New epyx report shows garages how SMR compares to national trends

A new report from epyx enables garages to see for probably the first time how their service, maintenance and repair (SMR) performance compares to national and regional trends across a range of key metrics.

The quarterly 1link Market Index Report includes information from both in and out of franchise covering average labour rate and parts discounts for cars and vans, average lead time by region, average vehicle off road time by region, age of vehicles having work undertaken, pricing of frequently fitted parts and more.

It draws data from epyx’s 1link Service Network platform, used by major fleets to manage the SMR of more than four million cars, vans and trucks through franchise dealers, independent garages and fast-fits.  

Charlie Brooks, strategy and growth director at epyx, said: “At epyx, we have a size and depth of SMR data that is simply unavailable anywhere else and in recent years, we’ve been looking at ways of making it available to garages in useful formats.

“A couple of years ago, we launched our Network Performance and Opportunities Report, which is designed to show all garages how they are performing against local competitors and has been very successful. Now, the broader Market Index Report provides a regional and national view for franchise groups and independent garages.

“It provides a detailed insight into a wide range of SMR metrics, showing how you are performing against similar businesses, such as others with the same franchise or the wider market.”

The information in the Market Index Report is presented in a range of graphs and charts to promote easy understanding and clearly display trends over time.

Charlie said: “The whole idea behind the report is to provide solid and reliable information that means garages can make sound commercial decisions when it comes to their SMR strategy.

“For example, it shows that some prestige franchises have increased their hourly workshop rates by around 23% since the pandemic, while others have stayed much the same. This raises a series of questions. For a holder of the lower priced franchise, should you try and change to the more expensive one in order to access a higher margin? Also, if you’re an independent, should you be charging more per hour for specific brands? 

“Each edition of the Market Index Report contains points such as these which are not – as far as we know – available through any other data source. Interest from garages is high and we have already a large number of subscribers.”