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After squaring away the basics and launching your career as an automotive service writer, the next step in the process of learning how to become a service writer is to gain hands-on experience within the automotive industry.

1. Find the Right Environment To Support Your Service Writer Career

Environment will have a major impact on the potential for your career to grow, flourish and shape in new ways.

You should consider whether you’d prefer to work in an independent repair shop, auto repair franchise, or dealership environment. Each work environment has its own perks and unique culture which might affect your decision.

You may also want to consider looking for a shop that has your career growth in mind, and one that has the right foundation like a cloud-based shop management system in place.

Features like texting your customers their inspection results have revolutionized the way service writers can interact with their clients.

And there’s also the team dynamics to think about. You might ask yourself: do I want to work for a high-volume brand with a large staff and management hierarchy, or would I prefer working with a smaller crew with more of a team feel?

Asking questions about a shop’s values upfront during the interview process can help ensure the work environment is a good fit for you and save a lot of headaches down the road.

Every element of your team is critical, from the technicians who complete the repairs to the service writers who assist customers and keep repair orders flowing through your shop management system.

They’re the people who are responsible for directly communicating with guests or working on vehicles. They're the core of your everyday operations, ensuring cars are brought in, estimates move along, and repairs are completed on time.

It is absolutely critical for great shops to start with great talent!

With the power of cloud-based shop management systems, auto repair shops can build the best team possible with the right mindset, culture, and approach to hiring and retaining the best talent.

We get that looking for a new shop management system can be overwhelming. There are a lot of options to wade through, and a lot of features you need to learn about. But most are probably of you are probably thinking “can this tool do what I need it to?”

To help you wade through all the options out there, the best way to find the right tool for the job is to look for information from the people using those tools every day. That means shop owners, general managers, service advisors, and technicians.

Of course, word of mouth is great, and it's always awesome to get the chance to talk to shop owners and workers in person at industry events, but you don't have to wait. With so many resources at their disposal, we wanted to help shop owners looking for a new shop management system leverage the wealth of information out here like online reviews, user groups, and case studies to help them make the best decision for their team.

With Digital Vehicle Inspections shops can go the extra mile and introduce a new level of transparency through a frictionless experience for the customer.

They can get clear pictures or videos to show them what's wrong, have the inspection results sent to their email, and approve or decline work with just the click of a button.

However, while this is super simple for the customer, for Service Advisors, finding the right inspection can be time-consuming. Especially when your shop is training new service advisors and introducing them to your standard operations.

To save your Service Advisor's time and effort, we are excited to announce our newest feature: Default Inspections. 

This feature streamlines the inspection process and makes it easier for you to provide great service to your customers.

With this latest update, we want to deep dive into one of the most beneficial features, buy now, pay later, so shop owners can see for themselves.

Tekmerchant was designed to help shop owners, like you, to build trust with customers, close out the day faster, and turbo charge shop’s payment processing by offering them a fully integrated payments solution, all managed by a trusted team. Building off your existing Tekmetric experience, Tekmerchant is another way to supercharge both your shop’s processes and your customer’s experience at the same time.

More specifically, we're really excited to tell you about our new buy now, pay later feature , making it easier for your guests to do business with your shop -- especially on those more expensive repair orders. 

With just the inclusion of Tekmerchant alone, Silver Lake Auto’s shop performance continues to grow. At the organization’s flagship store, average repair order (ARO) has increased by more than $200 a month!

And we’re excited to see how much those AROs grow with buy now, pay later.

Here, we explore the importance of service writers for an auto center or dealership. By the end, you'll have a comprehensive understanding of the service writer role, the qualifications they need, and what to look for when you’re hiring.

What is an automotive service writer?

A service writer is the liaison between the customer and the repair garage. Sometimes called a service advisor or coordinator, they run the front desk and interact directly with your customers. The service writer is essentially the face of the business, and they fulfill several duties that keep the service center functional.

What does an automotive service writer do?

Service writers do a lot for a repair center. Here are some of their main duties:

• Delivering exceptional customer service
• Coordinating and managing service appointments
• Monitoring and overseeing vehicle maintenance and repairs
• Maintaining accurate records of customer and vehicle data
• Generating service cost estimates for customers
• Facilitating effective communication between customers and technicians
• Handling billing transactions and manage financial records

The duties of a service writer typically depend on their qualifications. Understanding the foundational credentials can help you choose the right candidate for your maintenance center.

“You guys are crazy.” 

It just slipped out of my mouth, one of those uncontrollable moments you realize you can’t take back. I’d taken the feathers out of the pillow.

All eyes were on me, the entire room staring like I was out of mind. 

Someone—I don’t remember who—went, “What in the world did you just do?”

In 1991, life was going great. I was working for a Honda dealership in Colorado and had become a master Honda technician, one of the first trained technicians for Acura vehicles.

I was even on my way to the next level, a Gold Wrench Master Technician. I was gonna do every bit of training, all their online courses, to hit these levels and get that Golden Wrench.

I was committed to it. I went to the training center on my days off, got with the trainer whenever I could. I asked if I could finish it, all my online testing. If I turned everything in, I’d get a plaque, a ring, and a jacket. That’s what made you a Gold Wrench Master Technician.

I was on the dealership career path and well on my way to that recognition, and figured I’d stay there—until the day management at my dealership called me and my colleagues into a meeting to give us an important message. 

The message they had for us? 

“We need sales and we need dollars on tickets, no matter how you get ‘em.”

Immediately, my internal alarm went off. 

I didn’t feel it was right to lie to get more money out of customers. There are all these perceptions about the automotive industry, you know, people associating auto shop owners with being crooks. And I had a father who was, like, beyond ethical.

He worked as an interpreter for Spanish-speaking countries at the United Nations’ General Assembly. He used to say, “If you don’t lie, you never need to remember what you said” and “A liar, a crook, and a thief are all in the same place.” 

I had a mother who was a businesswoman. She ran her own beauty salon, Lucy's Hair Stylist in New York. She knew what it meant to work hard and do honest business.

My parents had worked hard, and raised me and my siblings with a strong sense of right and wrong. I couldn’t get on board with what these guys were telling us.

And so it came out: “You guys are crazy.”

The room was silent. Guys were still looking at me, you know, like, “What did you do?”

So I kept talking.

“You’re asking people who have been with you for years to be unethical.” 

Management didn’t like that.

“No, we didn’t ask that.”

“Yeah, you did,” I said. “You pretty much did.” 

They didn’t like that either.

“You can excuse yourself from this meeting,” they said. 

And so I did. 

When you started your shop, you probably had to get the word out there. Maybe you passed out cards at your gym or got your family to tell all their friends about your new business.

Today, you likely have a loyal customer base. Your regulars drop by whenever they need repairs, and they probably also recommend your shop to their friends and family. That word-of-mouth marketing is immensely valuable. After all, new folks can’t come to your shop if they don’t know about it!

But even with loyal customers who spread the good word about your shop, you’ll eventually hit a plateau. People don’t have an endless number of friends and family in the area that they can keep referring your shop to.

When you think about the most exciting aspects of being in the auto repair industry, it’s unlikely that the invoice and estimating process comes to mind. Drafting up invoices and getting approval on estimates can be a tedious process when all your team wants to do is get things rolling with the repair! And if you have a small team, it might be tough to find someone who can squeeze in the time to create an estimate and invoice for every single repair.

However, the auto repair invoice and estimating process is one of the most important parts of your business. By fine-tuning it, you can keep better track of repairs and sell more work, increasing your shop’s ARO.

Here are five main reasons why you should fine-tune your shop’s auto repair invoice and estimating process.

As 2023 winds down, it's a great time to reflect on the strides made across the independent auto repair industry.

Throughout the year, we’ve been collecting data, talking to shops that rely on Tekmetric every day, and gaining valuable insight into how your shop can prepare for the best year possible in 2024.

That’s why we released our latest Industry Index Report earlier this year, to give shops and industry resources to not only compare their performance against other shops but also some concrete tips and tricks they can implement at their shop. 

This comprehensive analysis not only assesses the industry's vitality but also seamlessly integrates unique Tekmetric’s partner shop data, presenting a goldmine of opportunities for optimizing shop management.

The result is a compelling narrative that provides a bird's-eye view of auto repair in 2023 and delves into Tekmetric-specific data, to offer shops like yours the actionable insights you need for success in 2024.

Here’s how shops can take advantage of these trends in 2024.

My daughter had been working at my other shop location when that customer stopped by, a woman who was maybe mid-to-late thirties. Had her kids with her. Her car had a lot of problems. My team was about to be the bearer of bad news. 

Her kids were a bit anxious, so my daughter suggested that she go wait at the McDonald’s next door and have a meal. But the woman stayed. 

As my daughter worked with the managers of that shop, she sensed that this woman was extremely stressed. So, being the person she is, my daughter started talking with her. She asked her how she was doing, trying to get her to open up. 

“I’m having this problem with this car, and on top of everything else right now, it’s just too much,” the customer said. 

“I’m really sorry about that,” my daughter replied. “Hopefully, we’ll find a solution. Anything you got going on, anything we can help with?” 

“No, not really at this point. Just know that I appreciate you asking. It's just been a rough month for me.”

Then she started getting teary-eyed. 

“It’s ok, it’s totally ok,” my daughter comforted her. “I can be a friend to talk to.” 

“My husband just died,” the customer said. “He would bring his car here. And now I have the car here for you guys to work on. I’ve got two kids. He died unexpectedly. Everything’s a whirlwind right now. We don’t even have the money to do what we need to do to have a burial for him.” 

My daughter realized that the burden of the car repairs on top of everything else this woman needed to take care of was just too much. No one should ever have to deal with all of that. 

So she called me and told me what was going on. 

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

“Dad,” she cried, “Can we just fix her car for her? We can get her back on the road because she needs to get rolling. She’s got to deal with personal stuff. And then can we get her back to do the other repairs that need to get done? Can we just take care of her?”

So I turned to my team and told them what’s going on, told them what my daughter had asked of us. 

“Is everybody in agreement with that?” 

“Yeah,” they all chimed. 

So I told them to call the vendors and get rock bottom prices on the parts. We’d cover the additional costs for the parts, cover all the labor, and get her back on the road. 

It was an important moment for all of us. It made business come down to the human level. Obviously, shops need money to run. But we saw, with our own eyes, that there’s a greater value in our work than just selling parts and labor.

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