Shops Can Increase Volume by Leveraging 'Sales Pairs'

Posted 6/11/2009
By Jon E. Vance

In our daily activities, we come across items in pairs. Socks and boots are pairs, the human body has pairs, and of course we can't forget that all of the animals on Noah's Ark came in pairs. In every pair of repair bays, the vehicles have a pair of headlights, a pair of windshield wipers and a pair of brakes on each axle.

This month we investigated top service areas pulled from more than 1 million records to see if there was a pattern to the kind of paired work being done. Not surprisingly, almost all repair orders had more than one service or repair on the invoice. Oil/filter change easily topped the list as the most frequently performed service on a repair order (RO), happening 23.9 percent of the time. And whenever an oil change was performed, it was accompanied by another service 43.2 percent of the time. In paired order, the following services go together:

Looking at it another way, paired work is the bulk of the product customers buy. So if a customer comes in for the regular oil change, be sure and offer to replace the air filter.

And almost two out of three customers will agree to have their oil changed if they're getting a brake job.

Stat Corner is written by Jon E. Vance, PMP, project manager with Mitchell 1. Mitchell 1 is a longtime associate member of ASA as well as a sponsored benefit provider. These charts and more KPI information is available free on ShopMeter, an ASA benefit powered by Mitchell 1.