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Repair Authorizations & Cancellations


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How do you deal with authorization of repairs when a vehicle is left for the diagnostic and a customer agrees to fix the vehicle over the phone? Do you ask the customer to come to the shop and sign off on the estimated costs of the repair? Or take the verbal agreement over the phone? We have had problems in the past with customers "claiming" the price we told them and which they agreed to over the phone is different than what we are charging them, which is not true.

 

Also, we had an incident the past week that a customers brought in their vehicle for a diagnostic. They filled out the work order form and left. The customers husband comes in about 20-30 min later and demands that we don't touch the vehicle and does not want us to diagnose anything, yet my techs have already spent a considerable amount of time searching for the problem. How would you approach this sitation? Would you still charge the full diagnostic fee?

 

Thank you in advance for your thoughts and opinions.

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Touchy situation. Almost all of our repairs are authorized over the phone and we do not have the customer sign anything but a receipt and we have never had an issue. Possession is 9/10's of the law right?

 

In your situation if they are not a good repeat customer which I'm sure they aren't I would charge them time involved. Why should you pay to have their vehicle looked at? I'd rather choose my charity.

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  • Have you checked out Joe's Latest Blog?

         1 comment
      Have I got your attention? Great.
      Let me start by saying that I believe in giving praise when deserved and letting employees know when they dropped the ball. However, the truth is that no one enjoys being reprimanded or told they messed up.  
      The question is, what is the appropriate balance between the right amount of praise and the right amount of critical feedback? According to studies done by Harvard Business School, the ratio of praise to critical feedback should be about 6:1 – Six praises for every critical feedback. I am not sure if I agree with that.
      From personal experience, I would recommend a lot more praise. The exact ratio doesn’t matter. What’s important is that before you consider giving critical feedback, ensure you have given that employee a lot of recent praise. If not, whatever you are trying to get through to an employee, will fall on deaf ears.
      When you do have to give critical feedback, remember a few things:
      Focus on the issue or behavior; never attack the person, and remain calm in your actions and words Ask the employee for feedback, their side of the story Speak to the employee in private Address the issue soon after it happens; never wait Don’t rely on second-hand information; it’s always better if you have experienced the situation yourself that you want to correct Have an open discussion and find things that both of you can agree upon Have an action plan moving forward that the employee can take ownership of Use the experience as a learning tool Make sure you bring up positive attributes about them Remember, you don’t want the employee to be angry or upset with you; you want them to reflect on the situation and what can be improved. One last thing. Everyone makes mistakes. We need to be mindful of this.
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