Everyone who works in auto repair knows how complicated cars are, but our customers have a hard time appreciating it. You may not realize it, but this is by design. If manufacturers were transparent about what it takes to maintain a vehicle today, people would be intimidated to buy them!
Lack of understanding creates an inherent disconnect between drivers and their high tech cars. And, as vehicles become more complex, the gap here only widens. EVs may have fewer moving parts, but their computer control is immense, especially when you couple traditional vehicle tasks. For example — getting down the road safely and with minimal emissions, and with ADAS systems that allow the driver’s onboard computer to disengage.
Our job, our service opportunity, is to bridge the gap between these two parties. We didn’t make the car, nor did we buy it. Yet, we are the professionals responsible when something eventually goes wrong... long after it leaves the showroom and ages out of warranty. And we have job security: self-driving cars won’t be self-fixing ones!
While this is a clear opportunity to educate our customers and translate our value to them, it is also an awkward one. We don’t deliver flowers; so how do we approach the customer with the caution of “don’t kill the messenger” — while also positioning ourselves for customer buy-in and satisfaction?
Taking a page from Medicine’s approach
Fortunately, we’re not alone. There’s another industry that suffers from a similar problem of increased technology and the consumer's ability (or, in this case, inability) to understand it — medicine. While human bodies haven’t changed, treatments have become more advanced; especially as people’s lives are prolonged. Like us, doctors have the job of bridging the divide.
Historically, doctors would make decisions themselves without much patient consultation. As the coined term goes, “Doctor knows best.” In auto repair, we’re guilty of this, too – “here little lady, hand me your keys (and your wallet)” – a reputation we still battle to overcome.
More recently, doctors have taken a new approach. Presumably, this is to enable patients in making their own decisions. But the problem remains that patients aren’t capable of navigating all of their options (i.e. which cancer therapy is appropriate). This is true even if they themselves are doctors. The book Being Mortal by Atul Gawande is my favorite to use as an example. The doctor shares a story when he and his own father, also a surgeon, face his father’s diagnosis with a spinal tumor; they were both totally overwhelmed by the response of his father’s doctor. Dr. Gawande refers to this approach as “Dr. Informative.”
Neither of these approaches – “Doctor Knows Best” nor “Doctor Informative” – actually serves the client, because they are not client-centered (or “patient centered”) communication.
Instead, the recommendation is to be “Dr. Interpretive,” a liaison working on behalf of the client to determine the best path forward based on the client’s goals. This concept was originally authored by two medical ethicists, Drs. Linda and Ezekiel Emanuel, in a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 1992, titled “Four Models of the Physician-Patient Relationship.” It states:
“Over the last few decades, the discourse regarding the physician-patient relationship has focused on two extremes: autonomy and paternalism. Many have attacked physicians as paternalistic, urging the empowerment of patients to control their own care. This view, the informative model, has become dominant in bioethics and legal standards.
“This model embodies a defective conception of patient autonomy, and it reduces the physician’s role to that of a technologist.
“The essence of doctoring is a fabric of knowledge, understanding, teaching, and action, in which the caring physician integrates the patient’s medical condition and health-related values, makes a recommendation on the appropriate course of action, and tries to persuade the patient of the worthiness of this approach and the value it realizes.”
This resonates loudly with the reductionist attitudes around auto repair: “Just plug in the tool and tell me what’s wrong;” “I know I need brakes. What’s the price?”; “I watched a video on YouTube and already bought my own parts.” We are considered installers and we are reduced to paying minimum wage to our precious next-generation of skilled technicians.
The way we change these attitudes is by taking an interpretive approach. We need to document the problem, as well as our professional recommendations on what to do about it. And, most importantly, put the customers’ needs at the center of our communication. So, how do we do this?
Interpretive rules of thumb
Your No. 1 job is to make the customer feel heard.
1. Be clear in your explanations, using “headline” statements that lead with what you know to be the problem, and not just how you got there.
Start with: “The hybrid battery has failed and will need to be replaced.”
Instead of: “We pulled the codes and found P0A80. We did a load test and found the max/min. voltages of the blocks to be over 1 volt apart.”
(Don’t hide the detail; your diagnosis has value. See No. 2)
2. Give the customer time to ask and answer questions.
Provide backup information (diagnostics, inspections, etc.) for them to review in a digital format. This way, they can read at whatever level of detail they wish (and appreciate your expertise), versus having to comprehend over the phone. This also protects you in hindsight.
3. Gain clarity on their values.
What are your customers’ goals for their vehicles? Repeat what they say back to them, so each customer knows that you heard them correctly (i.e. “What I hear is that you’d like to avoid having to invest in a new car for the next 5 years....”).
4. Make a plan together.
Sell the work that aligns with your customers’ values and capture that reasoning on the ticket to refer back to.
While this may seem too touchy-feely to some, it’s actually proven to be the difference-maker on customer satisfaction in medicine, where cases are often much more grave.
“Patients consistently report higher satisfaction with decision making and quality of care, in association with feeling heard by the doctor, specifically with regard to “listening actively to validate patients’ concerns and individual needs,” according to “Communication and Quality of Care on Palliative Care Units: A Qualitative Study,” Seccareccia, Wentlandt, Kevork et. al, 2015.
With this approach, not only do patients and families report higher satisfaction, they also maintain a sense of sound decision-making. This is a key insight to consider in your repair shop. Customers are proven to look up prices after the repairs, days later even, when you’re no longer in a position to explain. Selling your value is imperative to getting the sale, both now and for future repeat visits.
Changing the auto repair landscape
So, what does all of this mean for your auto shop? If you can become “Dr. Interpretive” for your customers, it will mean the difference between getting killed as the messenger and being appreciated with five golden stars. It's critical as we align our industry with the technical sophistication, respect, and compensation of other professions. This past year in particular, so many people turned to “Dr. Google” and, with the rise of YouTube, customers are turning to the internet for answers as well. It’s time to unite and bridge the gap.
Shop-Ware as the solution
Shop-Ware provides professional-grade business solutions to the automotive industry’s leading repair shops so they can run entirely on the cloud; phone optional, and paper-free. Connecting the aftermarket together, Shop-Ware’s ecosystem enables next-generation shop efficiency and customer satisfaction without compromise. Full-service onboarding and best-in-class support provide everything a shop needs to transform its business and stay competitive long into the future.
If you’d like to learn more about implementing Shop-Ware as the solution in your shop, request a demo.
