Revving Up Profitability: The Top 3 Scheduling Myths for the Auto Service Industry

The benefits of scheduling are often overlooked by car washes, oil lubes, and auto detailers alike, all generally considering it a low maintence task.

Scheduling doesn’t take our managers very long, so why should we invest in more advanced scheduling solutions?

Because effective scheduling practices create healthy profits, satisfied customers, and happy employees.

How can so much power be in a schedule? Read below to uncover the top 3 scheduling myths for the auto industry and learn how to transform your people, profits, and performance with smarter scheduling practices.

Myth #1: Scheduling is simple and static.

It’s tempting to copy and paste one week’s schedule over to the next. It’s quick and dirty. But dirty is never an aspiration in the car wash industry.

From rainy weather making car washes obsolete for the day to a rivalry high school football game driving down Friday’s rush hour services, varying demand is a constant hurdle for the car wash and auto lube industries.

And that hurdle becomes life-threatening when using a static schedule. Overstaffed shifts equate to wasted labor dollars. Understaffed shifts mean overtime penalty pay, poor customer service, and missed sales.

But how can you predict future demand when creating schedules?

With smarter scheduling solutions! While payroll or POS providers often offer free scheduling tools…well, they’re free for a reason. They meet the needs of a static schedule, not a schedule created around forecasted demand.

The best advanced scheduling solutions begin with AI-powered forecasting. Using state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms, AI forecasting can analyze your company’s historical data– think internal data like sales, cars serviced per hour, dollar per car, and promotions, and external data like weather, holidays, and local events– to detect patterns, uncover trends, and identify outliers to predict future demand.

When integrated into your scheduling solution, forecasts can help you see the future. They can clearly identify how many cars should visit your location during every hour of every day, with some solutions predicting down to 15-minute intervals.

With these insights in hand, managers can easily create demand-driven schedules, deploying the right number of employees at the right time, saving your business money while delighting your customers.

Myth #2: Scheduling does not impact profitability.

We’ve already hinted at the strong correlation between hourly employee scheduling and profitability for the auto service industry, but let’s dive deeper.

Armed with an accurate forecast, managers can optimize labor deployment around demand, helping you reduce systematic inefficiencies like over or under-staffing. This is often referred to as demand-driven scheduling.

Taking it a step further, advanced scheduling solutions should allow you to customize your labor rules, guaranteeing managers schedule correctly based on demand. For example, for every 5 cars at your location, you require 3 employees. When managers go to create the schedule, they will be required to match those pre-set labor rules based on forecasted demand. Better yet, with auto-scheduling functionality, this could all be done in a single click.

HotSchedules, for example, is built to help you put demand-driven scheduling on autopilot. Our customers see an average of a 3 to 5% reduction in labor budgets across all locations by scheduling to meet demand. That’s some serious cash back in your pockets to help improve your profit margins and re-invest in your business.

And with any service business, when our customers are met with speedy service and smiling faces, they’re more likely to return and/or buy memberships.

Myth #3: Scheduling does not impact employee retention.

Did you know 80% of employees believe having a flexible work schedule makes them happier at their jobs? Did you also know companies who offer flexible work arrangements experience a 12% increase in employee retention?

While much of employee flexibility conversations center around salaried, office-style employees, flexibility is equally important to hourly service workers. But what does it mean, exactly?

Flexibility is having control over your schedule, or the ability to easily release, swap, or pick-up shifts with fellow employees. “Easy” is a key factor here. Easy does not mean walking into the location to view next week’s schedule or having to text or call employees asking for a shift swap.

Today, employees want mobile access to their schedules with an app allowing them to release their shifts for others to pick up, or for them to press a button to pick up a shift a fellow co-worker released. They also want a way to communicate with their co-workers that doesn’t involve sharing their personal contact information.

It’s important for your scheduling solution to have a mobile app or website with this functionality. HotSchedules, for example, is the top-rated employee scheduling app in the Apple Store and allows employees to swap, drop, or pick-up shifts with manager approval. It also has one-to-one and group messaging capabilities, so all work-related communication stays in the app.

HotSchedules empowers hourly workers with flexibility

But if you really want to stand out from your competitor down the street, you should also consider one of the most in-demand employee benefits for hourly workers: on-demand pay.

Here’s some impressive stats around on-demand pay:

• 95% of workers prefer employers that offer on-demand pay
• 74% of workers report fewer unplanned absences because of on-demand pay
• 79% of workers say they’d be willing to switch employers for on-demand pay

On-demand pay allows workers to draw a portion of their previously earned wages before their traditional payday. Imagine if you could tell your applicants that at your company, every day can be payday. Whether they need to pay an unexpected bill, want to pay a loan off faster, or just need money fast, on-demand pay grants employees a level of financial security and wellness they simply couldn’t have before.

HotSchedules, for example, seamlessly integrates with an on-demand pay solution at no cost to the employer. This allows employees to see previously earned and forecasted wages, encouraging shift pick-ups, and allows them to withdraw up to 50% of their previously earned wages before payday. HotSchedules fronts the cost of these wages, further protecting the company from any potential financial risks.

Smarter Scheduling with HotSchedules

Scheduling has the power to create healthy profits, satisfied customers, and happy employees, but only when you work with an intelligent scheduling solution.

HotSchedules is the #1 employee scheduling app, helping car washes, quick lubes, and detailers optimize throughput, drive repeat customers, and increase profitability. Equipped with AI-forecasting, labor optimization, and employee engagement tools, HotSchedules is ready to kick your schedules into high gear. Learn more here.