FALL 2014 | MARINE TECHNICIAN TODAY
15
just like a good sales person has repeat buyers. This means good service
gets repeat
sales
as well as
repeat
service visits. It is easy to see that if
customers receive poor service they will just go to another dealership for
their next boat purchase. In the past, I don’t think many businesses paid
as much attention to the importance in the repeat customer, but in today’s
economy they are needed for survival. Good service will not only lead to
more revenue for the service department, but it will lead to future sales as
well. There is no doubt about it, good service and a qualified technician
equals more boat sales.
Determining a value system
As part of AMTECH’s New Service Initiative we are developing a career
path for marine technicians. Therefore determining the value of a
technician is foremost on our minds. Without defining this, there is no
way to create career incentives to recruit new technicians. Going one
step further, we need to determine what is a competent technician?
Competency means measuring the technician’s efficiency and how
qualified they are in what they do. The more efficient a technician
becomes, the more quality service work can be performed in a certain
time period. This increases the number of satisfied customers moving
through the business. By determining the true value and the financial
return the technician’s services bring to the business, we can provide the
industry with a template to determine a fair salary range. Competency is
based on quality of work, not quantity of years a technician has been in
the industry. There are many technicians who have been in the industry
for many years who would find that they are extremely inefficient if they
were subject to a time study. This goes for technicians who are employed
by authorized dealerships, as well as independent technicians and shops.
How to determine a salary scale
One school of thought on determining a technician’s wage would be to
use a percentage of the shop labor rate that varied depending on the
technician’s skill level. This method would account for different labor
rates around the country due to cost-of-living differences and provide
a more accurate scale of compensation. Anyone interested in the field
could easily estimate what wage they could expect to make. For example,
an entry-level tech with little to very basic experience skills could earn
10% to 15% of the labor rate. So a business that charges $85 per hour
would pay an entry-level tech anywhere from $8.50 to $12.75 per hour,
whereas a business that charges $100 per hour for labor would pay
$10.00 to $15.00 per hour for the same entry-level technician. An entry-
level technician with no experience would be at the lower hourly rate, and
the technicians with more experience, but still considered entry-level,
would be in the higher salary level scale of 15%.
More experienced technicians who can work on their own would fall in
the 16% to 30% range. For the same $85 per hour business, this range
would be $13.60 an hour to $25.50 per hour, and the $100 per hour
business would pay $16.00 to $30.00 per hour. As above, being at the
low or high range would depend on the experience and efficiency of the
technician. Advanced technicians who are leaders in their field would
fall in the 31% to 50% range. Actual hourly rate could be based on the
technician’s efficiency and capabilities; this would range from $26.35
to $31.00 for the $85 per hour shop, and $31 to $50 for the $100 per
hour business.
One other thing to keep in mind when developing this is the employee
benefit package. This may affect the categories depending on the amount
of benefits offered. Also the efficiency of all technicians should be
monitored, and progression from the low to high percentages should be
based on this as well as quality of work (amount of come-backs), attitude,
and work ethic.
AMTECH will be working with the industry to determine the competency
of all marine technicians in the months to come.
TECH TALK
.
“As business owners, we need
to know the value of the people
who bring customers back to the
business. We need to see that a
good service department contributes
to repeat service and boat sales, just
like a good sales person has repeat
buyers. This means good service
gets repeat sales as well as repeat
service visits.”
