See your garage through your customers eyes
Take a step back, says Andy, and consider how your set-up will look to your customers. It could teach you a lot
By Andy Savva |
Published: 22 December, 2020
High-quality service is defined by the customer’s experience while in your care and custody. Operational excellence ensures that the customer’s cars will be ready when promised and fixed right the first time.
It’s about understanding what your customer is trying to tell you when they are communicating their frustrations with the vehicle as it is about the proper diagnosis and professional quality work.
Moments of truth
Selling service is perhaps the most difficult of all sales to make. Buying a product – something you can hold in your hand or wear - constitutes the purchase of something you can touch or feel. Purchasing a service is something else entirely. When a vehicle owner buys a service, that person is really purchasing a promise – a promise that will be fulfilled in the future. That requires trust and a great deal of faith.
Your ability to perform is based upon a lot of things, not least of which is technical competency. However, you can’t demonstrate that technical competency until you are given the opportunity to do so. The vehicle owner can’t see technical competency. They can’t touch or feel it and you can’t hang it out in front of your garage like a sign.
Service starts when a customer sees and responds to an advertisement, hears about your business from a friend or relative, calls, finds you on the internet or just walks in.
For this reason, MOTs, or “moments of truth” have to be created – moments when a customer has the opportunity to come into contact with any member of your team where they will form an opinion about your business. These opinions will occur before, during, and after the work on their vehicle has been completed. They will ultimately define your personal and business success.
I cannot stress enough the consistent execution of your processes and procedures is the catalyst for your business to be recognised as one of the best. Do a great job the first time, and something less the great the next, and you are unlikely to see that customer again! The more people you have working for you, and the more services and products you have, the greater the challenge it is to achieve this consistency.
Productivity
All of this consistent high-quality service is only sustainable in your garage if your productivity and workshop efficiency levels allow you to make a profit. Productivity is a by-product of your technicians and reception staff having the ability to execute processes and procedures flawlessly. It will take more than one training course, the odd staff meeting or for that matter the odd investment in tools and equipment to reach the elusive dream.
Survival, in a complicated and changing world, is about assumptions. Assumptions allow us to function when we find ourselves beyond the limits of our understanding and experience. When we talk about standards, we’re just defining these assumptions in a more scientific language.
Success in the garage business can be all about assumptions as well. We surround ourselves with a wall of assumptions to help us to make sense of the chaos we confront every day. To large degree, our success is based upon just how accurate many of these assumptions are. One of the ways we do that is to provide service based upon what we believe is best for the vehicle, assuming that what is best for the vehicle is best for the consumer when that might not necessarily be the case.
In the end, these assumptions are about what we believe the customer wants, needs, and expects from us, not necessarily what the customer’s actual desires and expectations are.
Compelling value proposition
A perfect example of this, is the constant battle between ready when promised and fixed right first time. My experience of running garages has taught me that these two topics jockey for position as the number one customer concern when vehicle owners are seeking a garage service or repair rather than the myth that price is first and only consideration.
Understanding these topics, or you could say behaviours helps you learn about the relationship that exists between the provider of garage services and the recipient of those services. It is all about questioning our assumptions then re-creating a service environment that is responsive and respectful when it comes to those things are most important to our customers. It’s about who we are and who we will need to become just as much as it is about customer expectations, retention, loyalty, and satisfaction.
In the end, it is about creating a compelling value proposition – something your target customer will not be able to resist – and then delivering your services in a total quality service environment. It’s all about managing the whole scope of your relationship with the vehicle owner, recognising that perception is reality and only perception matters to your customers.
Confront your assumptions
Take this as an opportunity to look at your relationship with your customers in a new and different way. Confront your assumptions about customers, business in general, and our industry and consider how different things could be if we change the way we look at them. Remember, if you change the way you see things – if you change your standards and assumptions about your customers, your business and our industry – you may just change everything. In an industry like ours where confidence, self-image, and profits have been notoriously low, that might not be such a bad thing.
If you have that elusive dream of becoming a great business, a local garage that’s respected in the community, respected by its customers and staff then accept now that you have to change the way you currently operate. You need to think about the business in a way you have never thought about it before. You have to see it in the future, not in the present. That’s exactly what I did before I started Brunswick Garage. I knew then that I could not be an all-makes service operator and have the ability to provide the level of service that is required.
Walk a mile in their shoes
I encourage you to step outside your business, remove yourself as the owner and place those customer shoes on. Walk a mile in their shoes, so to speak. Take a stroll from outside your premises, look at your sign, your brand image, is it clean bright and inviting. Pass through your reception, is it welcoming to your customer, is it clean bright and warm. Are your customers able to wait while their vehicle is being repaired in a clean, bright warm area, having refreshments?
Go through the workshop. Is it dull, dirty, things everywhere, are the technicians tool boxes clean and in order? Would you be happy to walk a customer of yours through to show them their vehicle or would you be too embarrassed?
You will be far more successful with their help and ideas of all your team than you could ever be without them. This new way of thinking will make your team feel valued and more important than ever before.
Final thought
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will do! Just remember, if you always do what you always did – you will always get what you always got.
www.thegarageinspector.com
- See your garage through your customers eyes
High-quality service is defined by the customer’s experience while in your care and custody. Operational excellence ensures that the customer’s cars will be ready when promised and fixed right the first time.
It’s about understanding what your customer is trying to tell you when they are communicating their frustrations with the vehicle as it is about the proper diagnosis and professional quality work.
Moments of truth
Selling service is perhaps the most difficult of all sales to make. Buying a product – something you can hold in your hand or wear - constitutes the purchase of something you can touch or feel. Purchasing a service is something else entirely. When a vehicle owner buys a service, that person is really purchasing a promise – a promise that will be fulfilled in the future. That requires trust and a great deal of faith.
Your ability to perform is based upon a lot of things, not least of which is technical competency. However, you can’t demonstrate that technical competency until you are given the opportunity to do so. The vehicle owner can’t see technical competency. They can’t touch or feel it and you can’t hang it out in front of your garage like a sign.
Service starts when a customer sees and responds to an advertisement, hears about your business from a friend or relative, calls, finds you on the internet or just walks in.
For this reason, MOTs, or “moments of truth” have to be created – moments when a customer has the opportunity to come into contact with any member of your team where they will form an opinion about your business. These opinions will occur before, during, and after the work on their vehicle has been completed. They will ultimately define your personal and business success.
I cannot stress enough the consistent execution of your processes and procedures is the catalyst for your business to be recognised as one of the best. Do a great job the first time, and something less the great the next, and you are unlikely to see that customer again! The more people you have working for you, and the more services and products you have, the greater the challenge it is to achieve this consistency.
Productivity
All of this consistent high-quality service is only sustainable in your garage if your productivity and workshop efficiency levels allow you to make a profit. Productivity is a by-product of your technicians and reception staff having the ability to execute processes and procedures flawlessly. It will take more than one training course, the odd staff meeting or for that matter the odd investment in tools and equipment to reach the elusive dream.
Survival in a complicated and changing world is about assumptions. Assumptions allow us to function when we find ourselves beyond the limits of our understanding and experience. When we talk about standards, we’re just defining these assumptions in a more scientific language.
Success in the garage business can be all about assumptions as well. We surround ourselves with a wall of assumptions to help us to make sense of the chaos we confront every day. To large degree, our success is based upon just how accurate many of these assumptions are. One of the ways we do that is to provide service based upon what we believe is best for the vehicle, assuming that what is best for the vehicle is best for the consumer when that might not necessarily be the case.
In the end, these assumptions are about what we believe the customer wants, needs, and expects from us, not necessarily what the customer’s actual desires and expectations are.
Compelling value proposition
A perfect example of this, is the constant battle between ready when promised and fixed right first time. My experience of running garages has taught me that these two topics jockey for position as the number one customer concern when vehicle owners are seeking a garage service or repair rather than the myth that price is first and only consideration.
Understanding these topics, or you could say behaviours helps you learn about the relationship that exists between the provider of garage services and the recipient of those services. It is all about questioning our assumptions then re-creating a service environment that is responsive and respectful when it comes to those things are most important to our customers. It’s about who we are and who we will need to become just as much as it is about customer expectations, retention, loyalty, and satisfaction.
In the end, it is about creating a compelling value proposition – something your target customer will not be able to resist – and then delivering your services in a total quality service environment. It’s all about managing the whole scope of your relationship with the vehicle owner, recognising that perception is reality and only perception matters to your customers.
Confront your assumptions
Take this as an opportunity to look at your relationship with your customers in a new and different way. Confront your assumptions about customers, business in general, and our industry and consider how different things could be if we change the way we look at them. Remember, if you change the way you see things – if you change your standards and assumptions about your customers, your business and our industry - you may just change everything. In an industry like ours where confidence, self-image, and profits have been notoriously low, that might not be such a bad thing.
If you have that elusive dream of becoming a great business, a local garage that’s respected in the community, respected by its customers and staff then accept now that you have to change the way you currently operate. You need to think about the business in a way you have never thought about it before. You have to see it in the future, not in the present. That’s exactly what I did before I started Brunswick Garage. I knew then that I could not be an all makes service operator and have the ability to provide the level of service that is required.
Walk a mile in their shoes
I encourage you to step outside your business, remove yourself as the owner and place those customer shoes on. Walk a mile in their shoes, so to speak. Take a stroll from outside your premises, look at your sign, your brand image, is it clean bright and inviting. Pass through your reception, is it welcoming to your customer, is it clean bright and warm. Are your customers able to wait while their vehicle is being repaired in a clean, bright warm area, having refreshments?
Go through the workshop. Is it dull, dirty, things everywhere, are the technicians tool boxes clean and in order? Would you be happy to walk a customer of yours through to show them their vehicle or would you be too embarrassed?
You will be far more successful with their help and ideas of all your team than you could ever be without them. This new way of thinking will make your team feel valued and more important than ever before.
Final thought
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will do! Just remember, if you always do what you always did – you will always get what you always got.
www.thegarageinspector.com
- AFVs: Getting the digital push
By Phil Bird, Executive Director, NovaFori
- A feast for the eye: 007 cars set for auction to be displayed at The Classic
A selection of cars from the most recent James Bond film No Time To Die that are set to be auctioned next month will be providing a feast for the eye at Silverstone for The Classic over the Bank Holiday weekend (26-28 August).
To celebrate 60 years of James Bond on the big screen, EON Productions and Christie’s are teaming up to present a two-part charity auction with 60 lots. The auction, being held on 28 September will includes seven cars plus a motorbike with starring roles in the 25th Bond film No Time to Die and all eight vehicles will be on public show for the first time at the world’s biggest classic motorsport festival at Silverstone.
Topping the bill at The Classic is an Aston Martin DB5 stunt car as driven by James Bond (Daniel Craig) in the opening chase sequence set in Matera, Italy. The only DB5 stunt car ever released for public sale, it is expected to raise between £1,500,000 and £2,000,000.
Other vehicles from the 2021 film that will be on show at the Classic include the Aston Martin V8 and a Triumph Scrambler 1200 XE, plus Land Rover and Jaguar models driven by 007’s adversaries in the hit film.
Nick Wigley, CEO of The Classic promoter Goose Live Events, commented: “We love celebrating major anniversaries at The Classic, and with our ‘Best of British’ theme, having the opportunity to mark 60 Years of James Bond is very special. It’s the first time these 007 cars will be on display together and we are honoured to host them.”
To obtain tickets for The Classic 2022 at Silverstone, visit: www.silverstone.co.uk/events/the-classic
- Don’t join the gold rush, sell shovels
Futurologists have predicted it for years, but now, it’s actually starting to happen. The impact of the sharing economy on the automotive industry has upended the status quo and companies are scrambling to gain first-mover advantage within a radically reconfigured marketplace.
In the US, in March 2018 alone, an Ohio dealership launched a monthly subscription package that allows customers to switch between different brands of luxury cars, and GM announced a plan to allow their customers to rent their cars directly to each other. Meanwhile, ride-hailing is rapidly taking share from traditional car rental in Certify customers’ business travel expenses.
In the UK, a Mobility as a Service (MaaS) App called Whim is in trial in the Midlands, offering unlimited public transport, hire cars and short taxi rides for a fixed monthly payment of £440. Meanwhile, personal contract purchase (PCP) deals – essentially car rental, with the option to pay off the rest of the car’s value after three years – have already become the preferred method of new vehicle purchase.
The problem is that hundreds of companies in the automotive world have set their sights on the same goal: To be the go-to choice for consumers. That’s fine if you have billions to invest in marketing, but if you’re not at the level of Ford, Uber or Google, that fight is going to get ugly. Rental agencies, dealerships, and business leasing providers – all of whom are used to owning customer relationships in the pre-mobility world – are among those who are going to be out-gunned.
The good news is that there are two clear ways for businesses to thrive in this new marketplace in a way that won’t be disrupted by technological advances. Both strategies involve selling to businesses rather than consumers, which means they can deliver sustainably higher margins without requiring a huge spend on marketing and customer acquisition.
Strategy one: Sell a service to the dominant platforms
The most obvious low-risk, high-reward model is to provide an indispensable service to enable the mobility being sold by others. This would involve contracting with whatever mobility platforms dominate, be it Ford, Uber or Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car unit. A business might decide to become the leading company that deliver services around.
- LKQ Euro Car Parts customers donate £10k to Ben
LKQ Euro Car Parts branch customers have collectively donated more than £10,000 to its long-standing charity partner Ben, by each adding 25p to their total when they check out.
