Garage Hive launches ‘Garage Industry Trends’ website

Garage Hive has launched a new data website called Garage Industry Trends. The garage management system’s managing director Ray Dilsons introduced the new site during his keynote address to a group of 230 customer and industry delegates attending The Blend 2022 conference at Birmingham’s Eastside Rooms on 17 September. The new service uses aggregated data from Garage Hive customers that have opted in to create key performance metrics in real-time. Garage Hive says more than 80 customers signed up to share anonymised data during the conference and in the subsequent week.

The service will initially measure four key performance indicator averages: invoice value, labour rate, number of future bookings, and ‘net promoter score’. The Garage Industry Trends website displays daily values for each metric calculated on a monthly rolling average basis.

“Even in this early phase the data is powerful and useful,” said Dilsons. “Garage owners can compare their own figures with trustworthy industry averages to see how they compare at any time.” The site aims to streamline a process that formerly relied on surveys, which are time-consuming to conduct and offer only a static picture.

“We’re averaging from actual garage labour rates on a daily basis and that’s never been done before,” said Dilsons. “When we show a value you can sure it’s real and it’s current!”

Over time, Garage Hive expects trends of changes to prove insightful, particularly given current turbulence around rising operating costs and cyclical post-Covid MOT booking volumes, which make performance even more difficult to benchmark for garage owners.

Garage Hive says the initial focus will be on helping customers understand the powerful future benefits of shared data to grow opt-in levels before rolling out more sophisticated metrics and reports in due course.