However, it’s important to stay consistent in also attracting new customers rather than relying solely on the group of existing customers you build up as your shop expands its reputation for good repair work.
While walk-ins are certainly a thing, it isn’t the best bet to depend on them as your sole way of getting new customers. Instead, take proactive approaches to gain a steady stream of new customers coming through your doors.
Community work allows you to not only expose the business to potential new customers but also make a positive impact on the people and places you call home.
Do something good by feeding the homeless, supporting your city’s high school, or raising money for a local nonprofit, like Casey’s Automotive did for Ellie's Hats.
Partner with an adjacent local business, like a car wash or detail facility to establish a flow or referrals between your business and theirs.
According to Mary, advertising locally is one of the most effective techniques to draw new customers into your shop.
Some reliable local advertising mediums include local papers, school mailers, sports programs, small magazines, or even something as simple as hanging up flyers at adjacent businesses.
Running special promotions is a great way to attract new customers. Haglin Automotive provides first-time customers with an oil change special or $25 off a repair each quarter with a seasonal savings card sent to every customer.
A few examples of social media auto repair promotion ideas include both sponsored content and visual advertisements.
When you advertise your auto repair shop on social media, make sure you consider:
A strong automotive SEO strategy will help make your business appear higher in the Google listings when someone searches a keyword in your area.
Pro-tip: the first step you should take to improve SEO is to list your business on Google, then regularly update your website with new content.
Always remember the customers who have been visiting your shop since the beginning. As Mary says, you’ll also want to employ strategies that help retain existing customers and increase loyalty.
Vehicle maintenance can become less of a priority for customers who don’t set their own personal reminders on vehicle maintenance.
By investing in a shop management system that gives you and your team full visibility into what repairs customers have had previously and exactly which repairs they’ve declined, your service advisors have the opportunity to remind them of repairs and maintenance work that may be needed soon, saving them money on what could become more expensive repairs later on.
Your customers will appreciate that you are looking out for them and their vehicles amidst everything else they have to manage, and you can bring more revenue into your shop, too.
One aspect of marketing that Mary prioritizes at Tekmetric is the reliable information that the customer success team provides to Tekmetric users. Implement Digital Vehicle Inspections into your technician’s processes.
With Tekmetric’s DVIs, you can attach images and videos along with your findings, building trust with customers while clearly showing them what’s going on with their vehicles.
Giving small gifts to your customers during holidays, birthdays, or other celebratory times of the year is a great way to show customers that you appreciate their business.
A simple coffee mug with your logo on it could spark the next conversation about your shop when they have their friend over for coffee.
Never underestimate the power of word-of-mouth auto repair shop marketing.
Provide your loyal customers with a gift showing how much you appreciate them.
Implementing a loyalty program in your shop will offer your customers important benefits that keep them coming back.
Or, for returning customers, one of the best ways to give and receive is to create a referral challenge that incentivizes existing customers to refer people to your shop for a reward.
Make your program attractive to customers and easy to track.
Upping your social media game can sound intimidating at first, which is why Mary recommends making it fun.
Consider sharing testimonials from satisfied customers, posting “day-in-the-life” or “behind-the-scenes” looks at what goes on in your shop from your perspective or the perspective of a technician, sending out e-newsletters with fun shop updates and vehicle knowledge, or making applicable “how-to” videos for sticky situations such as flat tires.
No matter what auto repair promotion ideas you put into place at your shop, you’ll want to track what works and what doesn’t.
With regular, careful analysis of the results, you’ll put your shop in the best possible position to generate more profits as cost-efficiently as possible.
Selecting a shop management system that allows you to track your auto repair shop marketing strategies will provide you with insights into who your most loyal customers are, how they found your business, and why they keep coming back.
Tekmetric's former Marketing Coordinator Mary Payton had the chance to share these go-to marketing strategies to attract new customers and retain existing customers with Vehicle Service Pros. Access her full piece here.
Most shop owners have a feel for how their business is doing. They know the slow weeks, the strong months, and whether the bays stayed full. What they often don't have is a good way to compare those numbers against anyone else.
That gap is where opportunity hides — and it's exactly what the Tekmetric Shop Index is built to close.
The Tekmetric Shop Index is a free benchmarking tool that lets you enter your shop's key metrics and instantly see how you stack up against more than 10,000 auto repair shops nationwide. No Tekmetric account is required. No commitments either. It's just an honest look at where your shop stands on the four numbers that matter most.
Top-performing shops track these metrics religiously — and they know exactly where they stand relative to the industry. Here's what each one means, why it matters, and how your numbers compare.
➡ Try the Tekmetric Shop Index →
ARO is the average dollar amount of each repair order — total revenue divided by the number of cars you serviced. It's one of the most direct measures of how well your shop is selling and completing work.
A low ARO isn't always a bad sign on its own. But if your car count is healthy and your ARO is lagging, you could be leaving approved work on the table, underquoting, or missing opportunities to present needed repairs. A high ARO, on the other hand, means customers are approving more of the work their vehicles need.
ARO is also the metric most directly tied to your digital vehicle inspection process. Shops that complete digital vehicle inspections (DVIs) consistently — and share them with customers — tend to see higher approval rates and stronger AROs.
"I like the ease and the ability to be more transparent with my customers with detailed inspections and photos." — Verified Tekmetric User, G2
Car count measures how many vehicles you service in a given period. It's the volume side of the revenue equation. ARO tells you how much you make per car; car count tells you how many cars you're making it on.
Both numbers matter. You can have a strong ARO and still struggle to grow revenue if car count is stagnant. And you can have a strong car count but a weak ARO if jobs aren't being sold thoroughly. Top shops keep an eye on both.
Car count breaks down further into new customers and returning customers — a distinction that matters when you're trying to understand whether your growth is coming from acquisition or retention.
"Customers can review inspection results, check estimates, and approve repairs with just a click. Everything is integrated, making our workflow way smoother than before." — Verified Tekmetric User, G2
➡ See how your car count compares →
Parts margin is the percentage of profit you're earning on the parts you sell. It's calculated as (retail price minus cost) divided by retail price.
This one is easy to overlook, especially if your shop has been using the same parts pricing for years. But small differences in parts margin have a compounding effect across hundreds of repair orders. If your parts pricing isn't keeping up with cost increases from your suppliers, your margin erodes quietly.
Top shops use tiered parts matrices that automatically adjust markup based on part cost ranges, protecting margin without requiring manual pricing decisions on every job.
"We were stuck at a certain level. … Once we made the switch, it just opened doors — payments, parts ordering, inventory — it all became more streamlined." — Tim Lanier, Lanier Auto Group, Tekmetric Customer
➡ See how your parts margin compares →
Effective labor rate is the actual dollar amount your shop earns per labor hour — not your posted rate, but what you actually collect after discounts, flat-rate work, and packaged pricing.
A shop might post a $140/hour labor rate but collect significantly less per hour because of how jobs are built, discounted, or packaged. Tracking effective labor rate surfaces that gap and gives you something concrete to address.
This metric also helps you evaluate how well your labor matrix is working or whether you need one.
"I value its cloud-based agility and the way its real-time shop management board eliminates the bottleneck at the service desk … handling parts tracking and labor margins seamlessly." — Verified Tekmetric User, G2
➡ See how your effective labor rate compares →
These four metrics are the foundation of shop performance analysis. But knowing what they are is only half of it. The other half is knowing how your numbers compare — not to a theoretical ideal, but to real shops in the real industry.
That's what the Tekmetric Shop Index is built to show you. It's a free benchmarking tool that lets you enter your shop's numbers and instantly see how you compare to shops across the country on ARO, car count, parts margin, and effective labor rate. No Tekmetric account is required.
"With the implementation of Tekmetric we have seen a dramatic increase in business and positive feedback from customers." — Verified Shop Owner using Tekmetric, G2
You can't improve what you don't measure. And you can't prioritize improvements without knowing where the gaps actually are.
See how your shop compares. The Tekmetric Shop Index is free, takes less than two minutes, and doesn't require a Tekmetric account.
Thought Leadership
June 26, 2026
When he set off to create Tekmetric, founder and CEO Sunil Patel had an ace up his sleeve: experience running his independent auto repair shop.
Running a repair shop is the background of everything we do. It's that partnership between Tekmetric and the auto repair shops that leverage the platform daily that enable us to build the absolute best tool for the job: running an independent auto repair shop.
So we set out on a mission to deepen our connection with our customers and understand each shop's unique challenges and wins by visiting as many customers as possible.
We wanted to understand the unique challenges and victories each shop faces, to truly deepen our connection with you. The results? It blew us away. Your stories, your shops and your teams are the heart of what we do. You inspire us every day to provide the best solutions for the independent auto repair industry.
Whether your shop is general repair, like brakes, fluids and check engine lights, or a specialized business focused on older European cars, there’s one thing that’s always the same: the amazing, critical work your shop does to get people back on the road!
And it’s your amazing shops that use Tekmetric that make all this possible. Our customers' valuable feedback is what helps us develop a better platform, and the proof is in the pudding.
Just look at all the awards we’ve been winning because of our users, like you!
No one knows what it takes to run an independent auto repair shop better than the teams that rely on Tekmetric to power their operations.
Here's what we heard from shops and why they love Tekmetric:
Everything you need to run your shop is organized, tracked, and maintained in one tool.
Whether you're a shop owner peaking into real-time performance reports or analyzing shop trends, a general manager ensuring cars flow quickly and efficiently through your shops, a service advisor supporting customers, or even a technician fixing cars, Tekmetric can help your shop operate like a well-oiled inline 6.
We constantly hear how shop owners have leveraged Tekmetric to grow their business in ways they never expected.
Whether that means opening and managing multiple locations, simply adding a few new bays moving into a larger location, or even expanding your operations to service more customers, Tekmetric's simplicity and complete control over your shop makes it easy to track, plan, and grow.
Because we're so customer-obsessed, we're always here to help! As a cloud-based solution, Tekmetric helps run your shop by doing a lot of the operational "heavy lifting," so to speak.
Not only do we provide the right tools for the job, but we're here to partner with your shop. Our support doesn't end, and we're always a quick message or phone call away, anytime you need support!
Because we're here to help your great shop get even better, we're always open to hearing how we can make Tekmetric even better!
Want to see Tekmetric in action? Book a demo today to see how you can revolutionize your shop operations.
Digital Vehicle Inspection software enables auto repair shops to go beyond a traditional paper system for inspections and repair order estimates.
Customers have become accustomed to a digital experience every time they shop, and having their car fixed is no different. Auto repair shops need to update their processes to meet those expectations. When look specifically at auto repair shops, there are even more opportunities to go digital beyond receipts.
Printed estimates may seem like a professional way to present work to customers. But the problem is that paper estimates don’t really show drivers what’s wrong with their vehicles.
The result? Customers approve a small sliver of work, or worse, go to another auto repair shop for a second opinion.
Digital vehicle inspections not only save time and paper but also build trust and enhance the customer experience. Not to mention, they help sell larger repairs and increase customer loyalty.
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