Let’s Do our Best
As uncertainty continues to arise these next few weeks/months we may be in survival mode at our businesses. I recently had meetings with my software team, and both shops, to do my best to address the future. I thought it would be a good idea to share my meeting points:
The bad:
- Nobody knows how bad this is… or how bad it will get.
- We will probably have some slow weeks coming up.
- If you get sick stay home.
- Yes the government will do their best to try to help, but covering employee paychecks is only part of the cost of running a business. And depending on how quickly they work (which is never quick) some places will go out of business due to no/zero traffic coming through their doors.
What are our goals:
- Keep our doors open, and everyone employed. We have some cash in the bank, and that hopefully will help us get through these slow times.
- Promote drop off and pickup. We can do everything remote: Text message updates, Digital Vehicle Inspections, Text to Pay, key drop box, and online scheduling.
- To keep the crew healthy promote drop off and pickup. Offer shuttle rides, and uber to keep customers home.
- Promote our final quality control process, and the steps we are taking to keep us and the customer safe.
- Wear gloves at all times, and wash your hands often.
- The power of small business is the ability to navigate quickly, we cannot bury our heads in the sand. If/when we need to navigate we will.
Bottom line is we are going to do the best we can to weather this storm, and you should too.
Chris Cloutier
Architect/President at Autoflow
The Desire for Continuous Improvement
As an auto repair shop owner of Golden Rule Auto Care, Chris Cloutier realized the need for a better way to communicate with his customers as he observed how communication gaps created bottleneck situations and wasted valuable rack time.
