This article was written by Bob Sloan and was originally published on the NCM Institute Up to Speed blog. 

Car count is one of the primary metrics for measuring growth in the service department. An increase usually leads to additional shop hours produced and gross profit. A decrease is a call to action to determine the cause(s) as well as develop a plan to reverse this trend.

Determining car count today can be complicated due to the following:

• Financial statement
• Prepaid maintenance
• Express or quick service

Financial Statement

Some statements provide separate accounts for prepaid maintenance and express or quick service.  The factory accounting manual outlines how to handle these labor operations as well as traditional customer pay work

Recommended Action: Review factory guidelines to ensure proper accounting regardless of financial statement.  You cannot make valid comparisons unless the data is accurate. If not properly accounted for, DMS systems can double count repair orders feeding into your financial statement.  Therefore it may appear that your car count is increasing when actually it may not be.

Prepaid Maintenance

Several manufacturers provide no-cost prepaid maintenance in addition to offering factory backed prepaid maintenance contracts. Coverage varies from comprehensive plans like BMW to limited plans that provide basic oil and filter changes. These plans are designed to improve customer retention during the initial ownership period. Consistent follow up is key to ensuring vehicle owners remain “active,” especially after the prepaid maintenance period.

Recommended Action: Measure service retention by VIN and follow up with owners after the prepaid maintenance period to ensure they remain your customer.

Express or Quick Service

Most manufacturers are either encouraging or mandating that dealers offer customers some form of express or quick service.  This could be a structured program like Quick Lane (Ford) or simply a recommendation to set aside one or two bays for this work.  The primary goal is to be convenient while offering competitive prices.

Recommended Action: Do your homework and research the need and potential for express service in your market.

Summary

Car count is not the same as measuring the number of customer pay, prepaid maintenance or express repair orders. Car count represents the number of visits per vehicle (VIN) during a specific time period. It is a more accurate measure of service retention and owner loyalty.

Recommended Action: Begin today to track car count and develop a plan to improve or maintain your service retention using this metric rather than the number of repair orders.

To make this easier, many manufacturers’ web portals allow tracking by VIN’s serviced at your dealership. If you are unsure of how to get this information, ask your dealer representative for assistance. Remember they all start as your customers, what you do after that point makes the difference.