Do you still rely on the traditional ways of doing inspections for your customers’ vehicles in your auto repair shops? Are your shop technicians still using their five senses to identify the problem? These manual inspections take a lot of time, try using digital vehicle inspection software and identify problems within seconds.
What do you think is the biggest challenge auto repair garages face nowadays? It’s not cars, customer services, or less technology. The biggest problem today for auto repair garages is finding new customers. Competition is getting hard in the auto repair market, it is hard to attract new clients and retain old ones.
However, if you win your customer’s trust and give them transparent inspections and estimates they will stick with you for a longer time. That’s no joke!
When trust is built between you and your customers you can easily sell them additional services in which your shop gets a chance to earn profit.
This is just 25% of the big picture, digital vehicle inspection software can provide you with a lot more. Read along and see what is more exciting waiting for you.
Offer Digital Solutions To Customers
The most triggering concern for most auto repair shops is why customers choose to take repairs from shops that are using modernized methods but charging heavily. Whereas, their shop is ready to do the same repairs for less money.
Well, if you are one of them who has the same concerns, I have a few questions for you.
Why will customers come to you for taking the repairs when your methods are tangled and chaotic? What is so different about your auto repair shop that they should choose you?
These questions will help you stand out from other shops. And if you have nothing to beat your competitors, you won’t attract them for choosing you. So bring in some change in your auto repair shop. To get new customers you should introduce new tools and updated technology in your repair shop.
To stay ahead in this game, you have to give customers something they are not receiving from every other shop. I have surveyed successful auto repair shops, few things in common, they offer customers modernization and easy steps. For instance, they offer digital inspections for customers’ vehicles using different inspection software and tools which match their shop needs.
Vehicles are expensive and customers are too touchy about them. They want to give their vehicles in the right technician’s hand that knows how to fix their vehicles. Instead of settling for low pricing, customers are willing to pay more for accurate repairs.
Manual Inspections Are Unreliable For Customers
Let’s talk about what makes manual inspections unreliable for customers. Many customers face this dilemma in the auto repair world, that are being upsold by shops. And when they take vehicles to repair shops, service advisors cherry-pick the repairs. And often, they don’t convey the proper messages to technicians properly about their concerns.
In such cases, customers have to go back and ask shops to refund or leave the vehicle in the same shop again and never return to the same shop again. This will obviously tarnish their name in town.
Moreover, when you do manual inspections for customers’ vehicles, it consumes time and your technician’s energy apart from that if you fail to gain their trust in that, all your efforts are going in vain and they will be taking their vehicle to some other shop.
Let’s say a customer needs to get an air filter change. To make them understand why they need an air filter change you will use technical jargon to answer all their whats and whys which makes them more confused. And they go, skeptic and think do I actually need this repair or is this shop trying to rip me off?
But wait here, there is a solution to everything. Don’t worry, I am not going to leave you confused. I’ll explain to you a magical solution in the next section.
Quick Modern Inspections Are Customers’ New Choice
As we are talking about digital solutions, the most worth adopting change in your auto repair shop is replacing manual paper inspections by using digital vehicle inspection software.
Let’s say a customer named Martin arrives at your shop, he wants you to do a quick inspection and give him estimates. But Martin is in a hurry, now rather than asking him to keep sitting and waiting. You can ask Martin to drop off his vehicle.
But Martin tells you that it won’t be possible for him to come back again and again. Now it’s the right time to tell Martin how much you care about your customers’ time and provide ease for them.
So you explain to him that you use Torque inspection software so right after your technician will be doing digital inspections, estimates will be sent to his email. This makes Martin take a sigh of relief and appreciates the convenience you provide at your doorstep.
There are a lot of customers like Martin who find and appreciate ease. They don’t want to keep sitting and watching clock needles at your shop and wondering when you will free them. They want to leave as soon as possible.
Provide Transparency
Auto repair software helps you to give transparency to customers. While you inspect their vehicle using digital software you can attach pictures to it.
When you attach pictures of the issues that need to be addressed customers understand them better, and trust you more. Instead of using technical jargon that they can never comprehend, you attach images. Read more about how you can simplify your workflow in auto repair shops.
Moreover, talking about transparency, create your shop invoices digitally using auto repair invoicing software, and mention the prices of each repair, add the amount and price of each part you have replaced.
It will let customers better understand what they are actually paying for.
Build Stronger Relation
Once they start trusting you because of your transparency, you will be able to sell them more, you can schedule their next maintenance appointment. You could also tell them that their brakes are not so in good condition, but you didn’t replace them this time because it wasn’t an urgent need, but next time it should be dealt with and should be replaced. And you attach pictures to it.
So this is how they trust your words and this makes them realize you are not a shop that makes holes in customers’ pockets in fact you value them.
This builds a stronger relationship between you and your customer and they keep visiting you every time they will need repairs. Not only this, when you make loyal customers they become a word of mouth for your business.
So you will automatically gain new customers through references. That’s why I always say, have your focus on retaining existing customers rather than focusing on car counts. Because your existing customers will grow your business and you will be able to sell them more services.
