Partnership

As a store owner, it’s important to have a partner or manager who you can trust and who will support you in running your business for you. Owner Mark Roberts has nothing but good things to say about his business partner John Long, and vice versa. Their partnership guarantees the smooth running of the company.

While Long takes care of the day-to-day operations of the business, Roberts is focused on expanding the bigger picture and finding new store locations. Roberts knows he can trust Long to make the right decisions and take care of both stores.

Long is working to advance the company’s technology and has increased the number of cars in the store through his innovation.

“There’s no way we can service the number of cars we serve today without the technology that John pioneered,” says Roberts.

With Long covering the day-to-day, Roberts can focus on the future. They opened their second location just over a year ago and they plan to add a third soon.

Lobby design

It is important to Roberts that the reception area of ​​the two Schertz Auto branches is clean and luxurious. His efforts on the lobby design won them an architecture award for the first location.

Roberts knows interior design isn’t his strong suit, as he’s already tried to pick the layout for himself and ended up not liking it quickly after doing so. Now Roberts is hiring a designer to do all of the lobby layout for him, from colors to flooring and accessories. He spent an additional $ 10,000 on hospitality space, but never regretted his investment.

workshop floor

Another area of ​​the store that has a carefully laid out design is the working floor. In addition to being air-conditioned, Roberts ensures that its technicians have a comfortable and fluid working environment.

Each bay is brought together to inspire teamwork and communication between technicians. The tools are close to their workstation and it is easy to walk through each station.

“We want everything to go well for our technicians,” says Roberts.

The bays themselves are wider than you would normally see, but where some see a waste of space, Roberts sees more room for each technician to do their job efficiently. Every aspect of the work area has the technicians in mind.

Convenience

Long says their mission statement is to provide “outstanding service without compromise,” and customer convenience is a big part of that.

Schertz Auto offers digital inspections and digital payment methods. Each technician has their own tablet, so they can take photos and videos to send to the customer. Digital inspections can show the customer exactly what the technician is working on.

They also offer a free shuttle service to anyone who cannot wait for their car. They are teaming up with Lyft, where they even paid for a $ 90 ride to get a customer home. And if Lyft isn’t available, sometimes Roberts or Long themselves step in and lead the customer to where they need to be.