How to Automate Tekmetric

Tekmetric runs the shop from estimate to text-to-pay

Tekmetric is cloud-based shop management software for independent auto repair shops, built by Sunil Patel after more than a decade running his own shop; the first version launched in 2017. Advisors build estimates with Smart Jobs, send a digital vehicle inspection with photos for the customer to approve, and turn the estimate into the repair order without retyping it.

Parts come from integrated suppliers such as PartsTech and Nexpart, ordered from the job with prices and arrival times side by side, and restocking suggestions follow the minimum levels the shop sets. Tire shops add the Tire Suite, $39 a month per shop, for tire quotes matched to the VIN and automatic DOT registration.

At pickup the advisor texts a payment link, and the customer pays from their phone with a card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, or spreads the bill with buy now, pay later. On the Scale plan, the owner watches car count, labor hours, average repair order and close ratio on a real-time dashboard.

Advisors, technicians and the owner each sign in with their own login, and role-based permissions decide what each one can see.

The service advisor phones tomorrow's drop-offs between customers

At 7:30 the shop foreman scans the open repair orders and finds one technician with eleven hours of brake and suspension work and another with a single oil change, and moves jobs around before the bays fill.

Through the afternoon the service advisor calls tomorrow's drop-offs between customers at the counter. Three of the eight answer, and the rest get a voicemail. A Tuesday customer forgets anyway, and the lift booked for her brake job stands empty until ten.

After a brake job goes home, nobody calls to ask whether the customer is happy with it until the customer calls first, as a comeback. The Google review request gets asked at the counter while the customer pays, when the advisor remembers.

Tekmetric Marketing sends reminders and review requests as a per-shop add-on

Tekmetric Marketing, an add-on at $345 a month per shop, sends an appointment confirmation the moment a booking is made, pre-visit reminders on whatever timing the shop sets, a how's-it-running follow-up after the visit, reminders for declined jobs and upcoming maintenance, and Google review requests, as texts or emails. Reviews can be answered from inside Tekmetric, with an optional AI-generated response.

On the Scale plan, the Tech Board gives each technician a column showing assigned, complete and incomplete hours, and an advisor assigns a job by clicking the wrench on its card or drags cards to change the order. Grow adds time and job clocks, and Scale adds two-way texting. Shops that skip the Marketing add-on can connect ShopGenie or AutoBucks from Tekmetric's integrations for reminders and reviews.

Marketing's messages go out on the schedule the shop configures, with no one reading each one first. Where a shop has neither the add-on nor a partner app, the reminder and the follow-up are phone calls from the advisor. The Tech Board, on the shops that have it, shows the hours on a screen the foreman checks between jobs.

The 6:30 post in Slack puts the most overloaded technician first

A post in the shop manager's Slack channel at 6:30 lists each technician's assigned jobs, their stage and estimated hours against the hours that technician has that day, most overloaded first, with a flag on anyone who has nothing. The manager moves two jobs off the eleven-hour column before the first car goes up on a lift.

At four in the afternoon, a proposed text for each of tomorrow's drop-offs sits in the drop-off reminders channel, with the customer's name, the vehicle, the time, the shop's address and a line about calling to reschedule; anyone already reminded for that appointment is left off. The service advisor approves them in one pass instead of dialling.

When the advisor marks an RO delivered, two drafts follow it into Slack within minutes: a text asking whether the customer is happy with the repair, in the delivery follow-up channel, and a Google review request with the shop's review link, in the review-requests channel, unless that customer has been asked before. Whoever approves messages that day reads both before they go.

Unlimited users on every Tekmetric plan include one for WebRun

Every Tekmetric plan includes unlimited users, so a separate employee login costs the shop nothing. WebRun is an AI agent that works a real Chrome browser. That login gives it a role limited to what these cards read: repair orders, delivery status and technician assignments.

The service advisor, or whoever the shop names, approves each text in its Slack channel before it leaves the shop's Twilio number, and repair orders, estimates and payments stay as the advisor left them. A shop already paying for Tekmetric Marketing would keep the workload post and leave the three message cards off, since the add-on sends those messages on its own.