Check your front end service recently?

Contrary to what many believe, repairing vehicles is really the “back-end” of a repair business. It’s the part the customer really doesn’t see. So its real value is at best, neutral. It’s neutral because consumers expect a competent repair, and in most cases, the owner’s vehicle runs as well as it did before the breakdown. So it’s back to business as usual.

Where you can win customers and influence people is at the front end of your business, namely the reception area and service writer’s desk. The point was made recently when I dropped into a Toronto Honda dealership and a Blockbuster Video store. Both operations had staff that greeted me as I entered the door and suggested that they’d help me in a moment. In both cases, the front end people were busy with customers. Both businesses understand Rule Number One of customer service: Don’t ignore anyone that walks in the door, regardless of what you’re doing right now. It’s as simple as excusing yourself mid-sentence, if you have to, and greeting the customer with a “Welcome, I’ll be with you in a minute.” It amazes me how often I drop into a shop and wait in line to be recognized. Rule Number Two: Think about what you say to your customers. Does every sentence have a four letter word in it? It’s pretty common in the bays, but if the doors are open and you’re shouting over air gun noise, who else can hear it too? That leads to my personal Rule Number Three: By all means encourage the techs to explain the problem to the customer, but never without the service writer present. As the first contact the customer encounters, the service writer should be the liaison between the technically unsophisticated owner and the techs, who are often so knowledgeable that they can’t explain the problem in terms simple enough for the customer to understand. More importantly, the key concept that the motorist needs to understand isn’t just that the car needs a new head gasket, but that the $800 job is a good value and is a lot cheaper than either a new engine or a new car.

One problem is that service that is very simple to the tech often seems terminal to the customer. “A short in the fuse block killed the alternator and that fried the battery” is a simple enough repair. But it sounds like a nuclear meltdown to the customer. The right approach is to describe it as a minor electrical fault that overworked the alternator, shortening its life. A reman alternator is as good as new, and with a new battery the system should work well for years. And don’t forget to mention the warranties on the replacement parts.

Both descriptions are true. However, the brutal shorthand of shop talk frankly scares the hell out of customers. I’m as guilty as anyone, having learned automotive technology in a world where broken radiators “puked their guts out” and alternators “fried.” Rust was “cancer” or “rot,” and ECU’s were “brain dead” or “flat-lined.” An older car was a “beater” or a “bucket.” A bad engine was a “boat anchor” and a dead cylinder head was a “doorstop”. If things were really bad it was “terminal.”

No customer should ever hear terminology like this. The service writer is in an ideal position to make sure that it doesn’t happen by translating the tech’s description of destruction into a “glass half-full” report about what’s wrong and how the shop can fix it. If your operation has techs that can ease the pain of a big bill to a customer, great. If they can’t, then keep them away from the clientele!