SHOP STATS: Grease Monkey Location: Idaho Falls, Idaho. Operator: Tyson Daniels Average Car Count: 44 Staff Size: 12-16 Shop Size: 5 bays (2 quick lube) Average Ticket: $134.08
Operator Tyson Daniels acquired this location about five years ago, his first in the city of Idaho Falls.
The previous owner ran an independent quick lube that wasn’t doing big numbers. When Daniels took over, he says that the first priority was sprucing up the curb appeal.
“We reimaged the building. Painted it and put new signage on it,” he says. “I had employees parked out front when there weren't cars in the bay.”
That facelift made an impact, in addition to the work Daniels did to install his service process and promote the new location. He more than doubled the location’s revenue in the first year.
“Right now, it’s our highest volume store,” he says. “We’ve got the two quick lube bays that are running and then we branched off to do full service repair, which was new for me.”
Service Opportunities
Repair work isn’t common at Daniels’ five shop locations, but this Idaho Falls shop had the necessary space to expand services.
“When we brought our team over, they said there was so much room for activities,” he says.
Repair work started shortly after the shop’s transition to Grease Monkey. He had a repair tech among his lube tech team, so Daniels started him on brakes, and it grew from there.
Not only did the shop have additional space in the main building, but the property came with some decommissioned self-serve car wash bays out back. Daniels updated and repurposed that space to accommodate other services and space for repairs.
Though it wasn’t Daniels’ specialty at the start, the repair segment has grown to nearly a third of total business at that location.
Customer Flow
Having the space to add services is a great place to start, but the quick, convenient customer flow needs to be maintained for that positive experience.
When Daniels added a new alignment check machine to the shop, there was a logistical challenge for customer flow.
“When we put that alignment quick check in, we had to change the whole flow of the shop,” Daniels says. “There wasn’t enough stack room out front, and we wanted to do the alignment check before the oil change.”
The system works best when customer vehicles get on the machine first to identify potential alignment service (and open recalls), but it adds a step in the process to move the vehicle from the alignment bay to the oil change bay.
Daniels’ solution was to move to a wireless greeting out in the lot with a courtesy tech and a tablet. The customer heads to the lobby room, and techs handle the vehicle movements. The system cuts down on customer confusion, and techs are able to keep vehicles in order leading up to the oil change bays.
“It’s been a little bit of a retraining for the customers,” Daniels says.
Photos courtesy of Grease Monkey Idaho Falls
