O'Connor: Which Staffing Structure Really Drives Profit?

Tire dealers are always looking for ways to improve shop efficiency, reduce technician downtime and deliver a better customer experience. But one area that’s often overlooked is how we structure our front-of-house team — specifically, the balance between sales associates and service management. 

Lately, especially as payroll growth year-over-year is outpacing gross profit increases year-over-year, this topic has surfaced quite a bit. Is it more efficient to have three sales associates managing the repair orders from cradle to grave or two sales associates, supported by one dedicated service manager, who coordinates service management? 

Let’s break this down, using some real numbers to see which structure drives better performance. 

The first structure — with three sales associates, each managing their own set of repair orders from start to finish — is very popular in tire dealerships. On paper, this set-up seems efficient.  

You have three experienced sales associates and each is responsible for writing work orders, communicating with customers and directly coordinating with a group of technicians — let’s say two techs each for a dealership with six technicians. 

The pros? Sales associates own their lane. They’re responsible for customer service, upselling and technician workflow. That autonomy can feel efficient and personal. But in practice, this model leads to multi-tasking fatigue and hidden inefficiencies.  

Sales associates in this structure aren’t just selling. They’re juggling technician questions, handling missed parts deliveries, reassigning jobs on the fly and trying to keep techs productive, while answering phones and quoting repairs. 

It’s a lot and we often find the overwhelming nature associated with this scope of work causes deficiencies with both customers and techs. This causes poor customer service and less productivity, not to mention added stress for everyone. 

Let’s say each sales associate manages eight jobs per day. If they spend 10 minutes writing each estimate and another five minutes, on the very low end, coordinating technician workflow, that’s two hours of coordination time per day — time that could be used for delivering focused customer service, selling, upselling or handling follow-ups. 

Now think about technician downtime. If each tech waits just five minutes per job due to time spent answering phones, working with customers, unclear communication, etc., that adds up to two tech hours lost per day across a six-tech shop. With four jobs per tech per day, that’s about 0.5 jobs lost per day or 13 jobs per month. At an average repair order of $500, that’s $6,500 in missed revenue. And that’s a conservative estimate. 

Now consider the alternative: two front-end salespeople whose only job is to write work orders, greet customers and focus on delivering truly professional customer service. Behind them stands a dedicated service manager — someone who handles all technician scheduling, workflow optimization, bay assignments and parts timing. This structure introduces clear communication channels. Salespeople deal with people. The service manager deals with workflow and the shop floor. 

Here’s what happens: sales associates, freed from the stress of coordinating technicians, can now handle 12 to 13 repair orders per day instead of eight. They also now have time to handle receivables and better manage inventory. The service manager, managing the full workload of 24 to 26 jobs per day, spends about two hours total coordinating the shop. But that time is centralized, which means jobs are prioritized, bays are balanced and techs aren’t stuck waiting for their next assignment. 

Technician productivity also increases. Wait time drops from five minutes per job to about one minute. You save about 1.5 technician hours per day or gain an extra 0.4 to 0.5 jobs. Over the course of a month, that’s 10 to 12 more jobs or $5,000 to $6,000 in recovered revenue. This doesn’t even include improved customer experience and sales conversion from a more focused front-end staff. Let's look at a side-by-side comparison: