Boonville, Mo.--Do you know how profitable you were last month? What were your profit margins on parts and labor? Do you know the history of your customer's vehicles?
"You don't know what you don't know," said James Copeland, owner of two Midwest Autoworx shops -- one in Boonville, previously known as Copeland's Auto Service, and another in Versailles. Until he purchased Mitchell 1 Shop Manager in 1999, he said he did not know the value of having vital information at his fingertips -- information he said he needed in order to run his business properly.
Copeland, a second-generation shop owner who started as a technician, said the turning point for his business was when he got involved in the Automotive Service Association's (ASA) Automotive Management Institute (AMI) program in 1993. At the time, he said, he was still writing invoices by hand and saw the need to start researching electronic management systems.
In 1994, he said he purchased Centrum, a management software program that later went out of business. By 1999, Mitchell 1 developed a management system that could transfer customer databases from Centrum onto their program, he said.
Since then, Copeland said he has used Mitchell 1 Manager, a program that allows him to access customer and vehicle history, along with offering an estimating guide, invoicing, inventory management, and integrated cataloguing from a number of vendors, he said.
Through Mitchell 1 Manager, he said he can view online the inventories of parts vendors in his area, including NAPA, O'Reilly, Factory Motor Parts, and WorldPac, which allows him to check availability without picking up the phone.
Copeland said the most valuable part of the program, however, is not the invoicing, customer history, or parts lookup, but rather the ability to access numerous business reports.
For example, he said, he watches his general business reports, categorical profit summaries (A/C work, brake work, etc.), and service adviser sales summaries.
Copeland said he accesses the business summary report the most. It is a snapshot of his business on any date he enters. It shows gross sales, money collected, accounts receivable, car count, average RO, profit margins, and parts-to-labor ratio, he said.
"If you don't have this information, it is like going on a trip and not knowing where you are starting from--like flying by the seat of your pants," he said. "If you don't know where you are, you will never be able to get where you are going."
Copeland said he gets great local support from Mitchell 1 Rep Todd Finley and also uses the Mitchell OnDemand 5, an automotive repair solutions program, Mitchell Customer Retention Marketing (CRM) for service reminders and thank-yous, and Mitchell 1 Service Intelligence for tracking maintenance items on customer vehicles.
Since purchasing a second shop in Versailles in October 2006, Copeland said he also started working with Client One, a management consulting group that assists with implementing effective business practices and marketing campaigns.
"These guys are running shops right now, so all the information they give you are things they are doing in their own businesses right now," he said. "This is a big benefit because the automotive repair industry is an evolving industry, and things that worked two or three years ago may not work anymore."
The Midwest Autoworx Boonville location recently went through renovations on its 10,000-square-foot shop to give it a better image, he said.
"There may be a shop down the road that is as good at fixing cars as we are, but if the front of their shop doesn't look good, they may not ever get a chance to service that customer," Copeland said.
The updates on the building along with a mail merge and a direct mailer are marketing tactics that Copeland said he hopes will bring new customers to his shop.
"In a small community, your business is built on word of mouth," he said, adding that Boonville has a population of 10,000. "We are trying to market to people who have never been here that have always gone to Columbia."
To start, Copeland said he plans to do a mail merge of 60,000 mailers to all households in the area of his Booneville and Versailles locations.
Following the general mailer, he said he will follow up with a sniper approach that with pinpoint houses that make a specific income -- going after people who can afford to have their cars worked on.
"The mailer by income costs a little more, but the effectiveness maybe results in a higher rate," Copeland said, adding that with the shotgun approach, many people who drive a horse and buggy in the Versailles area, a strong Amish community, will be receiving cards for a discounted oil change.
Copeland said he has done a lot of customer-retention marketing but that this will be his first campaign that goes after new customers.
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