Dennis R.

After 6 different credit card processors called in one day when my daughter was sick and I was answering the phone I knew I had to come up with something to make them quit calling. I thought about it all day long and the next day they called and I had customers in the waiting room that were both business owners themselves. They started their pitch with do you take credit cards ? My answer NO we only take cash we can launder it and we cannot figure out a way to launder the credit card receipts ! All I heard was a gasp and a click as they hung up. I thought the other business owners were going to die laughing. They loved it and have started doing it at their businesses also and the calls just keep getting less and less

Sometimes walking away from the hassle's of the shop can actually clear your mind and give you some ideas on fixing a problem whether it is a customer's car problem or lack of business. Ideas can flow when your not so consumed that you develop tunnel vision instead of seeing a bigger picture.

Rather than sell diagnostic time sell a level one testing procedure and explain to the customer that these tests can determine which components are still working properly and that you can eliminate them as the possible cause of their problem. This does not then obligate you to find the exact problem and the customer can then take the car if they want with a printout of the tests you have performed for them or authorize a level 2 testing procedure which will delve closer into the items that are not working. Just a different way of approaching the customer. Doctors do not sell diagnostic time they sell tests that determine what is working properly so they can narrow down their final diagnosis.

Sounds like more Obama economics , give the federal workers more money out of the taxpayers pockets in the hope they alone can stimulate the economy

Please send my a copy to mastert@utahweb Dennis

Please send my a copy of your email [email protected]

We are running into this more and more , We tell the customer up front that the labor will be increased by 40% if they supply the part , we also tell them that our hoist time is $2.00 per minute if the part is wrong and they have to go and get another part. Also there is absolutely NO warranty for any labor. This stops most people from wanting to supply their own parts. There is a few exceptions like someone that broke off a spark plug or stripped the threads out then we will install their spark plugs. I do not like supplying or installing used engines but due to the economic situation I install a few of them , I give the customer a list of which wrecking yards have an engine and let them buy it from them. I also still charge 30-40% more for the labor with no warranty. By us not supplying the engine the ball is in their court if it does not work.

I also have this problem , but since it is family only at the shop I had to be creative when my one son seems to be late coming in a lot even though he is fine staying late to finish jobs. Since the techs are on hourly plus commission I set it up so if his start time is 8:30 and he shows up at 9:00 he has lost 1/2 hour already on his hourly wage plus he loses another 1/2 hour of pay so he really does not start getting paid now until 9:30 so now he has lost an hours worth of pay so far PLUS and this is the one that makes the other children tolerant is that if you are more then 10-15 minutes late depending on the weather and accidents the person that is late gets to buy lunch for the entire shop that day. It does not need to be expensive but at least 3 things off the dollar menu for each employee, couple of pizza's etc. which costs him about $15-20 each time. Sometimes he gets the message and other times we all get a free lunch. I am sure I could only get away with this solution since it is family only here at the shop but it works. Most shops could probably set it up in a meeting with everyone agreeing on the buying lunch for everyone if your late rule.