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Motor Trade RIP (1888-2008)
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I once suggested to a mate of mine who runs a dealership that he look at the NCT and allow customers see into the workshop by putting windows into a wall, I suggested it would reinforce transparency and allow people to see that their car was bring worked on, etc, etc, etc.
His reply was that he couldn't ever do this because his business model couldn't faciliate this, ever. We discussed the whole thing for ages and he eventually said that it would be a nightmare because he had a system that worked along these lines:
Full service: 2 hours
Timing belt on a XXX, YYY, ZZZ: 3.5 Hours
And so on and so on...
He said he has staff who can do a service in 1 hour and a timing belt in 2 hours. If he allowed customers look into his workshop, they would not pay a bill for 3.5 hours labour when the actual time by their observation was 2 hours. Now he argues that he has mechanics who will take 3.5 hours to do the timing belt and 2 hours to do the service, but the book time for these tasks is 3.5 hours and 2 hours, so that's what he charges, regardless of how quickly these tasks are done...
If the manufacturer recomends 2 hours then it is for a reason based on a reason. Also if I am charged for two hours then as part of that contract I should expect two hours time.
What I am trying to say here is that the job should not be rushed to get to next one to maximize profitability and if it turnsout to be handier then check other items and providing no parts are required tidy them up in the alloted time that has / will be paid for.
Rushing through a car for the sake of turnover will result in poorer service and surely when bookings are made the time required for the job is used in the scheduling of resources?0 -
I think transparency in diagnostics is perfectly do-able. Time spent servicing the car, I think this is also do-able, but not if your charging 200-300 Euro for a 20 minute oil change.
I think a lot of dealerships are running on this pseudo pricing system, where jobs that take X amount of time are charged out at X times 2 for labour. I also think that prices for non service parts are sometimes insane. Items like oil seals for example sometimes 80 Euro from a dealer, you can go down to Abbey Seals in JFK and get the exact same oil seal, same make and everything stamped on it, for 1.75 Euro.
Maybe the manufactuer in Germany/Japan sources seals for that price but with the supply chain and each of the chain having to add a margin (like any other business), I think the dealers margins would be in the tens not the hundreds of percent. i.e. I dont think the dealer buys the seal for €1.75 but i could be wrong.0 -
tontooreilly wrote: »Maybe the manufactuer in Germany/Japan sources seals for that price but with the supply chain and each of the chain having to add a margin (like any other business), I think the dealers margins would be in the tens not the hundreds of percent. i.e. I dont think the dealer buys the seal for €1.75 but i could be wrong.
Maybe they should?
Furniture sellers have been brining stuff direct from Malaysia and places for years and charging 100%+ markup!0 -
what is the industry not currently doing that consumers want it to be doing???
I'm easily pleased.
Sales: If you make an appointment, keep it. If you agree to call someone, do it. Know what's in your model range and how much it costs. Failing those simple tasks has stopped me buying in several main dealers.
Service: If I ask you to look at something, bloody look at it. If you come across something which needs doing, call me.
I realise that as as guy doing servicing, you get a lot of mistrust from customers, which you didn't earn personally. But the trade as a whole HAS earned it:
One Main Dealer service manager told me (after failing to look at any of the 5 items I asked them to look at in a service) that they'd have to take the engine out to trace a diesel leak. It turned out to be a cracked fuel filter which an indy mechanic found in less than 5 minutes by BLOODY LOOKING.
Sister-in-law arrived to collect her Rover after a main dealer service to find four new tyres fitted. She rang me to say wtf, and I said ask to see the worn ones. "They've already been collected by the recyclers".0 -
Join Date:Posts: 10089
Service: If you come cross something which needs doing, call me.
Customer: If you want to be called if something needs doing well leave a f**king number that we can contact you on.
The amount of times we find a car needs brakes and we ring for hours only to get a voice mail.We go ahead and fit the pads and you go nuts when you collect your car.
Policy here is that we contact you to get the go ahead but if its a safety related concern (like brakes) we go ahead and fit them anyway if we cant get in touch.
Just my take on it.
Dealers are getting a bad deal on this thread.The ordinary worker in these dealers always have the customers best interests in mind since customers pay our wages.Its the dealer principals who need a kick up the arse putting profit before customer care.
What Im trying to say is that if you give a fair deal and a good service profit will come on its own without having to rip customers off.0 -
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I think you're absolutely right with this post and your subsequent post Darragh.
I'd love to have a workshop with one glass wall so that people could see their cars being serviced, I think it would also lead mechanics to take more care and pride in their work when they can see the customers they're working for.
As you pointed out, the problem with the menu pricing - 2 hours for service, no matter how long it takes - makes people think they're being ripped off if the service doesn't take that long to do, yet they'd be unprepared to pay more if the service takes longer than it should have.
You'd also have the possibility of two customers having a conversation of
a) "my service cost €150 and only took an hour"
b) "that's crazy, I had the same work done as you, but I've been charged €250 for two hours!"
a) "oh yeah, well I asked for Derek to work on my car, he's the fastest."
Unfortunately, not everyone is above average, in fact at least half the population are below average.
What's next - a service adviser says "you can have Derek work on your car, the labour rate is €120per hour. If you can't afford that, Mike is only €80 per hour, but he's not as talented as Derek"?
And when you can see your car and are paying by-the-minute, you'll have customers holding stopwatches and saying "I'm only paying for 37 minutes - I'm not paying for the time the mechanic took to park my car on the ramp, to look up information in manuals, waiting at the parts counter for the parts or the time they were on hold while they were getting technical information from the distributor".
Moving cars can eat up a lot of a mechanic's productive time.
If the dealer doesn't have a required part in stock and sends the parts van to another dealer to get it, how much would you be happy to be charged for the van driver's time?
The next step from all this is a requirement for customers to prepare their car for service just like the NCT preparations - you turn up at an appointed time, you bring the car to the entry door and hand it over to the mechanic.
If you haven't left your service manual open on the passenger seat, it won't be stamped.
If you have stuff in the boot, your spare won't be checked for condition or pressure.
If you complain of a rattle or squeak but you forget to clear out your glovebox or the change from your ashtray, we won't be attempting to diagnose the problem.
As soon as you put a minute-by-minute value on a mechanic's time, you're going to get a lot of push-back from the dealer on what your responsibilities in the whole transaction are. That may be fine for the techies on boards.ie who service their cars anyway, but would you like to see the same responsibilites being put on your granny and her Polo?
Where will we draw the line when it comes to dealer transparency?
Excellent points Chris. Like here we are having a positive discussion about this, that the whole industry should be having with itself in a very open and engaging fashion, but I don't see any sign of it happening. My input into your points above is that it might be time for the industry to move away from "labour" based pricing to "task" based pricing. Just like the NCT, an NCT inspection costs 49 Euro. Obviously some cars go through the process in 34 minutes, other cars might take 52 minutes to go through the process. The price is the same though, 49 Euro. This would eliminate the scenario of people standing at glass windows with stop watches and all the inevitable messing that would obviously come with this.
On the other hand though, you would have to have a fairly well thought out price list, so if you get a Micra in for a clutch, it doesn't end up getting charged out the same price as a Land Rover in for the same job.
In fairness to workshops, you have to call the labour on jobs in order to price the job and get the job. My experience is that more times than not, you will ultimately end up spending more time on the car than you have quoted for.
One thing I am sure about, if you did the analysis and used a stop watch to calculate the actual time spent doing a job, checking the work afterwards, test driving the vehicle, and charged this time out as per the stop watch, the customer would ultimately lose 80-90% of the time, because that time would be more than they were quoted.0 -
If the manufacturer recomends 2 hours then it is for a reason based on a reason. Also if I am charged for two hours then as part of that contract I should expect two hours time.
What I am trying to say here is that the job should not be rushed to get to next one to maximize profitability and if it turnsout to be handier then check other items and providing no parts are required tidy them up in the alloted time that has / will be paid for.
Rushing through a car for the sake of turnover will result in poorer service and surely when bookings are made the time required for the job is used in the scheduling of resources?
Yeah, but if I have to take out your power steering rack and have to drop the subframe to do this and through no fault of mine, a subframe bolt breaks as it is being taken out, I have to allocate an hour of fan*ying around looking for a replacement bolt in a dealership somewhere, by your argument,who is paying for that additional hour of unscheduled resources that was spent getting your car off the ramp??? It's the businesses/outlet that is paying for it and this has always been the case in my experience.
This is the thing about aftersales. It's nice to think that everything comes out and goes back where it should, but often it doesn't happen that way, not unless the car is almost new. Anything older than 2005 now and you are into hardship territory.0 -
Customer: If you want to be called if something needs doing well leave a f**king number that we can contact you on.
The amount of times we find a car needs brakes and we ring for hours only to get a voice mail.We go ahead and fit the pads and you go nuts when you collect your car.
Policy here is that we contact you to get the go ahead but if its a safety related concern (like brakes) we go ahead and fit them anyway if we cant get in touch.
Just my take on it.
What a crap that comment above is, you have absolutely no rights to do things like above. If I take the car to the dealer for timing belt change, I don´t accept that let say brake pads are changed without my permission.
With that logic you can basicly change any part you want to and then just inform that it was a safety issue etc. What a great way to rip off customers even more!0 -
i think itrs trust issue0
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What a crap that comment above is, you have absolutely no rights to do things like above. If I take the car to the dealer for timing belt change, I don´t accept that let say brake pads are changed without my permission.
With that logic you can basicly change any part you want to and then just inform that it was a safety issue etc. What a great way to rip off customers even more!
The point is not without merit. You have no idea how frustrating it is ringing a customer to tell them that they need X, Y or Z and they won't pick up because they are afraid to because they don't recogise the number. Then they come to pick up the car and you tell them that you were trying to call them and they tell you that they wouldn't pick up because they didn't recognise the number!
You have no idea what it can be like dealing with the public. They pay you 200 Euro to service their car which they swear blind every single time they give it to you for a service that it is in perfect order, then you do your job and check for defects and when you find them, you are the biggest c*nt on the earth. You are paying for your car to be inspected when you have it serviced, the more items that come back for replacement, the better a job your mechanic is doing.
I eventually got out of the game as I said before because no matter what I did, I couldn't please a lot of people. 80% of people are great to deal with but as I said loads of times on this forum, 20% of people will take up 80% of your time with messing and arguing.
I used to wonder when I was young, why mechanics were always obnoxious. My old man worked in the parts end of the business and I used to do delivery runs with him, I could never work out how all mechanics I saw were grumpy old farts who argued with everybody. It was many years later I learnt that this was a coping technique for getting through the working day and stopping people from taking advantage of you and taking money out of your pocket.
Being a mechanic is the most thankless job on earth, the better you do your job, the more you are despised and labelled as being a robbing c*nt. It's also the only workplace where some people will try every trick in the book to get out of paying an invoice...0 -
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What a crap that comment above is, you have absolutely no rights to do things like above. If I take the car to the dealer for timing belt change, I don´t accept that let say brake pads are changed without my permission.
With that logic you can basicly change any part you want to and then just inform that it was a safety issue etc. What a great way to rip off customers even more!
If you want your timing belt changed, you only get your timing belt changed. What he is talking about is servicing work.0 -
What a crap that comment above is, you have absolutely no rights to do things like above. If I take the car to the dealer for timing belt change, I don´t accept that let say brake pads are changed without my permission.
With that logic you can basicly change any part you want to and then just inform that it was a safety issue etc. What a great way to rip off customers even more!
Let's say you drop your car in for a timing belt and in the course of the work the mechanic spots that your tyres are in an unroadworthy condition.
As I understand it, if the garage gives you back your car in an unroadworthy state, they can have a liability issue if something happens on your way home.
As such the garage has the following decisions to make:
1) Should they call you and get permission to replace the tyres?
2) If they can't get through to you, should they replace them anyway?
3) If they couldn't get through to you and if they didn't replace the tyres, should they release the car to you in an unroadworthy condition?
4) If they don't release the car to you, what are the consequences?
5) If they replace the tyres without permission, will the customer refuse to pay for them? Will the customer insist that the old tyres are put back on the car before they take it away?
I'd love to see more trust develop between the customer and their garage where they trusted the mechanic to only do jobs that were needed, and when an additional job is done, that the customer believes the mechanic did the job with the customer's best interests at heart.
I might be waiting a while for that though.....
A simpler solution I think is that every jobcard should have a section that says "I the customer authorise the garage to do €<blank> of additional work to my car if they feel it's necessary. Above this amount, they must contact me first".
When booking in the car, the customer fills in the amount that they're comfortable.
How many of you would avail of this - would you see it as a responsible question for the garage to ask? Would you see it as the garage asking for a licence to spend more of your money?
If you said "€500" and you came back to see €495 worth of unrequested tyres on your car, would you presume they were needed or would you presume the garage was taking you for a ride?0 -
Join Date:Posts: 10089
What a crap that comment above is, you have absolutely no rights to do things like above. If I take the car to the dealer for timing belt change, I don´t accept that let say brake pads are changed without my permission.
With that logic you can basicly change any part you want to and then just inform that it was a safety issue etc. What a great way to rip off customers even more!
You seem to have the mindset that all dealers are ripping people off with regards to aftersales.Well let me tell you something---theyre not.Any dealer Ive ever worked in has had the customers best interests in mind but we cannot win with some people who have this mindset.
If you leave the car in for a timing belt you will get a timing belt fitted--Im talking about service items here.
But what rights do we have--let the car out with defective brakes and get sued for not fitting them as a routine service when the customers brakes fail.
So you leave your car in for a service,we find that it needs brake pads,we try call you all day but theres no answer so we dont fit the pads.Then you arrive in to collect your car only to be told that we should have fit them and have another freaker at the desk.
We really cant win with some people.
Anyone here who doesnt work in the trade hasnt got a clue what its like to deal with some people.You fit the pads you get roared at for not informing them,you dont fit the pads and tell them you have to book them in for next week/whatever you get roared at for not fitting them.It a lose lose situation.
My advice--If you are leaving your car in a main dealer for a service either (a) tell them to fit what is needed regardless of whether you can be contacted or not or (b)Tell them in no circumstances to fit anything that is not part of your 10/20/30k service without informing you explictly.
And ask to be shown the old parts that were changed.
But please dont expect us to have crystal balls as to how your going to react if we get it wrong.
This would solve nearly every problem that people have with main dealer servicing.0 -
You seem to have the mindset that all dealers are ripping people off with regards to aftersales.Well let me tell you something---theyre not.Any dealer Ive ever worked in has had the customers best interests in mind but we cannot win with some people who have this mindset.
If you leave the car in for a timing belt you will get a timing belt fitted--Im talking about service items here.
But what rights do we have--let the car out with defective brakes and get sued for not fitting them as a routine service when the customers brakes fail.
So you leave your car in for a service,we find that it needs brake pads,we try call you all day but theres no answer so we dont fit the pads.Then you arrive in to collect your car only to be told that we should have fit them and have another freaker at the desk.
We really cant win with some people.
Anyone here who doesnt work in the trade hasnt got a clue what its like to deal with some people.You fit the pads you get roared at for not informing them,you dont fit the pads and tell them you have to book them in for next week/whatever you get roared at for not fitting them.It a lose lose situation.
My advice--If you are leaving your car in a main dealer for a service either (a) tell them to fit what is needed regardless of whether you can be contacted or not or (b)Tell them in no circumstances to fit anything that is not part of your 10/20/30k service without informing you explictly.
And ask to be shown the old parts that were changed.
But please dont expect us to have crystal balls as to how your going to react if we get it wrong.
This would solve nearly every problem that people have with main dealer servicing.
At least with a main dealer, people won't mess around when it comes to paying the invoice. If your an indy, you'll have every trick in the book played on you because you personally know your customers. You'll have people booking cars in and not showing up because "sure I know him, he's grand"... You'll have people saying, "I'll drop that money into you next week", and that's the last you'll see of that person for at least 12 months.
I agree with the above post, it's one thing complaining about service standards in the industry, but until you work in the aftersales end of the industry, you cannot have any appreciation for how difficult some people are to deal with, how some people cannot help but complicate things no matter how easy you try to make it for them to deal with you.
The most insulting thing about working in aftersales is that you do your best, make a habit of showing a customer old parts, you try to be as straight and as honest as you can possibly be, but it's always thrown back in your face because at the end of the day it is a thankless job.
I made a decision to get out of the industry because it was changing me as a person. If I didn't get out when I did, I'd have turned into one of those grumpy old obnoxious farts I mentioned in my last post, that I used to see years ago when I was out on deliveries with my old man.0 -
I'm easily pleased.
Sales: If you make an appointment, keep it. If you agree to call someone, do it. Know what's in your model range and how much it costs. Failing those simple tasks has stopped me buying in several main dealers.
Service: If I ask you to look at something, bloody look at it. If you come across something which needs doing, call me.
I realise that as as guy doing servicing, you get a lot of mistrust from customers, which you didn't earn personally. But the trade as a whole HAS earned it:
One Main Dealer service manager told me (after failing to look at any of the 5 items I asked them to look at in a service) that they'd have to take the engine out to trace a diesel leak. It turned out to be a cracked fuel filter which an indy mechanic found in less than 5 minutes by BLOODY LOOKING.
+11111111111111111
why dont people in the motor trade feel the need to return phone calls. A few years ago I was looking for a citroen Xantia (before much of the online car sites were available) I rang 27 garages which had xantias for sale, enquired about the car, asked about my trade in (was only looking for a general idea as I know you cant do proper trade in figures over the phone) guess how many called me back..............1
This is a particular annoyance to me. Do you not want to sell a car?and in recent years the whole "sure if you dont buy it someone else will" attitude coupled with all the points in the quote above are the reason Im glad the whole industry is getting a good kick in the ass. I dont wish anyone to lose their job, but something has to change.0 -
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loadz of stuff.
tell them they have to answer their phone to discuss issue that may arise thats hpow me and my mechanic operated
he rings
he goes tigger you idiot you have worn out stoppy bits and the turny bits dont work right yer oil is made of ground up engine and your lights make you look crosseyed
wer're gonna fix them now to prevent you dying and i go ok how much will that be and they go X and i go thanks cos i didn't wanna die0 -
so many messages to reply, where to start.
Ok I agree with Darragh29 that working with customers as mechanic is quite likely really afwul job:(
You got customers that knows nothing about cars, you got customers that think they know, but they dont. And all the time customer thinks that you are trying to rip him/her.
But why is this? I think one thing is that too often you have a scenario where you are promised something but it does not happen, maybe it´s a phone call, estimate about job etc.
All this discussion we have in this topic tells the same thing, customers don´t trust the people doing the car related jobs, but for me the biggest question is why?
One thing was when I was buing parts from one Dealer. Nothing I was said was never true, if part was promised monday, it was never there. When I ordered a expansion tank cap, I recieved expansion tank without the cap. And who you think had to pay this mistake, me of course, even I cleary ordered and even write it down the part I wanted.
Ok, small things and I would never start to shout the person otherside the counter, but it just makes you think that if dealer cannot even sort out a simple part request, what gives you as customer trust that they will actually be good fixing cars?
For some reason I never seem to have these kind of issues with indy places. For instance I ordered a new heater matrix made from template of the old broken one. Heater matrix was ready when it was promised, price was what it was promised and that matrix worked as well.
and for AudiChris,
the best way is to inform the customer that you tyres are really bad shape. If customer agrees then book a new time and change them. Or if customer says no, then ask the customer to sign a legal copy that basically says: if you crash this car with bad tyres don´t blaim us. This might be a bit heavy, but it is easier for everyone. What if tyres are changed and a)customer does not have money to pay or b)customer says that he or she will not pay them.
What can you do in that situation? Ok, keep the car, but if bill is 700 euros and car is worth 500, what then? Way way easier is to get the customer sign the paper.
And the timing belt example is only mentioned because I wanted to point out that if you order a job X, then you except that is the only thing done.
The best way would be get everything in paper, customer orders a timing belt change, then customer gets an offer on paper and garage does the job. If there is anything else that is wrong customer gets informed about it, but it is the customer who decides not the garage doing the job.
I think one thing that takes so many people to UK to buy cars is that they have never find a car dealer you can trust, if you need to find out that car is in good shape, not crashed, not financed etc by your self, because you cannot trust the dealer. Well, then what is the point to pay more about dealer service if you cannot get what you are paying for = trust.0 -
tell them they have to answer their phone to discuss issue that may arise thats hpow me and my mechanic operated
he rings
he goes tigger you idiot you have worn out stoppy bits and the turny bits dont work right yer oil is made of ground up engine and your lights make you look crosseyed
wer're gonna fix them now to prevent you dying and i go ok how much will that be and they go X and i go thanks cos i didn't wanna die
If only....
The conversation is most likely to go along these lines:
MECHANIC: "Hi Nicola, we've your car serviced, we're taking it for the NCT tomorrow for you as agreed, you have a worn ball joint that needs to be replaced, it;s an NCT fail item at the moment, we can resolve this for you at a cost to you of 68.34 Euro, can we go ahead and change it???"
CUSTOMER: "Yes, ehhhhh, hang on a minute, ehhhh, ok, go ahead, eh hang on, I'll ring you back in a minute"....
20 MINUTES LATER: Nicola's boyfriend shows up, with an obviously put on macho man act..."What's da story bud, she was just onto me there, askin me to check out this bit dat needs to be changed, she's worried yiz are tryin to rip her off 'cos she's a burd"....
20 minutes later and Nicola's fella is still trying to understand what a ball joint does and why it has to be changed...
20 minutes later, Nicola's fella is trying to explain to Nicola over the phone, "nah love, ya have it all wrong, he showed me the part and how it works and it has to be changed, it's all right luv, he's not rippin ya off!".....
One hour of explaining and suffering the stuipidity of two people, later, we have an answer. And who do you think is paying for the fan*ying around???
This is the reality of dealing with people when it comes to their car, I'll throw out more examples if requested...0 -
Join Date:Posts: 10089
Or if customer says no, then ask the customer to sign a legal copy that basically says: if you crash this car with bad tyres don´t blaim us.
Its not worth the paper its written on.Ive been there before and believe me the courts will always stand up for the owner of the vehicle in this situation.0 -
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At least with a main dealer, people won't mess around when it comes to paying the invoice. If your an indy, you'll have every trick in the book played on you because you personally know your customers. You'll have people booking cars in and not showing up because "sure I know him, he's grand"... You'll have people saying, "I'll drop that money into you next week", and that's the last you'll see of that person for at least 12 months.
I agree with the above post, it's one thing complaining about service standards in the industry, but until you work in the aftersales end of the industry, you cannot have any appreciation for how difficult some people are to deal with, how some people cannot help but complicate things no matter how easy you try to make it for them to deal with you.
The most insulting thing about working in aftersales is that you do your best, make a habit of showing a customer old parts, you try to be as straight and as honest as you can possibly be, but it's always thrown back in your face because at the end of the day it is a thankless job.
I made a decision to get out of the industry because it was changing me as a person. If I didn't get out when I did, I'd have turned into one of those grumpy old obnoxious farts I mentioned in my last post, that I used to see years ago when I was out on deliveries with my old man.
What career did you end up in?0 -
First time poster here, very interesting post a lot of good points made. I get my 05 passat serviced in mullingar behind andrews hardware, a romanian guy who normally fixes lawnmowers. he has serviced my car for the last 2 years and charges 80 euro per service including parts. he is getting huge business. i would totally recommend him.:o0
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If only....
The conversation is most likely to go along these lines:
MECHANIC: "Hi Nicola, we've your car serviced, we're taking it for the NCT tomorrow for you as agreed, you have a worn ball joint that needs to be replaced, it;s an NCT fail item at the moment, we can resolve this for you at a cost to you of 68.34 Euro, can we go ahead and change it???"
CUSTOMER: "Yes, ehhhhh, hang on a minute, ehhhh, ok, go ahead, eh hang on, I'll ring you back in a minute"....
20 MINUTES LATER: Nicola's boyfriend shows up, with an obviously put on macho man act..."What's da story bud, she was just onto me there, askin me to check out this bit dat needs to be changed, she's worried yiz are tryin to rip her off 'cos she's a burd"....
20 minutes later and Nicola's fella is still trying to understand what a ball joint does and why it has to be changed...
20 minutes later, Nicola's fella is trying to explain to Nicola over the phone, "nah love, ya have it all wrong, he showed me the part and how it works and it has to be changed, it's all right luv, he's not rippin ya off!".....
One hour of explaining and suffering the stuipidity of two people, later, we have an answer. And who do you think is paying for the fan*ying around???
This is the reality of dealing with people when it comes to their car, I'll throw out more examples if requested...
Factor into this that the car is sitting on the ramp for the entire time this is happening, stopping a mechanic from doing other work.
Or possibly the car's on the ramp, the mechanic finds the fault, he tells the service advisor who can't get through to the customer.
Mechanic puts car back together and removes car from his ramp. Brings in next car and starts next job.
Customer gets their voicemail and calls back and says "yeah, do that job".
Mechanic now needs to get original car back on ramp and take it apart again to fix it.
So much wasted time, several times a day.0 -
tontooreilly wrote: »What career did you end up in?
Business Management. I started up two businesses that are related to and trade with the motor industry but don't have to ever deal with the public which is good enough for me...0 -
Factor into this that the car is sitting on the ramp for the entire time this is happening, stopping a mechanic from doing other work.
Or possibly the car's on the ramp, the mechanic finds the fault, he tells the service advisor who can't get through to the customer.
Mechanic puts car back together and removes car from his ramp. Brings in next car and starts next job.
Customer gets their voicemail and calls back and says "yeah, do that job".
Mechanic now needs to get original car back on ramp and take it apart again to fix it.
So much wasted time, several times a day.
That's another classic. "Put it back together, I'll get it done next week/month/year".....
I pity anyone who is dealing on the front line in aftersales and there isn't a day goes by where I don't get down on my knees and thank Christ that I was able to get out of it when I did. I went into the industry well trained, full of ambition and with the genuine expectation that I could improve things for my customers and I left thinking it was the biggest mistake I ever made.0 -
Its not worth the paper its written on.Ive been there before and believe me the courts will always stand up for the owner of the vehicle in this situation.
That´s a shame, if you do the good thing (make the car safe) you get abuse from the customer, if you do nothing and go to the court you still get abuse from the judge. It´s a lose-lose situation and it should not be like that.0 -
If only....
This is the reality of dealing with people when it comes to their car, I'll throw out more examples if requested...
Please do, since those examples are quite funny to read (well maybe not for you, since you experienced them) and it gives good examples about both sides of the customer-garage relationship.0 -
If only....
The conversation is most likely to go along these lines:
MECHANIC: "Hi Nicola, we've your car serviced, we're taking it for the NCT tomorrow for you as agreed, you have a worn ball joint that needs to be replaced, it;s an NCT fail item at the moment, we can resolve this for you at a cost to you of 68.34 Euro, can we go ahead and change it???"
CUSTOMER: "Yes, ehhhhh, hang on a minute, ehhhh, ok, go ahead, eh hang on, I'll ring you back in a minute"....
20 MINUTES LATER: Nicola's boyfriend shows up, with an obviously put on macho man act..."What's da story bud, she was just onto me there, askin me to check out this bit dat needs to be changed, she's worried yiz are tryin to rip her off 'cos she's a burd"....
20 minutes later and Nicola's fella is still trying to understand what a ball joint does and why it has to be changed...
20 minutes later, Nicola's fella is trying to explain to Nicola over the phone, "nah love, ya have it all wrong, he showed me the part and how it works and it has to be changed, it's all right luv, he's not rippin ya off!".....
One hour of explaining and suffering the stuipidity of two people, later, we have an answer. And who do you think is paying for the fan*ying around???
This is the reality of dealing with people when it comes to their car, I'll throw out more examples if requested...
And honestly now - who's fault is that? How many times have we seen posts here with people asking if they got ripped off and generally everyone answers "yes, looks like it". There's so many rip off merchants out there and people telling stories of being ripped off that everyone has become suspicious. Blame the rip off merchants, not the person trying to make sure they're not being ripped off.0 -
That´s a shame, if you do the good thing (make the car safe) you get abuse from the customer, if you do nothing and go to the court you still get abuse from the judge. It´s a lose-lose situation and it should not be like that.
The problem with that is when it comes to tyres the dealers are too dear. You might argue that your not into the tyre business so it costs you more, but most dealers have a deal with the local tyre place. You go to the local tyre place yourself and it could be at least €50 less and probably up to €200 in extreme cases for a set of tyres. Now are you telling me that it costs the garage €50 or more to send someone down with the car to change the tyres? And that's €50 if the tyre place doesn't give the garage any discount for repeated business, which I'm sure they do. €10 or €20 more for a dealer to fit 4 good make tyres would be all I'd expect to pay for the privilage.0 -
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If only....
The conversation is most likely to go along these lines:
MECHANIC: "Hi Nicola, we've your car serviced, we're taking it for the NCT tomorrow for you as agreed, you have a worn ball joint that needs to be replaced, it;s an NCT fail item at the moment, we can resolve this for you at a cost to you of 68.34 Euro, can we go ahead and change it???"
CUSTOMER: "Yes, ehhhhh, hang on a minute, ehhhh, ok, go ahead, eh hang on, I'll ring you back in a minute"....
20 MINUTES LATER: Nicola's boyfriend shows up, with an obviously put on macho man act..."What's da story bud, she was just onto me there, askin me to check out this bit dat needs to be changed, she's worried yiz are tryin to rip her off 'cos she's a burd"....
20 minutes later and Nicola's fella is still trying to understand what a ball joint does and why it has to be changed...
20 minutes later, Nicola's fella is trying to explain to Nicola over the phone, "nah love, ya have it all wrong, he showed me the part and how it works and it has to be changed, it's all right luv, he's not rippin ya off!".....
One hour of explaining and suffering the stuipidity of two people, later, we have an answer. And who do you think is paying for the fan*ying around???
This is the reality of dealing with people when it comes to their car, I'll throw out more examples if requested...
You see here is the probelm.
Garages have such a bad name for ripping people, that people don't trust them anymore.
Lets be honest here - ripping customers off is widespread and people are right to be wary. When I see what people I know have been charged for a service (which is dealer speak for an an oil change), you can see why there is a problem.
Irish drivers are in general thick when it comes to car maintanance, so they are not totally fault free, but at the end of the day the customer is always right.
Garages should be asking themselves why people assume they are being robbed, instead of wondering why customers are sometimes a p.i.t.a.
This is something the industry as a whole needs to sort out.
It's easy blame the customer, but if the level of transparancy and communication was better, people would not feel the need to double check everything you say.
Ripping people off is so widespread, that you have a situation where people are afraid to maintain their cars properly.
You reap what you sow and all that. It's a pity that honest guys are getting dragged into this mess, but it's up to you guys to blow the whistle on this mess. It's your industry, and your reputation.
Would you really expect the customers to trust the motor industry after the practises of the last few years?
Why don't honest independents form a group (akin to the SIMI idea) where users are bound by high standards and where good customer service and cheap costs are guaranteed.
Vet members extemely carefully, and boot out anyone who engages in any dodgy dealings.
Be customer centric.
Stick that sign outside your door, and you'll make money, the customer will get a good deal, and everyone is happy.0
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