A lot of fixed-ops departments have seen their parts gross shrink significantly over the past few years. What factors are causing that?

The biggest reason is it seems like the labor mix has been shifting over last few years. Dealers and OEMs are putting a heavy focus on quick service options or quick lanes. It appears they are more or less gearing customers to get in and get out, and not spend any more than they would for an oil change, because they want to provide convenience and keep maintenance costs down. It's all about loyalty and retention, so they can come back in and buy new vehicles down the road. The cars are being made a little better, too, and there's less maintenance.

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So how can fixed-ops managers try to improve margins?

Slow it down. The whole objective seems to be to get them in and get them out. If you have a room full of customers waiting, it's not about taking care of customer's vehicle like you would your own; you just want to get them in and out quickly. Customers will sit patiently for 43 minutes. When you start getting into the 45-minute realm, they start looking at their watches. But you can do a proper vehicle inspection. You can have it both ways; you can do what the manufacturers want, but you have to slow the process down and do a proper inspection.

Customers come in and get slammed through this process, get their oil change, leave, and then call a few weeks later saying a belt flew off. "Why didn't you see this? I was just in for service last week." You lose trust that way, and you lose the confidence of the customer.

First and foremost, in service we have to "control" the write-up process. We need to limit and control the number of "waiter" customers versus "drop off" customers. We need to have a solid appointment process with the proper scripts that will keep the waiters to a minimum; I prefer around 25 percent of the total daily repair order count. I'm not saying that we should say no to customers who prefer to wait, we just need to control that number, space them out throughout the day and encourage more customers to drop their vehicles off and offer alternative transportation. This will ultimately slow the overall process down where we can perform a thorough vehicle inspection without rushing through it and actually give our customers a better service. Comparatively speaking, I know that I wouldn't want to rush my doctor in any way, even if I am just going in for my normal checkup.

What do you think are the biggest challenges facing dealer service departments today?

Competition. I don't think it's anything new. Competition for convenience seems to be more intense than it ever has. And customers are smarter. They're making choices, because they have busy schedules as well. The biggest challenges are competition between dealers and aftermarket facilities, and the second thing is not only quality of service, but also price of service. Price isn't the number-one issue, but it still plays a big part.