Aftermarket March 2023

MARCH 2023 AFTERMARKET 57 www.aftermarketonline.net Honest job The business first opened its doors in the town in 1979, and was founded by Tom’s father Robert, hence the name: “My dad started in a building that was about 480 square feet, which is just over the road,” explained Tom. “Dad just did a good, honest job and I've taken those values and run with them. We then moved in October 1992 to a 1,500 square foot building, which served us well for 20 years. We outgrew that and moved here in April 2020, right in the middle of COVID-19.” “Finding resources for setting up the new workshop was a problem. Buying paint was the biggest nightmare. I couldn't order it online. I had to queue up at B&Q. It was awful. We depleted all the stock of white wall paint locally.” Could they get brushes? “Yes, there were brushes, and there were many man-hours put in to painting walls.” Once the painting was done, and getting people to do work in was a realistic possibility again, Tom was able to take advantage of the space in the workshop: “We’ve got very high ceilings, so it allowed us to have a nice big mezzanine floor built where we can have racking for spare parts and all the special tools that are needed for doing all the day-to-day jobs. It is all labelled. We try and keep it in an orderly fashion. We even have a spreadsheet with all the tool numbers and bits and pieces on. This means that when the guys want a special tool, we can say it is on shelf E4 and they can find it where it should be.” Organised It helps to be as organised as possible when you are surrounded by other garages, as many are when they are based on an industrial estate. When we arrived, we even spotted some other garages we have visited in the past. According to Tom though, many of them are actually not competitors. “Because we specialise a lot, they tend not to fight for our work. We get people coming to us for our expertise. We have a good core market and work hard to keep that market happy.” According to Tom, they had been flat-out recently as a result of having to deal with post-lockdown jobs: “We've had several vehicles come in with failed timing belts where they were given very poor advice by other garages, saying that because of lockdowns they shouldn't have their timing belts replaced because they won't be using the car very much. Customers forgot the importance of that or it was not highlighted to them. Now, we've got vehicles turning up with failed timing belts needing huge repairs. Instead of the £500 timing belt job, it's now a £4,000 repair bill, which the owners aren't very happy about. We've accommodated, we've got the vehicles in, assessed them and we've managed to get repairs done in a reasonable timeframe. These were major repairs. We managed to turn them around in a couple of weeks, maybe three. We give the customers loan vehicles while they're in to keep them on the road and keep them happy.” Top Garage Speaking of happy, Robert Cockings Motor Repairs was one of the winners in Top Garage 2022. When we visited, the finals and the Awards Evening had taken place a few weeks earlier. We asked if they had used the win to promote the business, and if this had boosted trade: “We have the Top Garage logo and a banner on our website, and customers are mentioning it. When they come in, I've got the sign in the reception area and visitors are seeing it and congratulating us. They tell us it is well-deserved.” We asked Tom if the experience of taking part in Top Garage has changed the way he looks at how he does things: “It has definitely given me fresh ideas, and inspired me to find ways to improve what we currently do, as well as ways to improve our processes. Just meeting the other people that are involved, and talking to them at the event is really helpful. You can discuss different ideas and see how they do things slightly differently to you and take a bit of information from everybody and try and incorporate it into my own business to make it that bit better again.” Robert Cockings Motor Repairs were in the seven to nine staff members grouping, so the judges that Tom met on the day were James Dillon and Motul’s Andy Wait. On how his time with the judges had benefitted him, Tom observed: “Both of them offered interesting and different viewpoints. James Dillon is obviously a mastermind absolutely one of the best in the trade. Andy was also knowledgeable and he gave me some good advice on marketing, which is really handy, and is something I'm looking to progress with in the next few months.” Rounding up on their Top Garage win, Tom added: “I’m super-proud of the team for doing what they do and achieving what we have.” Room to run Looking ahead to what’s next for Tom and the team, he said: “In the medium term, I want to refine our processes, get them drilled perfectly, to make sure every job is done the same. No matter what we do, we're doing the same thing each and every time. We have got this pretty much sorted. There are just areas that need tweaking. In the longer term, I am thinking we will probably move again. Tom concluded: “I want to be here for at least another five to 10 years and then would look to expand again to maybe a custom-built site. I'd like to stay in this area. I just need to find the right plot of land and set up the right building with the room around it. to give me some room to run.” Below: Inside the workshop