St. Louis–Mark Dirsa, owner of Auto Evaluators, made the leap in 1993 from a Volvo-loving technician to shop owner, specializing in Volvo and Subaru. He said that soon after, he realized how many opportunities he was passing up by not diversifying.
Rather than expand service to makes other than Volvo and Subaru, Dirsa said he decided to mimic new-car dealers by offering service, car sales, parts sales, and vehicle appraisals and evaluations instead. “We became everything that auto dealers are, just on a smaller scale.”
The first Auto Evaluators shop was in an industrial location with little drive-by traffic, Dirsa said.
After tripling the size of the first shop, he said that he and his wife, Pat, purchased an Amoco station on a major thoroughfare in 2002.
The station had only two bays, so Dirsa said they increased their SBA loan enough to build an addition to house five more bays for a total of 4,000 square feet. It was at this time that he said he shifted gears from service only to his dealership concept.
It’s not easy managing several businesses, Dirsa said, and attributes the special talents of his employees for being able to juggle all of the challenges they face.
Paul Faust, a long-time employee and ASE-certified tech, also handles much of the used car purchasing and sales, Dirsa said. The entire crew is ASE-certified, he said, adding that certification is a big part of his strategy for acquiring and retaining customers.
Another major consumer draw is brand awareness through their NAPA AutoCare Center--a move he said he made just two years ago.
Dirsa said he chose NAPA to help him build credibility with customers based on its reputation for quality and integrity, but he added that he also knew his expertise with Volvos and Subarus could bring in diagnostic work from other network repair shops.
To reinforce his value to other shops, Dirsa said he bought a Volvo VIDA DICE scanner for his shop. “Not many independents can afford the lease payment on one of these unless they work on Volvos a lot, but it is crucial to making a good diagnosis and avoiding time-consuming repairs,” he said.
The NAPA affiliation helps in other ways, Dirsa said, adding that he is impressed with NAPA training and merchandising programs, though he said he takes advantage of training from other sources, too. He pointed out that customers benefit from NAPA quality, but if a part he installs fails out of town, the NAPA warranty would take care of the repair at any NAPA AutoCenter.
Dirsa said he decided to add Subaru because he saw similar engineering quality and safety traits that he admired in Volvos. “They complement each other, and that’s true in the sales area of our business, too,” he said, adding that they sell eight to 10 pre-owned cars a month.
“We often buy cars from customers when they buy a new Volvo or Subaru, and sometimes we take a trade-in for a newer model on our lot,” he said. The high traffic count moving past Auto Evaluators daily brings in sales, too, he added.
Other than customer trades, Auto Evaluators gets a lot of its Volvo and Subaru inventory from off-lease sales and some from Volvo and Subaru dealer trade-ins, Dirsa said.
Since one part of his business often feeds the other, Dirsa said he relies on sales promotion to a greater extent than most service specialists.
He said he used to spend a lot on Yellow Page advertising but today uses Google AdWords and his Web site to bring customers to him when they do a search for Volvo, Subaru, service and other keywords. Sixty percent of his new business now comes from the internet at a fraction of the cost of his former phonebook ads, he said.
Employees of Auto Evaluators play a bigger role in the company’s success, too.
Dirsa said he believes in good pay and company reimbursement for all employee training completed. He said he also involves them in generating new business--one way is through a 10 percent discount card that employees can distribute in their off hours.
A chart in the shop’s lunchroom tracks how many new customers each employee has brought in with the cards, and whomever brings in the most wins a prize such as an all-expense-paid trip to anywhere Southwest Airlines flies, Dirsa said.
When talking about today’s business environment, Dirsa was quick to point out that many customers now ask what they can do to keep their vehicle longer and avoid purchasing a new car.
He said Service Adviser Dana Mullin often works with customers to evaluate all the work a car needs. Then she helps them budget getting the most important work done first and schedules all the work in a way the family can afford, he said. That’s real value for him and his customers, he said, adding that another option is to consider a newer pre-owned model on his lot.
Part of knowing what a customer’s Volvo or Subaru needs is found in a five-page checklist Dirsa said he developed years ago when he first entered the business.
“That’s where we got the name Auto Evaluators,” he said. When customers want to know everything about a used car they are considering, or their car’s warranty is about to expire, he said he offers them the $99 vehicle evaluation as a way to know the good and bad of a vehicle with no uncertainty.
Despite the current business climate, Auto Evaluators continues to see growth, Dirsa said.
“When one part of our business gets soft, the others seem to pick up,” he said, adding that the Subaru and Volvo specializations, coupled with cost-effective service, is a winning combination.
