It's important to know what ratio your staff should be at in order to bring success to the shop. Between the years of 2006 and 2015, Toledo Auto Care in Toledo, Ohio, nearly doubled in size, and owner, Greg Pontious Jr., had to come up with a solution to properly address the shop's new environment.
“We were over-staffing in our original location and that was when we learned what would be the ideal staffing scenario [for the business],” Pontious says.
The ideal method for the business has been to staff two service advisors for every four technicians, explains Pontious.
“There’s a couple of things we take into consideration: expenses and keeping the shop lean and profitable, but also capable of being able to produce sales and hours that need to be done; the second thing [to take into consideration] is a good service advisor to technician ratio,” Pontious says.
According to Pontious, service advisors should ideally be able to handle 8-10 cars per day, while technicians at the shop should be able to handle 4-5 cars a day. In having two service advisors to every four technicians, the staff has been able to handle workload that comes in and better serve customers, which is the main goal at the end of the day.
Today, the 2+4 method is used as a way to properly set up staff for success in the development of future locations for the business. According to Pontious, the shop's second location in Toledo, Ohio on Heatherdowns Blvd. is pushing to have the fourth technician in place now.
