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Back Door Walk In's


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Hi All,

 

My husband and I own a small auto repair shop. We have been in business for approx. 3 years and things are going well..ups and downs as everyone else...

I have a question that I do not know how to handle..

What do you do with those people that think we are still just working out of our home and not for a living?

There are people that just come in the back door and just keep chewing off my husbands ear until I show up out there..tell them I need him for something then they leave...

He's nice and puts up with it..then I hear about it later how he can't get anything done..

We've tried putting employee entrance only signs up..but I guess no one feels like that pertains to them..

We are big on customer service so I don't want to completely shut these people out..but have some common courtesy...

Any help would be appreciated..Thank you

Denise

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Yeah its a story we all hear when we start at a grass roots level. It can be tough, I still battle with the this problem. My shop is long with only 1 roll down gate. Currently i have a metal roll down gate. When it is closed it looks like we are not open for business so I like to keep it up as much as possible. I have tried yellow safety chains which don't seem to help. People tend to literally wait by the chain until a tech asks them if they need help before they will walk into the office. I am looking into getting a inside roll down gate with windows so I can keep my metal gate up and the nicer looking window gate down.

 

I would probably say your biggest problem is having a Service Advisor that can handle customers. Sounds like you may be the only or main front end person? In my experience people want to talk to a knowledgeable person as well as someone with some sort of authority. Once you can take control of speaking to every customer before your husband or techs do I think you will start to win the battle of the back door customer war :)

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Like Joe said, be nice but firm. Explain insurance no longer allows people to come into the shop area. I have a few close friends that stop by from time to time, and I'll just be polite and say 'Well it was nice talking to ya, but I really have to get back to finishing this job. The customer needs their car back ASAP'. They usually get the point.

 

All great advice here.

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  • Have you checked out Joe's Latest Blog?

         5 comments
      I recently spoke with a friend of mine who owns a large general repair shop in the Midwest. His father founded the business in 1975. He was telling me that although he’s busy, he’s also very frustrated. When I probed him more about his frustrations, he said that it’s hard to find qualified technicians. My friend employs four technicians and is looking to hire two more. I then asked him, “How long does a technician last working for you.” He looked puzzled and replied, “I never really thought about that, but I can tell that except for one tech, most technicians don’t last working for me longer than a few years.”
      Judging from personal experience as a shop owner and from what I know about the auto repair industry, I can tell you that other than a few exceptions, the turnover rate for technicians in our industry is too high. This makes me think, do we have a technician shortage or a retention problem? Have we done the best we can over the decades to provide great pay plans, benefits packages, great work environments, and the right culture to ensure that the techs we have stay with us?
      Finding and hiring qualified automotive technicians is not a new phenomenon. This problem has been around for as long as I can remember. While we do need to attract people to our industry and provide the necessary training and mentorship, we also need to focus on retention. Having a revolving door and needing to hire techs every few years or so costs your company money. Big money! And that revolving door may be a sign of an even bigger issue: poor leadership, and poor employee management skills.
      Here’s one more thing to consider, for the most part, technicians don’t leave one job to start a new career, they leave one shop as a technician to become a technician at another shop. The reasons why they leave can be debated, but there is one fact that we cannot deny, people don’t quit the company they work for, they usually leave because of the boss or manager they work for.
      Put yourselves in the shoes of your employees. Do you have a workplace that communicates, “We appreciate you and want you to stay!”
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