Stayfree

I just joined a couple of days ago and going through older threads I came across this one and felt compelled to comment. This subject is near and dear to me. The shop I currently manage spent many years doing free diagnostics and rarely charged. If they did charge it was at most 1/2 hour with a promise to deduct the charge if the customer had the repairs done. Yeah, that really worked good for them. Customers would bitch about the 1/2 and they owner would take that off whether the customer had the work done or not. When I took over I established a base rate of one hour for diagnostic testing for drivability problems. I wrote it into a menu item that detailed the use of an electronic diagnostic scanner, pin-point electrical testing as necessary, etc. Left open in the narrative that depending on the type of codes or problems discovered additional testing might be required. Did they scream? You bet they did. It is very difficult to retrain customers who have been spoiled. They didn't squawk about laying down 80 grand for a BMW or M-B did they? Nope, gotta have that rolling bling-mobile. I simply explain that before I put several thousand dollars worth of diagnostic equipment on their car operated by a trained technician I have to be comfortable knowing the efforts put forth will be compensated for properly. Several of our customers are doctors so I have no problem looking them dead in the eye, describing the pain in my shoulder and asking them to diagnose it for free right there on the spot. No, they insist I will have to come to their office. Free diagnosis I ask? Of course not. End of discussion and I patiently wait for them to sign the estimate sheet for the diagnostic or turn around and leave. Lawyers? I calmly pick up the phone, call a number (tech in the back cell phone), ask a few questions about the can, a few hmmmm's, and Uh-huh's, then put a "consutation fee on the ticket. (That one works on doctors too.) I explain that while our jobs are different our shop is staffed by professionals with years of training just like their office is. They don't do anything for free and we certainly can't afford to either. Nor should we be expected to. If they start telling me how some other shop doesn't charge for the diagnostic I ask why they are in front of my counter instead of the free guy's. Uhhh, they like our work. Fine, our work involves highly professional diagnostic services for which we charge a fair price. I don't mind getting them all saddled up on what my assistant refers to as the Merry-Go-Round. After a few laps they have the option to get off and leave, or pony up for the requested services. As long as bottom-feeders are willing to do it for nothing it will be an uphill battle. As shops we need to start working professionally and standing our ground. Enough of the cut-throat attitude that just hurts everyone in the business. BTW, the owner screamed for days about me charging for diagnostics when I took over the shop but I explained to him the reasons and told him to simply get out of the way and stop letting customers beat him up. At the end of the first month when I showed him the numbers and he realized how much money he had been leaving on the table he quieted down a lot. When I explained that the mechanics were doing a better job diagnosing now that they were getting paid (flat-rate scale here) and how much it increased sales he got even quieter. When he saw the figures for profit margin, RO averages, etc. he decided I was doing exactly what he had hire me to do. Turn the shop around so we were more professional and making a profit. Free diagnostics? Not here. My opinions are my own but I know lots of shop owners feel pretty much the way I do. Max

I don't burn bridges behind me I tend to leave a nuclear waste land behind. On the other hand I have discovered over the years that careful cultivation of the crap can sometimes yeild pretty good 'low hanging fruit'. By al means send over one of your service advisors if you don't want to go yourself and here is my reasoning. Get at least one person in your company to 'befriend' the manager and some of the employees. If at least one local garage is on speaking terms with them they will refer folks after they have dug themselves in over their heads. They will usually refer to the shop that gives them the least grief or at least talks to them. Many years ago I owned a shop in a rural area and Wally-World was putting in a Super-Dooper-Center just down the street. Every shop in the area was bitching up a storm because they were going to have to lower their price for oil changes, etc. Not me, I raised my prices $5.00. Shops rarely make anything on oil changes unless you can sell brakes, belts, hoses, etc. I marketed my oil changes as a "VALUE ADDED SERVICE" offered ONLY to regular customers. One day a guy came in and wanted to know if I could do some repairs on his mini-van. I looked it over, gave him the prices for repairs, and he decided that was fair enough and said he'd call his wife to come get him once he and I discussed something important. "Sure" I said thinking he was going to try to beat me down on the price. Instead he handed me his business card and it turns out he was the new manager of the Super-Dooper-Center. He asked if where he worked made any difference and I assured him it made no difference to me since I was in the business of repairing cars not judging people. He asked my opinion of the store going in and I said it made no diffenence to me since we were after different segments of the market. He asked about their cheap oil changes and I explained how it inspired me to raise my price instead of trying to compete with Sam. Same for front end alignments, A/C service, and such. I asked him how much they were going to charge for A/C service and it was way below my price. Then I asked him what they were going to do when a car wouldn't hold vacuum. He said they would have to turn down the service. Where ya gonna send them? He didn't know and allowed as how they would probably leave that up to the customer. Front end work? Same answer. Stipped oil drain plugs, jammed uip filters, etc? Same answer. My response if "No, you ain't, you are gonna send them here." He looked at me strangely and I handing him a handful of my business cards. I told him their 'service' wasn't worth a damn if all they offered was 'cheap'. If you don't offer a solution to the problem then you have no business being in business. What about when your service manager or one of the oil change guys has a problem they can't solve? He looked at me and asked, "They can call you and ask?" I nodded. His business was going to increase traffic past the front of my shop considerably and when they encountered problems that were beyond their scope they need to be able to offer solutions. It should be a win-win situation for everybody. Once they opened up the store he stopped in and introduced the service manager of their automotive department. A few days after that I went by and visited for a few minutes. Needless to say I had referrals left and right from them and especially for A/C and front ends. They hired me to come down and teach their crew how to set up and operate the A/C equipment, how to properly service the A/C system, how to correctly inspect a car while it was getting an oil change, and all sorts of stuff. Who do you think those guys sent their customers to? Where did they send cars when they couldn't get a filter off? Come to think of it the guys that worked in the automotive department became some of my most loyal customers. Not only did they refer customers but they would tell them that is where they have their own cars repaired. Yeah, the cutthroats suck, whether it is a parts store or a bottom feeder shop. On the other hand you can sometimes cultivate the situation and turn in around to your benifit. Just my dimes worth, Max

No need for specialized software or adding on more modules to the Mitchell Manager Plus. I went through the same prblem until I discovered the solution. There are two methods I use to quickly review the history if I am looking for something specific. First is the SEARCH button at the lower right of the screen when you are in the HISTORY tab. Click SEARCH then type in what you are looking for, (Brake, timing, lube, etc.) The program will then list only the invoices in history that have those items listed. If you type in "TIMING" and no invoices show up then you probably haven't done the timing belt. (Beware of past mistakes in case someone before you has written the ticket incorrectly.) The second method will allow you to review multiple invoice information quickly and is handy in the event you don't find what you are looking for ion the first search, or if it comes up listing several invoices. For example, you search for "TIMING" and the history record changes from 30 down to 5 invoices. That narrows things down but might list things like adjust timing, inspect timing belt, and replace timing belt. In other words anything on any ticket that uses the word "TIMING" will pop up. When you have something like that you can select all the invoices listed (Ctrl+A, or click the top one, hold the shift key and click on the bottom one), then go to the bottom of the screen and click on the PRINT button. The preview screen will come up with a shortened version of the selected tickets. You don't have to print the pages if you don't want to but they are easy to read this way. This 2nd method is also easy if a customer wants a review of all work performed in the past. I offer a print out to customers who stop in to let me know they are moving. That gives them something to show their new shop if they ever need it. Hope that helps, Max (aka Stayfree)