The practice of maintaining 1000 vehicles per capita has proved that there is a great difference between the implementation of reservation service and non-reservation service.

This is a branch of MIDAS, an American auto repair brand, in Los Angeles. Here are some of their operating data:

The factory has 17 personnel, including 5 business personnel, 9 repairmen, 2 management personnel and 1 factory director. The factory building is 1200 square meters, with 30 parking spaces, 15 lifts and 2 trenches;

In 2015, there were 11363 service vehicles with an output value of 2.76 million US dollars (about 18.32 million yuan).

Judging from the above figures, the scale of this factory is not large, but it has received 10,000 vehicles, which can be described as small and sophisticated. According to the owner, the original factory was a small factory with fast repair and car washing. With the increasing business volume, but suffering from the limitation of the site, the company that specially found the service of the auto repair factory carried out the upgrade and the modification design of the factory was re-carried out.

The MIDAS brand auto repair shop is located in South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, and its geographical location does not have a great advantage. According to the factory owner, the reason why they can operate well is largely due to their re positioning and adjustment of hardware and software.

Analysis of the reasons are the following:

 

I. Professional image and spatial layout design

This auto repair factory is a chain store under the MIDAS brand. In view of the advantages of the existing brand and standard design, the auto repair factory has been able to rapidly transform and upgrade and get rid of the overall feeling of dirty mess in the past. The professional design instantly improves the image and brand degree of the whole factory, and the layout distribution and design are carried out according to the specifications of the site, so that each process reaches the maximum function.

Many domestic 4S stores have no advantage in this respect. If large-scale auto repair plants or comprehensive auto repair plants want to compete with 4S stores, the first step must be to brighten your auto repair plants to give customers a good impression and experience. Many auto repair stores are also considering re-upgrading, but they often face the end of joining. However, this result is not what many auto repair owners want.

 

II. Reservation service to improve business efficiency

This is a major feature of the American auto repair service industry. There are three advantages of reservation service:

(1) The source of vehicles can be increased as much as possible. The current mobile Internet traffic cannot be ignored, and the appointment service is more convenient to solve the timely needs of customers;

(2) It is possible to reasonably arrange repair tasks to prevent the burden on managers from being reduced because of the large number of vehicles;

(3) Save a lot of waiting time for the user. The auto repair factory can put the spare parts preparation time, problem analysis time and personnel deployment time before the vehicle enters the factory, thus shortening the service cycle. And through the appointment, you can improve the reputation and reputation of the repair shop, but also play a certain role in user investigation.

The practice of maintaining 1000 vehicles per capita has proved that there is a great difference between the implementation of reservation service and non-reservation service. Reservation service is one of the effective methods adopted by the repair shop in our country, it does not need to invest too much money and equipment.

 

III. Timely and reliable supply of accessories, saving time and cost

MIDAS's auto repair shop adopts the "zero inventory" management method of accessories, which is adopted by many repair shops in the United States. This method is good for saving occupied funds and speeding up the turnover of funds.

The method is: in their zero inventory shelves, set the upper and lower limits of the number of commonly used parts, when the parts inventory is close to the lower limit, immediately through the computer or telephone to get in touch with the parts supplier, in order to fully ensure that the parts inventory is just in the "enough not much" ideal state. Of course, it is not easy to do this;

(1) require the repair shop in accordance with the "service station" model to develop, to achieve "business, warehouse and workshop trinity";

(2) The requirements for warehouse management personnel are very high. They must be familiar with the replacement cycle of each accessory and the function of the accessory;

(3) There should be one or more guaranteed, sound and efficient suppliers of accessories.

At present, there are many kinds of cars in our country, it is difficult to establish a perfect parts supply system, and it is also very difficult to improve the quality of parts practitioners in a short time, but the most difficult thing is the change of concept. It is necessary to abandon the traditional idea of storing accessories, and to eliminate the idea that "zero inventory" is to wait for people to deliver goods to their homes.
 

4. Standardize the process and win the trust of customers

From the moment the customer enters the garage to the moment the customer leaves, all the processes are user experience.

In the eyes of American auto repair workers, everything must be centered on customer experience. They are instilled with a sense that customers are watching you, and every mistake and non-standard you make may become a reason for customer complaints. As a result, the screw codes they removed should be put in order, the parts should be cleaned carefully, and even the wheel cover should be erected to prevent the front from being dirty. Give customers a feeling of serious and skilled work. From this point alone, there is still a big gap between the majority of auto mechanics in our country. This gap is not only a gap in technology, but also a gap in production concepts.

American experts said that they used to be very backward in repairing cars, especially in terms of management. For example, the warehouse also needs warehouse management, but now this position has been completely abolished, and the workers have loose discipline at work, but now it is a different scene.

It took 20 years for developed countries to reach this point. What about us?

 

V. Strengthening specialized maintenance construction

I have heard for a long time that the scale of repair shops in foreign developed countries is not as large as that in China. Such repair shops have few personnel, but their output value and profit margin are very high. Of course, some objective factors are not excluded, but there must be some key factors. Competitiveness factors.

This auto repair factory has reached a cooperation with Toyota cars in the United States to become its special maintenance station, so most of the car sources are Toyota cars. The nature of this kind of maintenance station is somewhat similar to that of domestic 4S shops, but there are differences. Professional maintenance has at least the following advantages:

Can improve the efficiency of maintenance, the maintenance of workers professional;

The quality of accessories and supply channels are guaranteed;

· Access to the original technical support and technical notification;

· Reduce the psychological gap between customers;

It is convenient for users to better choose maintenance enterprises.

Domestic auto repair plants with some strength can consider moving towards this development model to enhance their core competitiveness and implement the "Trinity" development model, which is a healthy way for the development of the repair industry.
 

(The article comes from Senwan Observation and is slightly deleted. Please indicate the source for reprinting.)