Getting technicians involved in finding and selling additional repair work, with the help of automated tools, is a key to increasing profitability in dealership service departments, according to a new report from Reynolds and Reynolds.

The report, titled The Fixed Operations Golden Metrics, focuses on metrics that drive fixed ops decision-making and how dealerships can improve their results.

The metrics are broken down based on the dealerships’ volume of repair orders and the type of area they’re located in – major urban, metro, community or rural. In terms of volume, the dealerships are separated into five classes: less than 300 ROs per month (Class 1), 301-499 (Class 2), 500-849 (Class 3), 850-1,199 (Class 4) and more than 1,200 a month in Class 5.

“When outcome sources become too diverse, benchmarks end up overly generic and applicable to very few actual cases,” Reynolds vice president of fixed operations product management Jason Sideris said in a news release. “This report is a unique opportunity to provide dealers with a sharper image than the benchmark data the industry has previously supplied.

“We all know there are differences between service departments in major urban versus rural settings and between high-volume and low-volume departments. By segmenting the data, we can all compare and understand outcomes more accurately.”

Jason Sideris

The breakdowns show marked differences between the classes in size and location in what Reynolds calls “the golden metrics” – total hours sold and hours per repair order, effective labor rate and profit per customer-pay RO.

That said, technicians’ participating in the selling process was one area that showed consistent results throughout the classes.

“Each of the golden metrics … is plagued by things outside the dealership’s control,” the report said. “However, there is one factor dealerships can directly control: the technician’s involvement in selling hours. … The data shows the more the technician can be involved in the quoting process, the better performing the dealership is across all three metrics.”

The report noted technicians’ impact increased significantly with the use of tools designed to increase efficiency and accuracy. The data showed using that technology resulted in increases in hours sold, effective labor rate and profit per RO for all volume classes, with increases in average profit ranging from almost $15,000 per month for low-volume Class 1 service departments to more than $42,000 for Class 5 at their minimum level of 1,200 ROs per month.

The full report can be downloaded here.