Why your shop needs an alignment machine

Alignments are nothing new to our industry, however many shops continue to shy away from making the investment in alignment equipment to this day. Often seen as a specialty service by many, an alignment is not complicated to perform with proper training and the right equipment for the job. Instead of looking at an alignment as a luxury service, instead look at it as an area of opportunity to grow your business and your customer base.

Alignments are necessary not only after certain types of work are performed but also necessary to improve customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, overall service margin, and shop gross profit dollars. When considering getting into the alignment business for the first time try and look at the overall big picture of how performing alignments can benefit you rather than focusing on the up-front equipment costs. If your shops replace tires, replace suspension components, perform body work, or rebuild transmissions then an alignment is often necessary after the services you perform. Look at it this way, would you be satisfied with going to your local restaurant for a meal and then being told that you need to go to the restaurant down the street for a drink in order to complete your meal? Surely your answer is no, unfortunately some shops still take this approach when handling alignments.

Another way to look at alignments is to also look at the lost sales opportunities as a result of not performing them in your shop. Alignments usually average $80 on the low end and $200 on the high end. Many larger retail shops have become creative by offering 1 time, 3 year, and lifetime packages in order to build customer loyalty and keep those customers fr omshopping somewhere else. Let’s say your shop charges $80 per alignment and your shop is open 313 days a year and your shop sells just 1 alignment per day. That’s an extra $25,040 in sales per year of pure profit (no parts needed). Now lets say that your shop chooses to sell a 3 year alignment package at $135 and a lifetime alignment package at $200 and manages to sell just one of each per week on top of the one alignment today you could potentially add $17,420 in added sales. Combine those and you’ve added $42,460 in potential sales to your shop’s bottom line at the end of the year.

As you can see alignments not only create added sales dollars for your bottom line but they also deliver a complete customer experience. If you plan on exploring alignment machines then look at the overall big picture for your business and your customers. It could make the difference between a one time only customer or a customer for life.

Popular Alignment Equipment