Don’t sweat the small stuff, but pay attention to the details.
That’s Dave Everett’s advice when it comes to running their businesses with an eye on increased profits and better customer service.
Everett, a former longtime executive at Service King and a board member for the Automotive Oil Change Association, who recently launched Florida-based Dave Everett Consulting, will be speaking about those details and more during his iFLEX Day 1 Session.
“It’s going to be about real-world, practical things that you can take back to your shop to elevate customer satisfaction, curb appeal, elevate your ticket average, elevate profits,” he says.
Attendees of the session should expect to walk away with both short- and long-term ways to improve their profitability, Everett says.
“If you’re going to elevate your curb appeal, maybe that means painting your building, and that’s not going to happen overnight,” he says, adding that another way a shop could improve its looks could simply be by “getting rid of the dead plants in the planters.”
When it comes to procedures and the process of selling, Everett says, instead of just trying to sell stuff, shops need to educate customers, and the sales will follow.
“If you find out a customer’s needs, and are able to meet those needs, and you educate them and show them why they need something and what the benefits are of taking care of those needs, they’ll buy,” he says.
Shops generally don’t realize they haven’t hired professional salespeople, Everett says, but you can work around that by having employees who are confident in a product and confident in their knowledge of it.
“They’ll do a much better job of selling it,” he says.
But back to the details. You might have the nicest people, Everett says, but what if your shop is a dump?
“Customers might have come in because they need an oil change, they might like you guys, but they’ll never come back again,” he says.
Everett offers easy tips: Make sure your lobby is comfortable for folks who come in and have beverages on hand, coffee, water, etc. Mind the bathroom; make sure there are two hooks on the wall or door, one for a jacket, another for a purse.
“What would your mother say if she had to use that bathroom?” he asks.
Offering ways big and small to improve a business, Everett’s sales pitch for iFLEX attendees to attend his session is straightforward.
“Want to make more money and have happier customers? I’ll see you in the session.”
