed Ops Journal webinar on Aug. 25, “Sink or Swim: How to Win With Service Technicians.” Free replays are available at autonews.com/sinkorswim.

First, a couple of definitions. Coker said “proficiency” is a key measure of throughput. In turn, proficiency is a combination of “productivity” and “efficiency.”

Productivity is the number of hours a technician is in his or her stall, working on vehicles, divided by the number of hours he or she is on the premises.

Coker said an average figure for productivity is 59 percent. “It’s never 100 percent,” he said, because of bathroom breaks, meals, etc. However, dealerships should minimize avoidable downtime — for instance, the time technicians spend getting parts from the parts department, he said.

2016-09-07