Tekmetric Is Now ISO/IEC 27001 Certified

"Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity—not a threat.” - Steve Jobs

Like any business owner, auto repair shop owners must consider all aspects of their business: operations, marketing, collections, bookkeeping, payroll, profitability, and customer service.

But how do you track, monitor, and gain control over these various business functions and analyze the relationship between them? Many shop owners turn to automotive computer programs as a solution, but there are a lot of options to consider. As you research automotive computer programs, you may be asking yourself:

Is it better to have one program for each business function, or one system that covers various aspects? What is the right mix of programs?

Tekmetric is a cloud-based shop management system; but that doesn’t mean all other software and systems out there align with what our software can do. Some automotive computer programs cover diagnostics, some focus on marketing, some focus on digital inspections, and there are some systems out there that check off most—if not all—the boxes.

There is a lot to consider when determining which automotive computer programs are right for your business, and we want to make sure your shop’s needs are met.

Chargebacks are something that no shop owner wants to deal with.

Your business relies on big-ticket sales, and chargebacks on those sales can squeeze your margins.

When a guest goes through their bank or credit card company to get a refund, whether it’s because they were unhappy with the repair or not, it can leave shop owners in a bind where they might have to eat the cost of the labor, parts, and profit.

There are some cases where business owners can make a case against the chargeback, but it can be a lengthy process and most banks and credit card companies will side with the cardholder who’s making the complaint.

Protecting your business from chargebacks doesn’t start when the payment is processed, nor does it end with being reimbursed for a single chargeback. The best way to protect your business from chargebacks is to establish clear, open communication with your guests and adhere to a consistent and secure payment process.

Always Get Your Guests’ Consent Before Doing Work

When your service advisors take guests through the repair order, they should listen carefully to what the client wants; service advisors can never be too careful.

If that means spending some extra time to review the repair order with the guest, it’s time well spent.

A little more time spent on the front-end can save you a lot more time on the back-end. Once the RO is thoroughly reviewed, you can get either written or verbal consent for the work and the cost. It’s worth keeping in mind that it’s easier to document written consent.

Using a shop management system like Tekmetric where the guest can see the courtesy inspection and click through and select the work they want and the work they want to put on hold can set clearer guidelines for both the guest and the service advisor.

Establish a Transparent Relationship with Your Guests

Providing excellent customer service is good practice for any auto repair shop, but it also goes a long way toward preventing chargebacks.

Let your guests know that you’re committed and dedicated to fixing their problem, even if that means taking their vehicle back into the shop if the guest is not 100% satisfied.

If you make it clear to your guests that they can come back to you about any concerns, they are far less likely to go to their bank or credit card company first. And it’s better to do a little extra work to ease the mind of your guest than it is to give away an entire repair order for free or go through legal hassles.

If your shop doesn’t already have one, consider establishing a clear and easy return policy and make it visible to guests via signage or with messaging on repair orders.

Simple policies such as “If you’re not satisfied, call us, and we’ll make it right” can go a long way in terms of letting guests know they should go straight to you if there’s something wrong.

See how your shop stacks up against thousands of auto repair shops nationwide

You track your ARO. Maybe you watch your car count week over week. You know when a month is good and when it's below par.

But here's a question most shop owners can't answer quickly: Compared to shops like yours, are your numbers strong, average, or quietly underperforming?

There's a real difference between a number that's improving and a number that's competitive. A shop can grow ARO year over year and still be well below what high-performing shops are seeing in their market. Without an external reference point, you don't know which situation you're in.

That's the problem benchmarking solves, and it's the reason the data matters more than the direction.

Internal Tracking Tells You the Trend. Benchmarking Tells You the Truth.

Internal performance tracking is essential. If you don't know your ARO, car count, parts margin, and effective labor rate, you're managing without the most basic tools. But internal tracking has a structural limitation: it can only tell you how you're doing relative to your own history.

That's useful for spotting momentum — a rising ARO, a growing car count, tighter parts margin. What it can't tell you is whether your baseline is strong or weak relative to the market.

A shop with a $580 ARO that has grown from $520 over two years has made real progress. But if top-performing shops in their region are averaging significantly higher, that progress hasn't closed the competitive gap. It's just moved in the right direction.

The fix isn't to stop internal tracking. It's to add an external benchmark so you know what the target actually looks like.

➡ See how your ARO compares →

The Problem With Benchmarking From Anecdotes

Many shop owners get their benchmarks the informal way: conversations with peers at trade shows, numbers shared in coaching groups, or revenue figures posted in forums. These have real value, but they're also limited.

Self-reported numbers skew high (people share their wins). Peer groups are small samples. Industry averages from trade associations are often lagged and lack the granularity you need to compare fairly — a six-bay shop in a suburban market shouldn't be benchmarking against national averages that include dealership-adjacent shops in metro areas.

The more useful comparison is data drawn from shops operating in similar conditions, at similar scale, tracked in a consistent and anonymized way.

What Good Benchmarking Actually Looks Like

Effective benchmarking for an auto repair shop compares you on the four metrics that most directly drive profitability:

• ARO: Are you getting full value from each car that comes through your door?
• Car count: Is your volume where it needs to be to support your revenue goals?
• Parts margin: Are you protecting margin as supplier costs fluctuate?
• Effective labor rate: Is your real revenue per labor hour aligned with your posted rate?

Each of these metrics has a different lever. If your ARO is lagging, the fix usually involves inspection completion rates or customer communication. If your car count is stagnant, the issue is typically acquisition or retention. If your parts margin is eroding, your pricing matrix needs a look. If your effective labor rate is low, it's often a discounting or packaging problem.

Benchmarking tells you which problem to solve first. That's valuable when you have limited time and you're trying to prioritize.

How the Tekmetric Shop Index Works

The Tekmetric Shop Index is a free benchmarking tool built from data collected across more than 12,000 auto repair shops. Enter your shop's metrics and get an instant comparison showing where you stand on each of the four key measures. No Tekmetric account is required. Anyone can use it.

The output isn't a vague grade — it shows you where each metric ranks and gives you a clear picture of where the gap is largest. That's the signal that tells you where to focus first.

➡ Benchmark your shop now →

What to Do After You See Your Rankings

The benchmarking data is the starting point, not the finish line. Once you know which metric is your biggest gap, you can start asking the right questions:

• If ARO is lagging: How consistently are your technicians completing and sending digital vehicle inspections (DVIs)? Are customers seeing and approving the recommended work?
• If car count is flat: Are you actively pursuing new customers? Are return visit intervals optimized? Are declined jobs being followed up?
• If parts margin is soft: When did you last review your parts pricing matrix? Is it adjusting for recent cost increases from your vendors?
• If the effective labor rate is low: Are service writers building jobs accurately? Are discounts being applied consistently or inconsistently?

Each of these questions points toward a workflow, and Tekmetric's reporting is built to surface the answers at the job, technician, and service writer level. But even before you get to that step, knowing which question to ask is most of the work.

➡ Benchmark your shop now →

The Shops Getting This Right

High-performing shops don't treat benchmarking as a one-time exercise. They check their rankings periodically, track how their numbers shift against the industry baseline, and use the comparison to coach their teams with context.

"You're at 85% DVI completion" is a data point. "You're at 85% completion, and top shops are at 95%" is a coaching conversation with direction.

"Seeing them take the shift to Tekmetric and then grow profitability in the same four walls has been phenomenal. Some of them are just exponential."  — Matt Schwab, Clutch Automotive, Tekmetric Customer

Takeaways

• Internal tracking shows you direction; benchmarking shows you position.
• The four metrics — ARO, car count, parts margin, effective labor rate — are the right comparison points.
• Good benchmarking data is consistent, anonymized, and drawn from shops with similar operating profiles.
• The TSI tool is free, built from more than 12,000 shops, and gives you an instant read on where your gaps are largest.
• Your benchmark result tells you which lever to pull first — and that's where the work starts.

Once you know your gaps, the next step is building a system to close them.

➡ Benchmark your shop now →

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