As Matt Allen, owner of Virginia Auto Service in Phoenix, puts it, what makes this shop good is not about having a fancy waiting room with gourmet coffee.
Actually, he says the waiting area is very small and there is no gourmet coffee. But that’s OK, because he’s meeting the customers’ needs. They don’t wait for their vehicles to be finished, so funding is directed toward tools to make technicians better rather than amenities for the shop. The majority of the shop’s customers commute, dropping off their vehicles and taking advantage of Virginia Auto’s shuttle service.
“It wasn’t necessarily the business plan, it just turned out that we just don’t have customers that wait and we’ve never really had the request for all that kind of stuff,” Allen says. "We still have WiFi available for the few people that do wait, but it’s just kind of worked out that way.”
The shop provides free transportation for customers, most of whom accept the offer to the office areas surrounding the shop. In addition to the shop’s custom-wrapped Scion, it also offers loaner cars customers can take advantage of. And when they pick up their vehicles at the end of the day, each has been washed with de-ionized water.
Allen says the free car washes started as a service for customers after a major service. He says they soon realized it’s what the customers wanted.
“And after some time, we found that in the heat here it’s difficult to wash cars and have them look good,” he explains. “That’s when we went to the de-ionized water so we can now wash cars and we can actually park them soaking wet and they don’t spot. We try to wash every single car, even if it’s just for a tire repair.”
Pleasing the Techs
Allen understands what it takes to make his customer base happy, but he also understands what his technicians want. He, like many others in the industry, started learning about cars when he was 12, following around his older sister’s friends. He moved to northern Virginia as a young adult and started working at a gas station fixing cars. After spending some time working on a race team, he returned to Phoenix with the chance to buy a shop of his own.
“I’m on the business side. I do stay current, I do attend training with the technicians. I’m the second set of eyes when someone gets stuck on something or someone’s hung up on something with diagnostics,” he says. “If it’s not going right and needs a fresh set of eyes, that’s when I come out and get involved.”
That background has helped him keep his technicians up-to-date. The staff attends regular training classes, paid for by the company, which also provides them with nearly any specialty tool they need.
“It’s definitely an advantage that I have. It’s good for my technicians knowing my background is that I was a technician,” Allen says. “I know what they want, I know what makes them happy and I know what I would want if I was a technician.”
He also understands how employees want to be treated. The benefits offered at Virginia Auto include insurance, 401ks, profit sharing and more, in addition to vacations and nearly every Saturday off.
Supplier Relations
The technician background comes back into play when working with suppliers. Orders are placed via computer, and the shop does stock a large inventory of fast-moving parts like bets, filters, brake pads, wipers and bulbs. He says that inventory helps the shop stay efficient and prevents suppliers from having to deliver “nickel and dime” items that affect delivery times and profitability.
Online work in the shop also includes a time management system to accurately track time spent on jobs and idle time so management can have data to adjust processes and procedures. Multiple computer workstations operate wirelessly to give techs access to Mitchell, Alldata, Identifix and iATN.
The shop offers a free two-year, 24,000-mile parts and labor warranty on every repair or service. Allen says he implemented the warranty to stand out from other Phoenix area shops.
“We had a very extremely low comeback rate anyway, and I think if a part’s going to fail, it’s going to fail within the first 30 days more than likely,” he states. “I’m confident in the parts that we’re using. We’re not using any second-rate parts, we’re using only the best we can get and the appropriate parts for the car. I’m confident that they’re not going to fail, so I was comfortable sticking my neck out so to speak, because our vendors don’t necessarily give us two-year warranties on everything. We own the second half of that warranty for the most part. To date, it really hasn’t come back to haunt us.”
And when a vehicle comes in that they cannot service whether it’s body work, transmission work or something else, Allen has made sure his customers know that they still can help them.
“I don’t want them to have to call anybody else if they have a question. If they need something for their car, we’re their go-to person,” he adds.
One recent example is a customer’s Toyota Prius. The car was at Virginia Auto for service, and technicians found it had a recall. The customer did not want to go to the dealer. She dropped it off at Allen’s shop, and Virginia Auto employees took it to the dealer and are the point of contact on the car.
“I just don’t want the dealer having that customer information to market to. With all these recalls, I can’t tell you how many customers come out of the dealership for what was supposed to be a recall and then they have this laundry list of work that needs to be done on their car,” Allen says. “We want to make sure that if that work does need to be done that we’re the one presenting it to the customer not the dealer.”
Helping the customer in that manner is one aspect of the shop’s marketing plan, which also includes free oil change coupons customers can give to family and friends, oil change punch cards and a targeted website including videos, newsletters, service information and special offers. All of this is researched and targeted.
“We occasionally will have our database of our customers profiled, which gives us the demographic of our best customers,” Allen says. “With that program we can then find out where people just like our best customers live and then we market to those areas.”
Marketing also includes sharing information for people heading into different climates, like heading north out of Phoenix to go skiing. Facebook, Twitter and online appointments add to this marketing, as does Groupon.
“Groupon was good for us. We did a special where it was two oil changes, a vehicle inspection and a nitrogen inflation and we actually sold 454 of those deals in one day,” Allen says. “That was in early April and those people are still coming through the doors. I think it’s been successful. We’ve gained some new customers out of it.”
He adds that a lot of people who bought the deal won’t become customers because of location or that they are not part of the shop’s clientele mix. But it was a successful trial for the shop.
It was just a little something extra for a shop that has made the basics truly successful. Allen says people used to ask him what they specialize in and he would tell them they don't’ specialize in anything. But he’s changed that.
“We specialize in good service. If we provide that I think we’re in good shape.”
