How often does your automotive repair shop carry out comprehensive inspections of customer vehicles?
If your answer is anything other than “always,” that is your shop’s first mistake. As a best practice, shops should offer a thorough inspection of each and every vehicle that comes into its bays.
If this approach sounds like it will cost your business money in lost labor time, that thinking is another mistake. Keep reading to understand why reviewing a vehicle’s operating system should be a priority for all auto shop owners.
- I have already shared that vehicle inspections should be carried out on all cars. If this is not a common practice at your shop, it should be. A comprehensive review of the vehicle will allow you to find potential repair and maintenance issues and present them to customers before they become problems.
- By not inspecting every vehicle, you’re failing your customer. Customers entrust your shop to be the experts best equipped to fix their vehicles. Part of your responsibility is to ensure their safety. Vehicle problems do not always present themselves and/or customers may not know what to look and listen for.
- Another mistake that shops make regarding multi-point inspections is doing them, but not being thorough enough. If your auto repair technicians are taking the time to check the brakes, why not go the extra mile and incorporate tech notes outlining the severity and a timetable for suggested fixes? To simplify this process, mobile technology in use by thousands of shops has a storage bank of canned notes and recommendations. With a click, technicians can accurately and quickly tell the vehicle’s brake story.
- Part of being thorough is offering supporting photos underlining problem areas. Each vehicle recommendation should have at least one accompanying photo. Pictures visually explain the need for vehicle repairs and communicate a higher level of trustworthiness to customers. Mobile shop management systems enable technicians to text message photos along with color-coded digital multi-point inspections directly to customers.
- Some auto shop owners think that adding more inspections means more workload and little else. In reality, thoroughly reviewing all vehicles’ operating systems has been proven to increase the average repair order. Think of it like this: Customers cannot fix problems that they do not know exist. This is an area again where the expertise of the auto shop owner comes in handy.
- For some, getting over the hurdle to inspect every vehicle has already been accomplished. Yet, if your shop is using antiquated paper-and-pencil methods and providing customers with sloppy, grease-stained reports the problems may be more difficult for customers to address simply because they cannot read and understand the recommendations.
- The last way that shops fail their customers with multi-point inspections is not adequately selling the value of their services and the importance of the repairs. It’s not just replacing the brakes. Really it’s providing peace of mind that your customer will be safe traveling because of the services your shop offered.
For more information on how mobile vehicle inspections can save time and boost profits visit http://www.boltontechnology.com.
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