The Need for a Final Quality Control Check: A Squeak and a Leak
I created the following example years ago to illustrate the importance of automotive repair shops performing a final quality control check on ALL vehicles that they touch. While it’s a process that up front constitutes a change in your shop and in attitude, it will help guard against losing valuable customers in the long run. As you may know, it’s much more expensive to buy a new customer with advertising than to keep an existing one. Now, onto my example…
Jennifer has a problem with her vehicle squeaking every time she backs up and has started to notice a big puddle of something dark underneath her vehicle. She goes online and finds your shop due to your great Google, Yelp, and Facebook reviews. She likes the convenience of scheduling online and the text message confirmations. When Jennifer shows up at your shop, she notices your friendly staff who offers her a shuttle ride home or even a loaner car. She is still hesitant in her gut that she is going to get screwed over somehow, but her guard is starting to drop. She LOVES the text message updates and the digital vehicle inspection. They create trust and transparency in her mind. She feels that she made the right decision choosing your shop. She gets the text message that the vehicle is ready along with the text-to-pay message to pay online. She loves that she can pick up her car after hours and get the keys from a secure lockbox at your shop. She pays for the repairs with a little bit of hesitation, but she is literally blown away at the customer experience and is now feeling confident that she made the right decision. Jennifer gets in her car, backs up, and hears no squeak. She looks where her car was parked and notices no leak. Hooray! Her vehicle is now back to optimal driving condition!
As she pulls out of your parking lot, she moves her hand over the steering wheel and encounters a big, blob of grease left behind by your technician.
Everything you just worked so hard to create is ruined by one simple, easily remedied mistake.
QC matters. Make it matter in your shop.
Chris Cloutier
Architect/President at Autoflow
The Desire for Continuous Improvement
As an auto repair shop owner of Golden Rule Auto Care, Chris Cloutier realized the need for a better way to communicate with his customers as he observed how communication gaps created bottleneck situations and wasted valuable rack time.
