Many Happy Returns
Since so many previously dedicated transmission-rebuilding facilities have of late become more oriented toward repairing and servicing the entire vehicle, a new set of challenges has emerged. Leading the pack, believe it or not, is returns – parts and cores that need to go back to local parts stores for credit to the shop’s account.
Diagnostics: To charge or not to charge; that isn’t the question
Pretty much every online forum lately has had the question come up as to whether charging for diagnostics is appropriate and/or good business practice. There are many opinions from which to choose. The bottom line, however, is that it’s your business so you need to pick one or several methods to be applied in varied circumstances that will keep your customers happy and at the same time allow you to make the money you require.
When Things Go Wrong
Customer service in the transmission and auto-service business begins when something goes wrong. If nothing ever did, there would be no need for it. So you have to figure that in virtually every after-sale customer-service situation, somebody didn’t get what they either wanted, needed or thought they were entitled to. That means that emotions are running high in every one of these instances. People range from being mildly upset to fighting angry. Often an otherwise calm, friendly individual can turn into a monster before your very eyes.
Inspired by Future Techs!
In Queens, a borough of New York City, there is a $28-million state-of-the-art facility known as the Center for Automotive Education and Training that was erected to train present and future technicians, service advisers and basically all other personnel who man an automotive dealership. It is owned by the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association (GNYADA), a group of more than 600 member dealers who, among other things, produce the New York Auto Show each year, arguably the largest new-car auto show in the country and perhaps the world, where the public gets its first look at the new models and the dream cars the designers have come up with and show off as prototypes.
How User Friendly Is Your Business?
The level of service provided to customers is usually mandated by a business owner or very high-level manager. Most of them have lofty ideas as to how they want their customers treated. The problem is that as the customer-service message filters down through the ranks there’s a good chance that it will become diluted, sometimes to a point where it isn’t service at all. When that happens a business is doomed unless it can be turned around, and that can be very difficult after customer trust is destroyed.
In Remembrance of two Industry Icons
Our industry has matured to the point where some of its pioneers have taken leave of it and of us. They’ve moved on from this world to one that will hopefully know of and appreciate the efforts they put forth while they were here.
15 Minutes
That’s what business is all about – change. Those who succeed do so because they recognize and are willing to face change and go with it as opposed to fighting to maintain a position that may no longer be tenable.
Just a Bit More Aggressive
Many who sell repair and service work to customers are not, by nature, aggressive types. For the most part they’ve come up through the ranks, first being a technician, then a service writer and now a manager or owner. They tend to have a great deal of sympathy (way too much) for customers who say they can’t have the repairs they need performed now or that they can’t pay the prices being asked and want them lowered. Too many of us think from the customer side of the counter. We tend to put ourselves in their shoes and work very hard to understand their struggle to make ends meet because we know that the economy is not good and that a lot of folks are having trouble getting by.
Like Little Children
If you didn’t choose your words very carefully when you asked the kids to do something, they would pout and sometimes disappear for a day or two. Most of them drank, so the disappearing act wasn’t a big surprise. These guys were protected by what was at the time a very strong union so they felt as if they were invincible. Today they would be lucky to keep their jobs at all, what with the line of unemployed workers looking to replace them.
They Just Don’t Care
This story is from the “strange but true” file. It begins with the concept that customers should and often do allow us to fix many, if not all, of the problems we find with their vehicles. We operate our businesses on the basis of that assumption, but every now and then we are thrown a big sweeping curve ball.
The Right Person for the Job
Promoting technicians to sales or management-level positions is a great way to show the entire staff that there is opportunity for growth within the company. As a current owner or manager you may even feel obligated to move someone up when a position becomes available. Most of the time the available position will have something to do with selling work to customers, a job for which many technicians are not suited or not qualified, or don’t really want even if they think they do.
When You’re the Best, the Innovation Never Stops
Many of you in the transmission industry have found that it’s good business to supplement your primary activity with general-repair and maintenance services. When you get really busy with transmission work some of you kick the other activities to the curb to concentrate on the more-lucrative and familiar transmission repairs. I can totally understand and have been guilty of it myself in years gone by. The question is, “Can you still afford to run a hit-and-miss general-repair business or do you have to put forth an extra and ongoing effort to convert those sometime customers to regulars who can help you continually maintain and grow your shop’s income?”
