Top 4 Reasons to Keep Your Store Organized
It can be a tedious task to keep a repair store
organized. Keeping a store organized
throughout a busy repair work day can be very challenging – particularly without
good processes in place to maintain an organized work space. And please believe there are times you can
walk into nearly any repair shop including even some of the most well organized
stores and they will look like a toddler just spent the last few hours hopped
up on a sugar rush using the tech benches as their playground.
With all that said, maintaining a relatively neat and organized
repair shop – in both front and back areas can have several significant
benefits including a more profitable repair store. Here are the Top 4 benefits
to maintain an organized repair shop:
- Improve Sales in Front of Store: A clean looking and smelling front of store has obvious
benefits. Customers feel they are in a
professional setting where they can trust the services and products offered. Maintaining a good-looking display for
accessories and used devices will increase sales. In our repair stores, for used devices we
display clear price tags to show device pricing and details and use display
stands to present them more professionally. We try to maintain a clutter free
counter space and keep all accessories displayed in consistent columns and rows
for a more visually appealing display. We work to maintain a cleanly mopped hardwood floor or vacuumed carpeting. We
also like to use plug in air fresheners to ensure a pleasant smell in our
retail stores.
- Long Term Revenue Gains via Professional Appearance: A well-run system for keeping customer devices
in specific places and in a specific order is essential for any repair shop. Nothing sounds worse to a customer than, “Give
me a few minutes to find your device” … “What, you’re supposed to be fixing my
device and you can’t even find it?!?” If
devices are always in a specific place depending on their status and they are fast to locate and identify it presents a good feeling of security and
professionalism when customers call in over the phone or come in person for
updates or to pick up their precious device.
- Minimize part cost loss: A tech bench that is consistently scattered with
devices, parts, supplies and other items breeds several problems. First, it creates inefficiencies in work flow
and we all know time is money. Second,
it can create an environment that allows for disorder and potentially losing or
misplacing key parts while devices are disassembled. We have all probably experienced an seen ear speaker or other
component just disappear into thin air on an unorganized work bench. Lastly, parts such as expensive screen
assemblies are more likely to be broken accidently within an unorganized tech
bench. Simply put, keeping an organized work space saves money on misplaced or broken parts.
-
Improved Employee Performance: An organized and well run shop often yields
better employee performance. If there is
a process and an order to the way things are run, employees can thrive within
that system and challenge themselves to take on additional responsibilities
rather than just trying to keep up with the chaos of their existing job responsibilities. If there is a lack of organizational control
with tools and expectations of maintaining an organized shop, long term results
will suffer.
There are many challenges to running a successful small business, and many of these challenges require significant planning and effort to achieve success. Luckily, with the right tools and processes in place, keeping a neat and organized repair store is a relatively easy task to accomplish in comparison to many other demands on a small business owner. Yet, many shop owners don’t feel it is important enough of a detail to worry about – hopefully a few of these highlighted benefits may spark a desire to keep an organized work space.
Check out this page for several tools to help get your shop organized: