“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” said philosopher George Santayana in 1905. Now that we’ve had more than a century of even more past, are there lessons we’ve learned from 2020 that can help us not make the same mistakes again?
I’m Doug Kaufman with ShopOwner. You know, 2020 has been, in many ways, a year worth forgetting, but as Santayana suggests, you can always learn something. We all learned to be adaptable, flexible and patient, traits that will continue to be important parts of our future.
Whether we’ve realized it or not, business has changed over the years in many ways – some subtle, some dramatic. The dramatic ones that get all the attention – the big, loud, life-altering conditions that signal cosmic shifts in direction and the quiet, precise changes that actually make a real difference.
This time of year, it can be tempting to make New Years’ resolutions – things we’re going to do to make ourselves better. I’ve got my annual list ready to go – and there it goes. Some of our demands for perfection from ourselves turn out to be impossible to accomplish, so we get frustrated and start eating that entire holiday fruitcake without even realizing. Are your goals for success in business equally as challenging?
Instead of setting unrealistic expectations, start with things you can accomplish. Are you using technology in your shop effectively? Is your shop management system configured with the best software modules?
Are your vehicle inspections everything you need them to be, to foster a conversation between your team and your customers and ensure that options and expectations are clearly identified and explained?
When it comes to check in and payment, are you making things as easy for your customers – and effective for your service advisors – to get in, get done and get on their way?
From initial appointments made through your website (nearly a third of customers say they would choose a new service provider if online booking was available) to easy self-check-in (two out of three customers who check in at a welcome kiosk upsell themselves on at least one extra service) to creating professional work orders and estimates that are legible and complete ($400 billion in business is lost annually due to poor handwriting), today’s innovative software solutions make it easy for shop owners, service advisors and technicians to work together to make their auto repair shop more efficient, profitable and customer-focused.
Are you ready to move on and move forward? Digital technology can help those little changes have big results in 2021.
This video is sponsored by BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY.
