About

This company was founded in 2011 as a result of missed opportunities. In early 2004, my wife and I enrolled in management training for our automotive repair business after selling our four gas stations. We were amazed at the wealth of information available to help us succeed. We’ve received training from some of the best institutions available, including Management Success (now Drive), the Automotive Training Institute in Baltimore, and R.L. O’Connor in Washington State. We are still involved with Bob Cooper and Jim Murphy of Elite Worldwide as clients, as well as coaching independent shops on business practices.
All of these training companies provided excellent material and some fantastic ideas to help us grow our business, which we have successfully done over the years. But, they all left me with one question….. What did they mean by, “Make sure you’re getting a GOOD inspection from your techs”? The only answer I ever got was that we should go over a car after a technician had done their inspection and double-check it ourselves. Well, there goes the idea of owning and running a business from the beach in Tahiti with a Mai Tai in my hand…. I have to be there to double check the work of my techs!

So…. We have created solutions to many problems. By moving the inspections online, not on a spreadsheet or a carbon copy form, we were able to track how the techs did their inspections. We were surprised by the information available within the data. Through the data, we were able to realize the habits our techs had formed. Some, not so good! We found that Karl was recommending a brake fluid flush on almost 90% of the cars and marking down that the tires had a tread depth of 8/32″ on every car. We soon learned that he was recommending work he liked to do and staying away from recommending jobs like tires, which he disliked because it was a dirty job. We also noted that our Service Advisor was only selling 30% of the jobs recommended by Steve and was selling 90% of the work recommended by Jake. Obviously, Jake was his favorite and he didn’t have faith in what Steve had recommended. We were able to share the numbers and percentages with them, coach them, and streamline the process. Now, we get “Good” inspections!

During the process of creating the online inspection, we learned the value of being able to hand the customer a nice, clean copy of our work, rather than a dirty, handwritten piece of paper that looked more like a doctors prescription. We also learned that by standardizing the process and the verbiage of the findings, we were able to explain the needs to the customer more effectively and reduce the need for explanations from the tech to the advisor.

The online inspections are only the start of the software that we’ll be developing for the independent shop. We’re not looking to be another bay management software company, but an addition to, or partner with current companies. We’re small enough that we can make changes and enhancements without going through layers of management, and we’re committed to your success. We’ve got several products already and are working on more to enhance the shop environment.

If you have any special requests or enhancement ideas, either drop us a line at info@repairshopsolutions.com or give us a call at (424) 262-1580.

Scott Osborn