Driving Technology in Your Shop
In the latest 10 mm with Tony Mercury from Autoshop Solutions, Cavan Robinson from Vehlo and Jesse Meddaugh from 360 Payments discuss the Shop Management Lifecycle. They discuss market trends and notable technological perks such as consumer financing. Watch the video to get insights from these experts into the digital market, how not to get left behind, and how driving technology in your shop can keep you ahead in the race.
Cavan Robinson is the general manager of the shop management side of Vehlo and brings six shop management products together including Shop Ware, ShopBoss and Protractor. All the products offer something of their own, but possibly the most unique is Omnique. Since 2005, Omnique has focused more on the “buy here, pay here” business, taking vehicles in from trades and getting them ready for resale. During the process they assess what parts and labor are needed to be ready for resale. The niche is taking the costing date and labor, sending it to the Dealer Management System (DMS) on the business side to get financial reporting. The reporting includes profit, what it takes to get it ready, and what work is put into it.
Jesse Meddaugh operates the business development channel for 360 Payments, an all-in-one payment system that provides integrated payments technology. He says they have been in the automotive market for nearly 10 years. He has worked with a lot of shop management systems out there. He notes that integrating into the shop management system and keeping technology flowing through the shop is key. Payments is just a feature of that but having that streamlined checkout experience for shop owners continues to help engage with the customer. 360 also has an integrated product, Text-to-Pay, which offers remote contactless payment technology.
Significant Trends in Marketplace
Cavan said Vehlo has tracked product usage trends through their products, including AROs created, revenue generated, car count, and other metrics. They have been tracking them for about five years now, and with digital transformation, many shops need to find a digital medium. With the pandemic and changing conditions, by 2022, many shops were forced to act and adopt. There were early adopters of all these shop management products to the end-user experience with payments that gained more momentum in the market, and more shops started acquiring.
Digital Vehicle Inspections (DVI)
One of the biggest things Cavan says they look at is the DVI attachment rate. It’s important because it influences the ARO, and that’s one thing shops look at. They are most interested in DVI adoption because if shops are transparent with customers, it shows the market flow in their business. He says they have seen an increase in ARO by about 20 percent since 2021. There is a built-in DVI for all Vehlo’s shop management products.
What does this mean?
According to Cavan, more DVI adoption equals more customers getting vehicles serviced, and the shops are doing more DVIs than ever before. Cavan references Shop Boss’s 300 percent rule, where 100 percent of vehicles get inspected, 100 percent are presented to the customer, and 100 percent of customers are contacted. The process behind it is the main drive, and that’s how adoption happens, and you get ARO.
VIN Decoding
Another trend Cavan says they are following is VIN decoding of the product usage to see how many EVs are hitting the market.
“If ARO is an indicator of all these inspections taking place, EV layered on top of that start to show how the EV is starting to impact general services,” Cavan said. EVs are prevalent in the general repair market.
Everyone agrees that technology is great, but a process must drive it. Jesse points out training is needed for the techs to use DVI and adopt the technology. Technology helps with transparency, and customers like transparency and knowing they can trust who is repairing their vehicle.
Consumer Financing
Consumer financing, also known as customer financing or payment plan, is a service shops can offer customers to help pay for auto repairs over time. The new technology gives shops a huge edge by offering a benefit. They present to the customer why they need a service and offer them a solution to pay for it. Often, shops don’t know a customer’s financial situation or if they put off repairs because they can’t afford them. Shops are finding customers are taking advantage of paying for repairs over time because the option is there.
Consumer financing has a “waterfall” effect when finding a lender. Customers fill out one application, which is presented to a lender. If they are rejected, the waterfall takes them down the line of lenders until they find a suitable one. The shop or the customer doesn’t have any extra paperwork.
Make sure your customers know they have options
Jesse stresses the importance of advertising your shop offers payment plans. Put it on your website, mention it on social media, and have signage in your shop. Let customers know beforehand that they have options to pay for unexpected repairs, so they have it on their minds. Repairs can now be afforded, whereas they may not have been possible. The integrated portion of time is now in the shop management system, which eases the whole transition.
The Options
What are new things being implemented from the processing side? Jesse says just the options. He said they get a lot of feedback from customers. They started as a credit card processing company, and this is where consumer financing came in because they heard the pain from everyone. Now, they offer different payment options, including a partnership with Venmo and PayPal, which simplifies doing business.
The newest integrations allow shop owners peace of mind with the option to take off the credit card payment option. Jesse says it mitigates the risk of the payment coming through, so there is no worry about chargebacks or disputes. The built-in Text-to-Pay has been a great integration into the DVI and closes out the whole process. Another topic of discussion is the compliance of credit card fees, the options shops have for implementing surcharges, the guidelines, and the integrations that make it easy.
The Biggest Take Away
There’s a giant buffet of automotive repair software to serve everyone in the market. The integration has everything built-in and allows ease of use in your shop. The ability to integrate partners to put it all together and have a platform to work with those options, such as CRM, DVI, and campaign management, and then swivel to the payment side of things is all there for shop owners. It is the only way to go!
For more information about Vehlo services, visit their website. For more information on 360 Payments, check them out here.
Want to learn more about Autoshop’s services? Or watch the complete video from this blog in action. Please visit autoshopsolutions.com/academy or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Autoshop Solutions is an award-winning website design and internet marketing agency based in Apex, N.C. Since 2005, we have been helping the automotive industry with custom-designed websites and internet marketing solutions.
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