Bob
01-03-2010, 06:14 PM
I've been to a lot of detailing shops and I must say a lot of the ones doing poorly are doing poorly because they have a poor atmosphere. Here are some of the problems I see and ways to correct them.
1. One shop I drive by daily always has an empty detail bay and two employees sitting in lawn chairs out front smoking (in the warmer months). This looks HORRIBLE. They also have a Limo rental business and the limos are always out front with folding advertising signs on top of it that look horrible. They have a PRIME location in our area and get tons of traffic of all kinds in front of their building every day, but who wants to take their vehicles to them or rent a limo from them when they don't even try to portray themselves as professional? I'm not knocking smokers here, but it's a marketing fact that having smokers out front or employees smoking around the main entrance is a turn off. What this place needs to do is make the employees that smoke, smoke in the rear of the building where traffic and potential customers can not see them. If they have nothing to clean have them clean the shop or the offices. There is always something to be done and there is noway you should ever be paying employees to sit around doing nothing.
As for the limos, they need to park these neater and off the street. For one, they are taking up customer parking! And two, the homemade advertising signs don't scream, "Professionals!"
2. Another shop I see always looks like crap. All they need to do is pull the weeds from the cracks of their concrete/asphalt and keep the weeds pulled, paint the building, and clean debris from the premises. I'd never consider taking my car to them or recommending them to anyone because of it.
3. A third shop we have in town is always busy but it usually from cars from his friends small used car lots. However, I've been into this one several times and the owner always has his friends in the shop and office hanging around. When a customer comes in to do business they don;t want to do business in front of all of your buddies hanging out at the shop. Save the gab for after work or do it in the break room.
4. Out of all the shops I've dealt with I can not think of one that has an employee dress code of any kind, except maybe to wear clothes. In my opinion everyone working for you and yourself, looks much more professional if they have on company shirts of some kind. It doesn't matter if it's t-shirts or polo/golf shirts but it looks so much more professional. You can have shirts with the company name printed on them or just require the employees to wear your company colors. Like a red shirt with black pants. Or they can wear jeans as long as they have on a green polo. Whatever it is, having a dress code like this will help you look more professional. There is a reason all the employees at the big stores and shops look alike.
Now, I'm not saying that just because shop doesn't appear professional that they do bad work. Some of the best work I've seen comes from guys with no shop at all. But if you're going to have a shop and a business it's very important that you, and anyone representing you, appear as professional as possible.
1. One shop I drive by daily always has an empty detail bay and two employees sitting in lawn chairs out front smoking (in the warmer months). This looks HORRIBLE. They also have a Limo rental business and the limos are always out front with folding advertising signs on top of it that look horrible. They have a PRIME location in our area and get tons of traffic of all kinds in front of their building every day, but who wants to take their vehicles to them or rent a limo from them when they don't even try to portray themselves as professional? I'm not knocking smokers here, but it's a marketing fact that having smokers out front or employees smoking around the main entrance is a turn off. What this place needs to do is make the employees that smoke, smoke in the rear of the building where traffic and potential customers can not see them. If they have nothing to clean have them clean the shop or the offices. There is always something to be done and there is noway you should ever be paying employees to sit around doing nothing.
As for the limos, they need to park these neater and off the street. For one, they are taking up customer parking! And two, the homemade advertising signs don't scream, "Professionals!"
2. Another shop I see always looks like crap. All they need to do is pull the weeds from the cracks of their concrete/asphalt and keep the weeds pulled, paint the building, and clean debris from the premises. I'd never consider taking my car to them or recommending them to anyone because of it.
3. A third shop we have in town is always busy but it usually from cars from his friends small used car lots. However, I've been into this one several times and the owner always has his friends in the shop and office hanging around. When a customer comes in to do business they don;t want to do business in front of all of your buddies hanging out at the shop. Save the gab for after work or do it in the break room.
4. Out of all the shops I've dealt with I can not think of one that has an employee dress code of any kind, except maybe to wear clothes. In my opinion everyone working for you and yourself, looks much more professional if they have on company shirts of some kind. It doesn't matter if it's t-shirts or polo/golf shirts but it looks so much more professional. You can have shirts with the company name printed on them or just require the employees to wear your company colors. Like a red shirt with black pants. Or they can wear jeans as long as they have on a green polo. Whatever it is, having a dress code like this will help you look more professional. There is a reason all the employees at the big stores and shops look alike.
Now, I'm not saying that just because shop doesn't appear professional that they do bad work. Some of the best work I've seen comes from guys with no shop at all. But if you're going to have a shop and a business it's very important that you, and anyone representing you, appear as professional as possible.