Our customers that have limited funds to spend are now being forced to choose between fuel in the tank or maintenance. Fuel in the tank will always win this battle so we need to be proactive to keep car counts rising for our shops. Develop a solid in house marketing system for you customer base with customer only specials. An air conditioning performance check that includes odor controls is a good item now. Child safety seat inspections always develop great public relations and generate traffic for sales departments as well. Free local publicity always follows child safety and saving lives of local children is a real possibility. Calling local customers informing them of open recall campaigns is a great way to develop repair order counts with customers concerned about safety. These are the customers willing to spend money to improve their family's safety with maintenance. Mandate daily contacts with verification to insure a solid team effort

All major manufactures are paying special attention to training standards. It is wise to develop individual training plans for every Technician that will not catch your shop in substandard performance requiring lost time in the summer months. Proper planning will keep your Technicians turning consistent hours instead of putting out fires with pressure form factory representatives.