In my 16 years at DealerPRO Training analyzing 500 + Trailer and R . V . stores , the most overlooked asset in service is Technician Productivity . The real shocker is that most stores don ’ t track it . If a dealer could increase his new and used trailer sales gross profit by 50 %, he would say , “ Heck yeah , let ’ s start today !” Well , that same opportunity exists in your service department .
First , let ’ s define technician productivity . You take how many billed hours a technician produces in a pay period and divide it by how many hours they were on the clock . For example , if a technician produces 18 billable hours while being on the clock for 40 hours , which equals 45 % productivity ( 18 divided by 40 = . 45 or 45 %). In most of the stores that I visit , their technicians are around 45-50 % productive . What should your store be ? At least 80 %! So , let ’ s talk about how you will improve the technician productivity at your store .
Measure the productivity of each technician daily .
You can build a simple excel spreadsheet or write it down manually . You ’ ll want to log how many hours the technician was on the clock each day , how many hours were billed to your customers ( can be internal and external ), and the percentage of productivity . In addition to tracking each tech , you should also calculate the total shop . Set goals for each technician and review their previous day ’ s performance first thing every morning .
Identify which technicians are performing below your goal and find out why . Are they spending their day in the bay working ? Did the parts department order the wrong part ? Was there a delay in getting authorization to perform a repair ? Were they doing nontechnical work ?
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