Spring and early summer are filled with conferences and education events. As a teacher I get invited to attend or present at a lot of these events. It’s no secret that across the country there are a core of individuals who are constantly striving to improve their abilities to repair cars, run their businesses, take care of their customers and support their employees growth and success.
Every time I visit a city I look forward to seeing the people that I know will be there. They are always there. Often I am invited to do a topic that I have done before and those folks are there for a second time. Why? Like me they know that depending on where you are in your personal development and your business you can hear a message differently and learn something different. I have been trying to convince my wife that this is why I watch the same movies over and over again.
At the other end of the scale are the people who do not attend any training classes, don’t read any technical or business articles yet manage to operate a business. We can talk about them because they will never read this.
I think it is safe to say we can blame these folks for most everything that goes wrong in our industry. Why not, they won’t read this. Seriously consider what uninformed people cost your business.
How many times have you opened a parts box only to find that it has been installed and then returned to the box? It didn’t fix the problem due to a lack of education. The tech who last touched it was trying the “known good part” approach to auto repair.
The problem is now the part may no longer be a known good part so you lose the time testing a new part before you have confidence to install it or you don’t risk it and you wait for your parts store to find you another one.
How about the shop that has no service information system so they miss an important technical service bulletin and fail to perform a software update that is intended to be applied to support a part that has been updated. You bet they call the part supplier multiple times and while the parts truck is running back and forth you cannot get a part delivered.
This is the same shop that does not have any processes in place to work out vehicle diagnosis, estimating and approving repairs with customers and ordering parts so they are insisting that your parts store deliver parts ASAP on every call because we know they don’t use a computer to place orders or plan ahead for what they are going to need to repair a car. All that is just the parts side of the issue.
The truth is that many of us would be mad at our parts store and blame them for the bad service. Maybe we should, but I have seen that many if not most parts suppliers have figured out that warranty return rates and constant ASAP parts orders are good indicators that a shop may not be their best customer. I say thank you for noticing.
Let’s talk about the customer service side for a minute. Are there operators in your area that believe that an old walnut paneled service desk with a dirty top and an equally dirty dog that comes up and pokes a large nose in your crotch is an appropriate greeting for customers?
I have consulted with a few television companies that were looking to create a “typical” repair shop for a show and sadly for us they were thinking that this is a good approximation of what a repair shop looks like. At many events auto repair professionals will debate the merits of a service counter or a desk with a chair in front of it for customers but I have never heard a discussion of which breed of dog is best to completely shock an unsuspecting female customer.
These image issues are almost impossible for us to solve because trying to bring the isolated throwback auto repair shops up to a professional standard is difficult when they are completely disconnected from the industry.
If you have ideas I would love to hear them. Don’t worry you won’t hurt anyone’s feelings because they are not listening. For those of you who strive to be the best I thank you for making it a little bit easier for all of us who are trying to do the same.
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