DAYTON, Ohio -

Following a pilot program where dealerships achieved an average of nearly $85,000 in annual profits via their service departments, Reynolds and Reynolds has announced the broad launch of its Service Price Guides Master Certification Program.

The program is aimed at dealerships that have the goal of increasing their usage of the company’s ERA SPG service repair estimating tool as a strategy to increase profitability for the service department.

“Our research shows a direct relationship between SPG utilization and gross profit in service,” said Jon Strawsburg, vice president of product planning at Reynolds. “In fact, as SPG utilization increases, dealers typically attain higher profitability in gross labor and gross parts charges per repair order. Dealerships also record higher labor hours per repair order, as well as higher effective labor rates.”

Reynolds said it developed the SPG Master Certification Program in response to the research findings, to offer additional training and coaching for dealers to help them increase SPG utilization and improve business results.

The program is led by SPG experts from Reynolds, and includes classroom instruction and system specification refinement.

Once dealers complete the training, Reynolds said its team will monitor the dealership’s performance for one year. If the dealer achieves pre-defined goals for increased SPG utilization and effective labor rate increases, he or she then achieves full SPG Master Certification at the end of the 12-month period.

Nearly two dozen dealerships piloted the SPG Master Certification Program, with results tracked over a one-year period. Reynolds said these dealerships achieved “measurable increases to critical variables in their service operations,” including an average increase in effective labor rates of $2.75 over the period, which equated to an average of nearly $85,000 more per dealership in annual profits.

For more information on the Reynolds SPG tool, visit www.reyrey.com/SPG.