A homebuilder friend shared his success model: measure twice, cut once.

A car dealer’s equivalent might be the irrefutable yardstick we like to refer to as transparency, accountability and profitability, which make up the measure twice, cut once edge for improving reconditioning outcomes:

• Transparency, so you can see and manage in real-time what is happening in fixed and variable — and so customers have access to vehicle history data, service maintenance reports and evidence for the reconditioning done to the vehicle to help build value in your price and trust in your organization.

• Accountability, throughout your workflow processes so everyone works in a “hot potato” fashion to move cars forward from acquisition to sale, knowing their performance is the measurement of their success and yours, and,

• Profitability, increased through management by metrics, which in reconditioning means consistent and constant measurement and control of two essential time-based key performance indicators, time to line (T2L) and Average Days in Recon (ADR). For dealers practicing our T2L efficiency standards, their time to get cars frontline ready drops by 80%!

A dealership’s fixed and variable operations monitored and managed by T2L and ADR eliminate waste, save time and resources, and improve customer engagement. Some of the bits of information T2L recon provides for more insightful operations includes:

• Where are my cars?
• Where’s the data to support that decision?
• How are we doing — what does T2L performance here or within the group say about our efficiency and hidden costs?
• What are our recon costs – and how can I build trust and confidence with customers by sharing select recon investments with them?
• How can I measure my recon investment-to-sales return?

Transparency and accountability in vehicle reconditioning directly influence so much of your business. I’ve listed many of them already, but let’s not miss mentioning how reconditioning software delivering transparency and accountability — from vehicle acquisition to sale — also includes time-to-line speed to sale, turn, holding cost depreciation, aging, internal service and parts revenue and labor hours, technician efficiency, customer sales lead conversion, and demand satisfaction.