Every month, a service manager pulls up the department report and things look fine. Effective labor rate is where it should be. Hours per RO look healthy. Gross profit percentage is holding steady. By every department measure, the store is performing.
But a department total only tells you what happened. It doesn’t tell you why. And if you manage a team of advisors, why is that the question that actually matters?
Here’s the example I use to make that point. Let’s say Becky had 27 opportunities last month and closed three of them. Danny had the same 27 opportunities and closed 13. That means Becky closed 11% while Danny closed 48%. That is a massive performance difference that a department-level average can easily hide.
Same opportunity. Wildly different outcome.
The department average can absorb that gap and still look acceptable. That’s the problem. A number that looks fine at the department level can be hiding exactly the kind of gap you need to see at the advisor level.
Start with the measures that matter
When I look at advisor performance, I’m watching five things:
- Effective labor rate
- Hours per RO
- Gross profit percentage
- Opportunity penetration
- Closing rates
The first three tell me what the scoreboard looks like. Opportunity penetration and closing rate help explain how we got there. I start to look at what the opportunity was and how we closed it. That gives me a real apples-to-apples comparison, because it accounts for what each advisor actually had in front of them, not just what they turned into revenue.
You need both halves. Results without opportunity context can mislead you in either direction. An advisor can look strong simply because they had easier work in front of them all month, or look weak because they didn’t.
Compare like opportunity before you label a gap
The next question I ask is whether the conditions were actually comparable. Before I decide that two advisors’ results are telling me something real, I want to see:
- A similar opportunity count
- A similar number of vehicles
- Relatively similar mileage
- A comparable work mix
If two advisors had the same amount of opportunity, the same number of cars, and relatively the same mileage, but one sold meaningfully more than the other, that’s where you can start to see an actual gap rather than just a difference in work mix.
That distinction matters.
A gap explained by work mix is a scheduling or dispatch conversation. A gap that survives a fair comparison is a coaching conversation.
I want to be careful here, because this is a diagnostic starting point, not proof of an employee problem. It’s a reason to investigate, not a verdict. You’re looking for a likely performance gap, and the next step is understanding it, not assuming it.
Share the data and ask why
Once I see a real difference, the next move is a conversation, not a conclusion. I’m a proponent of sharing the data and showing the advisor: here’s everyone’s opportunity, here’s where you stand compared to everybody else.
That said, I’m not sure there’s an easy way for someone to just flip a switch by looking at a spreadsheet. The data creates the specificity. The coaching does the work. Sometimes that means a manager drawing on their own advisor experience to walk through a better approach to a specific job. Sometimes the more effective move is putting the stronger performer next to the one who’s struggling, because hearing it from the person working right next to you can go a long way with advisors.
Turn what you find into a focused goal
Data on its own doesn’t move anyone. A specific goal does. I like to find a maintenance opportunity where penetration is low even though the service is popular with customers, set a minimum goal around it, and then figure out how to incentivize advisors to go beyond that minimum.
Once I’ve got that opportunity in mind, we decide what the minimum goal is, and then we figure out how to incentivize advisors to hit above and beyond it.
What that incentive looks like varies. I’ve used individual spiffs, a department lunch, a night out for the team.
None of that is a formula. What matters is that the goal is specific and measurable, so the team has something concrete to aim at instead of a vague instruction to sell more.
Clean opcodes and pay types protect the analysis
None of this works if the underlying data can’t be trusted, and that comes down to two things: op codes and pay types.
High-performing stores have an op code for just about everything they do. That consistency matters, because it takes the guesswork out of it for advisors. No guessing, no wondering about which code to use. But more codes isn’t automatically better. Three codes for the same battery replacement is unnecessary duplication. Two codes might make sense if one version of that repair takes meaningfully more labor, like a job that also requires pulling a passenger seat. The standard is whether the code represents a real difference and whether advisors use it the same way every time.
Pay type deserves the same discipline. Plenty of stores run several pay types under the customer-pay umbrella, including reduced-rate work for fleet or enterprise accounts. If an advisor logs a job under the wrong pay type, that opportunity effectively disappears from your visibility, and it will skew the very numbers you’re trying to use to coach the team.
Op code and pay type are really huge. Get those wrong and everything built on top of them is suspect. If you’re going to manage at the advisor level, you need confidence that the advisor-level data is accurate.
You've got to really make sure that the opcodes you have are being utilized and that advisors are consistent with it.
Sustainable improvement takes time and accountability
A new process almost always produces a short-term bump. That’s not the same as real improvement. You really need to see consistent improvement show up in your KPIs over multiple months. It could be 90 days, it could be 180 days, but you’ve got to see it time and time again before you call it a change in behavior rather than a blip.
It’s a little like getting a young kid to brush their teeth. It takes repeating the same reminder for a while before it becomes something they just do. Dealership teams work the same way. A new process needs reinforcement, repeated and consistent, until it’s simply how the team operates.
That’s really the whole point. A process without accountability is just a report. The data can show you where the opportunity is. It’s on the manager to reinforce the process and hold the team to it long enough for the behavior to actually stick.
If you manage a Fixed Ops department, don’t stop at the department total next month. Pick one KPI, look at it advisor by advisor with a fair comparison in mind, and let that lead you to a specific question instead of a quick conclusion.
See what is driving your Fixed Ops performance
Dynatron helps dealership leaders examine the operating details behind their results so they can identify specific opportunities, guide focused coaching, and reinforce the processes that support sustained improvement. Book a 30-minute demo to get advisor-level visibility into opportunity, closing rates, and see where the gaps really are.
About the Author
Grant Bell
Senior Client Performance Coach, Dynatron
Grant Bell is a Senior Client Performance Coach at Dynatron with more than 20 years of experience in the automotive industry. He has coached more than 100 dealerships across the country, helping leaders identify opportunities to improve profitability, revenue, and overall Fixed Operations performance. Grant specializes in effective labor rate and pricing strategy, advisor and technician performance, warranty labor, process improvement, and data-driven performance management.
