The Top 7 Shop Success Drivers

Shop owners all over the country are stretched thin while attempting to run their business, manage their staff, and market their shop. In order to assist with some of the many responsibilities, take the stress off, and help their businesses grow, operators should be looking to outside resources.

As a way to help with the marketing side of the business, shop owners can turn to KUKUI's All-in-One Success Platform for growth in the following shop success drivers. 

1. Dominate Online Presence

Dominating online presence goes beyond being a top search result, and involves a number of methods including social media, Google My Business, SEO, paid placement (Google and Bing Ads), as well as name, address, and phone correctness. Through KUKUI's All-in-One Success Platform, shop owners can utilize tools and support that will boost their online presence and profit.    

“KUKUI helps our online presence primarily with our SEO, we seem to be popping up all over the internet since we’ve started using KUKUI,” Niles Todd, owner of Portland Motor Works in  Portland, Ore., explains. “They help spread our presence in a number of different places, including social media and our website. This has really rocketed us to the top of the search list, especially on Google.”

2. More Insight with Better Data   

One of the most important tools to running a business is tracking and analyzing key data. Most owners are already calculating their ARO, car count, and average labor hours. But as important as tracking these critical KPIs are, owners should also be giving the same amount of attention to the data surrounding their marketing programs.  

“KUKUI provides a dashboard that really helps us track our data, including the traffic to our website and the phone numbers that come into our shop from online. That data helps us to see what’s being effective and what’s not,” says Todd.

3. Higher Customer Retention

No business survives without customers. And although acquiring new clients is crucial, making sure current customers return is vital. This is because the cost of acquiring a new customer is at least five times more expensive, resulting in current customers being more profitable. KUKUI offers a range of products and services that make keeping customers coming back easy. The platform allows owners to set up retention marketing campaigns that will automatically trigger themselves based on a customer's interaction with the shop.

“KUKUI's Follow-Up Module helps us to track when our customers were last in the shop, and helps us communicate a little better with our clients,” explains Todd.

4. Higher ARO

One of the most important KPIs is average repair order. And in today’s climate⁠—where car count may be lower than ever before—focusing on maximizing your team’s efficiency on each individual vehicle will, in turn, maximize profit. 

“Our business model works on quality over quantity, and to be able to do that successfully we need a high average repair order,” Todd says. “KUKUI brings us those opportunities and helps us to build trust with our clients simply because of the relationships KUKUI helps us to foster.”

5. New Customer Acquisition 

Attracting new customers to your shop can be one of the most difficult tasks an owner faces; and new customer acquisition is key to overall business growth. KUKUI helps take the pressure off of shop owners by helping to navigate the shop’s marketing.  

“KUKUI helps us with new customer acquisition in a number of ways, the first being our website. Our website now has all this great information we didn’t have before. We also have videos on there that let our customers get a sense of the shop before they actually come in,” Todd says. “The second way is KUKUI organically putting my shop to the top of search results.”

6. Improved Work/Life Harmony

If there is something shop owners don’t have much of, it’s work/life harmony. This lack of harmony often leads to owners taking their work (and stress) home with them. In order to take some of the pressure off of owners and their families, as many tasks as possible should be reallocated. 

“Since KUKUI has brought us more business, I don't have to be as stressed worrying if we are going to have cars in the shop. We do great work here, but once we fix each car completely, we then primarily see oil changes⁠—so we need a pretty good stream of new business,” Todd says. “KUKUI has helped me to relax a little bit, which has also helped my home life.”

7. Increasing Car Count 

Although other critical KPIs are important to look at, car count should still be focused on and optimized. Repair shops simply cannot run without any cars, and increasing the number of vehicles is an effective way to quickly make your shop more profitable. 

Todd has seen an increase in the number of cars coming into his shop since he has started using KUKUI's platform.

“Our car count last month was 80, and out of those 80, 40 were new clients⁠—and those clients are spending crazy amounts of money,” he says.