Write Things Down

I have always had a terrible short term memory. In fact, when I can't find something around the house, I always check my hands first, just to make sure I'm not carrying around whatever it is I thought I had lost. So, whenever I take a call from a customer, I use a simple system to sound more professional. I write things down.


I keep a tablet of scratch paper near the phone and grab it whenever the phone rings. As the customer talks, I write down any pertinent information they say. Typically, by the time the customer has introduced herself and described the problem she is having, I have all of the information I need to fill in her appointment on the schedule (Name, vehicle, symptoms) and I don't have to ask any stupid questions like "What was that name again?" or "Now what kind of car was that?"


As the focal point of all shop activity, the service writer has plenty of plates in the air at any given time. Writing things down will help you avoid having to ask a tired mechanic the same question twice.

Cheap Parts Cost More

Like any automotive repair shop, we have a lot of cars come in with a check engine light on. Sometimes out diagnosis will lead to a malfunctioning PCV valve, which is easily repaired. However, occasionally when we phone the customer with a repair estimate, they inform us that they just had the PCV valve replaced at a tire shop or an oil change place. Nine times out of ten, what has happened in this situation is that the customer took their car to a quickie oil change place, and the service writer upsold them on a new PCV valve by telling them that there was something wrong with their old one, even though their check engine light is not on. Then they remove the perfectly good factory PCV valve and install some Chinese piece of garbage in its place. Well, low and behold, the cheap valve breaks down and the customer needs another one.


This method works ok for Joe Quickie, who runs the oil change place, because no one really expects quality work from a garage like that (which makes me wonder why people let them touch their cars at all, but they do). People won't usually go back to demand satisfaction because all Joe Quickie is going to do is offer to install another crappy PCV valve that is going to break again. But if you are trying to establish a good reputation and the return business that comes with it, take this lesson to heed: Cheap parts cost more than expensive parts.


I see this phenomenon most often when it comes to brakes. We often have customers come in complaining that their brakes are squeaking, but an inspection will reveal that the brake pads have plenty of life on them. The reason for this is that cheap brake pads are manufactured using harder materials, which causes them to make noise for their entire life. So the customer is left with two options. 1. Pay for the right pads just to make the noise go away, or 2. Put up with a grinding noise for the next seven years. Where I work, we call them "compressed camel poop" brake pads. I don't know where the nickname came from, but it stuck.


My shop follows the same policy when it comes to batteries. We only install high quality batteries that have a 72 month warranty. Unfortunately this brand of batteries cost about twice as much as a cheapo brand. I tell my customers. "They are not the cheapest but they are the most reliable." Occasionally, somebody will decide to go get a cheap battery and put it in themselves. But most customers are willing to pay more money for greater reliability, particularly if they feel that they can trust their service writer to not rip them off.


Every vehicle reacts differently to different brands of parts. It should be the service writer's job to use the right parts for each vehicle. The technicians can install a cheap part about as fast as a quality part. But, both your customer and your mechanic will be unhappy if the part has to be replaced free of charge.

Customers are people

Those of you who have ever worked in a repair shop during the Summer months know how maniacal some of your clients can get about their air conditioning. Sometimes it's not without good reason. I remember one particularly hot day a few years ago. I was sitting in the office, writing up some tickets, when an old man burst into the shop in such a frenzy that you'd have thought his car was on fire and there were kittens locked inside. "You've got to help me!" he cried. Incidentally, this is not a particularly good way to approach a tired looking mechanic on a hot day. 

"What seems to be the problem," asked one of the service writers.

"My air conditioning isn't working!" the man wailed.

"We'll, at least it's not an emergency then," the service writer replied, and it was not entirely clear if this was meant to be soothing or sarcastic. However, the old man was in no mood to split hairs.

"Are you making fun of me?" he demanded in a low, threatening voice.

There was an awkward pause, punctuated only by the sound of my fingers on the keyboard. The service writer then said "I was only saying that it isn't an emergency since your car is still running."

"Well," replied the old man.  My wife has a condition and she can't be in the heat but I have to drive her to the hospital, so i need air conditioning and I need it now."

At that chastening, the service writer, who was also a mechanic, went out and personally checked the customer's air conditioning. If memory serves, he was able to get it working and his wife was presumably able to get to her treatment. But we never saw that customer again.

Apart from being one of the funniest exchanges I have witnessed with my own eyes, the above anecdote illustrates a point that many service writers have a tendency to overlook: customers are people too. Just like you, your customers love Fridays and hate Mondays. They have hopes and dreams. They take out their garbage every week. in short, they are the same as you. 

Remember that when your customers speak to you, they are nervous. Most of them are office workers or teachers and, when they come into your shop, they feel as out of place as you would feel if you walked in to one of their departmental board meetings with greasy hands and safety goggles. They don't know very much about cars and they are afraid of sounding stupid, which causes them to sound stupid, which makes them even more nervous. 

Customers get nervous at the auto shop because, in their head, that magical blue shirt with your name on it endows you the ability to know secret kabbalistic knowledge, forbidden to mere white collar carbon blobs like themselves. It is also assumed that you like country music, girlie calendars, and that you posses a certain amount of homespun wisdom (all of which may or may not be true. For example, we do not allow girlie calendars where I work...for one thing the female technicians might object, or start displaying calendars with Chippendale dancers on them!)

This is why it is so important that your initial reaction to a customer must be a positive one. In my own opinion, this is actually the most difficult aspect of service writing. You have to section off everything that is currently making you unhappy: fights with your girlfriend/boyfriend, the sick dog you've got at home, your rapidly developing migraine headache, the fact that you've got a graduate degree in English Composition and you are still working at a damned auto shop. We all have our own sources of unhappiness.

It may help to think about it this way: your customer probably has a sick dog and a buttload of student debt as well, but if he isn't dumping it on you at the moment, there is no excuse for you to dump yours on him. And, if he is dumping his life's problems in your lap, keep that in mind when you write up the estimate for his labor charge. Listening to someone's personal problems counts as labor.

Ultimately, like being an honest shop, it comes down to enlightened self interest. If you make your customers feel unwanted, they will not come back, no matter how good a job the tech does. And, the shop will go out of business, leaving you unemployed. But, if you treat them like a human being from the first time they set foot in your shop, they will always come back to you when they are concerned about their car. It may be a pain in the butt to calm down a crazed old man who is freaked out about his air conditioning, but nine times out of ten, he will come back to you when his brakes start making noise.

So let's be civil out there and remember that customers are people too.