The Automotive KPI Playbook — what to measure across sales, aftersales and finance, how to work each one out, and where best-in-class sits. Built main-dealer-first, with notes where independents and supermarkets differ. Enter your own targets; the tool flags the gaps in RAG.
Knowing what "absorption" or "ELR" means is easy. Working it out from the numbers on your own site, and knowing where best-in-class sits, is the part that's usually missing. This Playbook closes that gap: definitions, then the maths with worked examples, then UK benchmarks, then your own live tracker — the dashboard a Head of Business actually reads first. Why these exist →
Sales, aftersales and financial & site KPIs — conversion, F&I, stock health, hours, absorption, retention, CSAT — each with why it matters.
The part most guides leave out: every KPI reduced to arithmetic you can do on figures you already have, with worked examples in round numbers.
Size the likely annual cost of repeat repairs — framed as a conservative floor, not a ceiling. The business case for first-time fix, in pounds.
Typical UK franchised ranges with a best-in-class marker where the data supports one — and an honest "set your own" where it doesn't.
Enter target and actual for any KPI; it flags green, amber or red, and summarises where you stand at a glance.
A live capacity tracker that turns a headcount gap into lost daily throughput — plus a "Leading the Numbers" executive layer.
Who need the whole site's health in one honest read.
Sales and aftersales leads owning their own KPIs.
Franchised, independent or supermarket — the maths travels.
Opens in your browser, ten tabs, live RAG tracker and editable capacity model. Saves as you type; nothing to install; works offline on an iPad.
A print-and-fill PDF for those who think on paper — the definitions, the worked examples, and the trackers ready for pen.
These aren't theory. They're the manual nobody handed me — written from three decades on the dealership floor, one hard-won lesson at a time. The questions worth asking and the answers worth keeping, organised at last, by someone who worked it out the slow way so you don't have to.
This Playbook includes a "Working the numbers with AI" tab built on the 4Ds. Want the full method? The free SMART AI guide library — including the worked example Working With Your Numbers — shows you how to analyse business data well and keep yourself right.
Explore the free guides →