The Subjectiveness Of It All
People have historically talked about being “ripped off” by mechanics and their local repair shops. And yes, there might be 1% of shops who consciously overcharge, just like 1% of plumbers, electricians or carpenters, and lest we forget the lawyers, dentists and accountants.
But what is overcharging anyway? Is it the shop charging more than book time to complete a task or is it a perception by the customer that the job should take less time?
Once again, the solution is to have a real rapport with your technician. Get to know him as you would your doctor or dentist, and then have the faith to let him do his job. If you don’t have that confidence or faith, then you should deal elsewhere. You would never dream of telling your doctor how to do his job, and yet doctors have had the same make and model for 2000 years and they still can’t fix them all the time. Today’s technicians are going to school constantly and upgrading their skills to be able to repair the latest technology the manufacturers offer up.
Back in the olden days of sealed beam headlights, we would have customers show up on their way home from work wanting their headlight replaced while they waited. In their mind it was a five minute job, and usually it was. But there were occasions when the screws holding in the retaining ring were rusty and stripped, and we had to get out the drill, find the right drill bit, drag over the airline then drill out the retainer and the headlight bucket, find new screws, replace the headlight and put it back together. This often took a half hour. And no one wants to pay $45 to have a headlight replaced. And a customer who gave me all their business and was dedicated to my shop would never be asked to pay $45. I’d stick with the $5 or $10 price every time.
It obviously wasn’t a technician that designed the first generation Ford Ranger pick-up with 100 screws holding the front grill on. And each one had to be removed to replace a headlight. Just because your neighbor paid $5 to have their headlight replaced, albeit on a different model vehicle, don’t believe that will necessarily be true for you.
Or what about the two barrel Ford Motorcraft carburetor with the plugged fuel filter. I drive the car around the block with the customer and immediately know what the problem is. I have two choices. If I tell the customer the filter is plugged, replace it on the spot for him and ask $20 for my time I have been accused of ripping people off, “because it only took 5 minutes.” However if I inconvenience the customer by having them leave his or her vehicle so I can put it on “the scope” for a minimum charge of one hour, say $85, and then present them with a bill for $100 for parts and labor, then they are happy. Does that make any sense?
Okay, let’s update that to a Chevy Manifold Absolute Pressure (MAP) sensor. If I can diagnose that hunting idle by whacking the MAP sensor with a screwdriver handle, what is that worth? I didn’t do the first one that way, in fact it took a lot more time than I ever got paid for.
The way a customer acts can go along way in determining what kind of attitude the technician or shop owner will have with his pen.
The people who profess to know everything and tell us how to do our jobs usually pay more and get less. Like the fellow who wanted spark plugs replaced in his Chrysler. When asked if he would like us to check his vehicle and fix the engine misfiring he replied, “It just needs sparkplugs.”
So we invoked our adage, “Ours is not to question why, ours is just to do or die,” and we replaced his plugs and put the rotten high tension leads back on.
The customer paid his bill, came back a minute later and was livid because his vehicle ran just the same as it did before. We had not fixed his car, but then, we were never asked to. We were only asked to replace the spark plugs.
Customer loyalty is a big thing, and I will always go out of my way for my customers, if it’s doing something for nothing, driving them around in the rain or sending wedding or sympathy cards as events occur. We used to try and drill into our staff the idea that these were the people who support us, buy our homes and feed our families. So let’s get it right.
And then there is Hank, one day buying gas across the street at the competition, who are for this one hour window of time, a half a cent a litre cheaper than we are. I was shocked to see Hank over there, after ten or so years of dealing with us. He saved maybe forty cents on his tank of gas and I put $5 on every bill he paid for the next 10 years. He tainted our relationship forever.
And on busy days, especially before cell phones, when people were hard to get in touch with, we’d just go ahead and fix cars, do brakes jobs and clutches and then sell the jobs after we were finished. And we usually got away with it because we knew our customers.
But I’ve been caught to. I authorized a new radiator in a longtime customer’s car one day because he needed it, it was a weekend and I knew he wanted his car and figured it was the right thing to do for him. He wouldn’t pay. And he was right, he hadn’t authorized it. I made a judgment call and he took the chance to jump all over me when he saw the opportunity to get something for free. This was in the days of radiator re-cores, so I didn’t even have his old one to put back in. If I wronged him so badly why was he still a customer a dozen years later when I sold my shop? He paid for what the repair would have cost, not the replacement, and I got it from him $5 at a time until he had paid for it several times over.
We had a lady customer whom we could never do anything right for; we couldn’t put air in her tires, let alone fix anything without her complaining, berating my staff and even phoning me at home. When I asked her why she was still a customer, her reply was that she loved us and we were part of her family. Her complaining was like the guy who boos the home team at the hockey game, she paid her money and the complaining was just part of her privilege for doing so. Sadly her husband got tired of her complaining as well and fatally shot her six times a couple of summers ago. She didn’t deserve that.
But I suppose that proves, that while the pen is far more powerful than the wrench, a gun still wins out every time.