April 2020

is ultra-competitive; I’d say there are probably 300 in the town, with many more in the rest of Northamptonshire.” This makes being competitive absolutely vital, but Terry said weighing up price and quality and positioning accordingly is crucial in their market: “I think there is a balance. Our labour rate is not the cheapest. However, there are certain marketing methods that we have to entice people in. We never encourage people the wrong way. Technicians are never paid on up-sell or anything like that. They get paid a bonus on how efficient they are in the workshop, as opposed to what they are selling. It is our job to make sure they are indentifying issues. We then sell to the consumer in a layman’s way. We have the tools to show them, using TechMan really, to show them what needs to be done. “On cars, we are seeing on average B ehind every good story, you will usually find another good story. Take TechMan. The garage management system created by a garage, for garages - Striking story, but what is the story of that garage though? To find that out you need to visit In Town Automotive, in the heart of Northampton. The garage, operating out of a unit in a business park in the centre of town, is a big space. Within it are 13 ramps and 10 techs, with more bays set aside. We asked founder Terry Dorney the story behind the foundation of the garage: “In Town Automotive was born out of our parts company. It gave myself and my business partner Mike Palmer the idea of opening a garage, so we decided to purchase a small unit. The first idea was to buy it purely as commercial property to rent out, with a view to building some additional wealth within the business. We then decided to do it ourselves. “We took on one chap to run it, be the technician and do everything. Within the first year, our reputation was good, and we had four technicians on three ramps. This was in 2010. There was never really the aspiration to go to the next level and go next door. It was only because of our rapid growth, and the volume of cars we were seeing, which is up to 1,000 a month now. “We also quickly realized we did not want to outsource work such as MOT tests, or alloy wheel refurbishment etc. We then purchased the unit next door, which was another 8,000 square feet, put in an extra 10 ramps, and we went from there.” Customers and cars On the contrast between operating a 58 AFTERMARKET APRIL 2020 GARAGE VISIT www.aftermarketonline.net IN TOWN AUTOMOTIVE Above: Cars line up at In Town Automotive Aftermarket visits the Northampton garage founded by the brains behind Top Technician and Top Garage 2020 sponsors TechMan garage against being a supplier, Terry said: “It is very different. The demographic of customers is different to what we are used to. I think selling parts online, as we did originally is very much about people trying to save money. However, the garage customer, certainly the one that we attract, or try to attract, is one that actually wants to pay for a service, and is willing to invest in that. It is important. We’ve got nice courtesy cars, we train the staff through Bosch etc. The challenge for us is to project that image. Looking at customers, we asked Terry if he could characterise a typical In Town Automotive client: “They tend to be quite local,” he replied. “We only advertise within a six-mile radius of where we are.” It’s not because they have a captive audience though: “Northampton is quite a busy town for workshops. There is eight on this estate alone. It