We've Been Sharpening the Wrong Sword
What if the model changes — and we don't notice until it's already gone?
I’ve been getting better at this job for 30 years. And I believe most of you have too. Smarter processes, tighter operations, better communication with customers. But a question has been sitting with me lately that I can't shake. Better at what, exactly? And is what we've gotten better at still the thing that wins if the game underneath us changes?
Not cleaner video MPI. Not a more organized shop. The actual game.
What If Everything Fundamentally Changed?
01
Routine work exits the building.
Mobile service, subscriptions, quick lube operations, and independents are already pulling oil changes and tire rotations out of the dealership. If that trend accelerates and it will — what's left at the shop is the complex stuff. Diagnostics, warranty, major repairs, recalls. The shop becomes a specialist facility. Not a general service center. Are we staffing and training for that version of the job?
02
Cameras are coming whether we invite them or not.
Customers watch their dogs at daycare on a live cam. They track their DoorDash driver block by block in real time. The idea that a car owner should accept a phone call as the only window into what's happening with their vehicle is already starting to feel dated. When that expectation fully arrives in fixed ops, the shops ready for transparency win. The ones that aren't will lose trust faster than they can recover it.
03
Appointments that actually mean something.
Not "drop it off by 7:30." A real time. In at 10, out by noon — or we've communicated exactly why not. The way a dentist works. The way an HVAC tech works. A time that means something to the customer, not just a slot that works for our throughput model. The shops that crack this first are going to own a loyalty advantage the rest of us will struggle to close.
04
The advisor skill set has to change with it.
Explaining a complex diagnostic finding to a customer watching on a live camera is not the same skill as a traditional write-up and a phone call. The tech who can walk an intermittent fault to ground and document it clearly is a completely different animal than a high-volume throughput tech. Are we developing those people right now, or are we still training for the old version of the shop?
05
We've been training on assumptions we never named.
Volume, routine maintenance as the foot traffic engine, customers who accept ambiguity as the price of service. All of that is baked into the way we measure performance, hire, and develop people. What happens when those assumptions stop being true and our training hasn't caught up yet?
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“We've been sharpening the sword. Nobody stopped to ask whether it's still the right weapon.”
DAVE FOY · FIXED OP MASTERMIND
FROM THE PODCAST
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Open Floor: Where Is It Already Happening?
I want to open the floor on this one and hear where you think it's already happening in your market. Bring your observations — and your skepticism.
THURSADY· 2:00 PM ET
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DAVE FOY
FOUNDER · FIXED OP MASTERMIND
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