A standard automotive repair order form usually isn’t more than a page or two. It contains vital information like the work to be done on a vehicle, any parts to be ordered, and a cost estimate of all the services to be provided.
While traditional auto repair order forms have served as a reliable method for managing repair orders for many years, it is becoming increasingly clear that they are no longer the most efficient or effective option available.
In fact, there are several ways in which the use of manual auto repair order forms may be limiting the potential of your shop.
Old-School Repair Order Forms Should be a Thing of the Past
Auto repair shops typically use repair order forms to present customers with vital information like vehicle inspection findings, recommended repairs, parts information, and a cost estimate for all the services provided.
Traditional repair order forms are printed out on paper, typically only one or two pages, or even handwritten in some shops.
While traditional auto repair order forms have served as a reliable method for managing repair orders for many years, it is becoming increasingly clear that paper-based systems just won't cut it.
Everything today is digital, from paying your doctor to ordering a slice of pizza. Most customers just don't want to have to worry about paper receipts.
Even if they haven't realized it yet, offering a completely digital experience will be a game changer.
Provide a Modern Customer Experience with Digital Repair Order Forms
Customers feel the same way about paper receipts and paper estimates as most of us do about a glove compartment crammed full of paper maps: inconvenienced and overwhelmed.
With a cloud-based shop management system, independent auto repair shops can revolutionize their entire process of building, sending, and approving estimates in a way that encourages customers to complete those critical repairs.
1. Simplify The Entire Repair Order Process
Your customers lead busy lives and might dread coming into the shop because of the time commitment alone. Relying on a traditional auto repair order form process means taking up even more of their time by tying them to your shop with in-person authorizations and payments.
Typed reports are easy for everyone to read, minimizing the potential problems that come with difficult-to-decipher automotive repair order forms.
Remember: more time spent tending to prospective customers is more opportunity to say “yes” to customers. Help your team focus on the tasks at hand and get customers back on the road.
2. Add Visibility with Digital Vehicle Inspections
A picture speaks a thousand words. With digital vehicle inspections, you can write a story for the customer using pictures and explanations of any vehicle issues your technicians found. A handy color-coded system even lets customers know which concerns are most time-sensitive.
Simply telling customers their ball joint is loose might leave them wondering why it matters if they can't feel the impact when driving. But showing them the massive play between components, torn boots, and dirty globs of grease will help them understand why the repair is worth the cost.
3. Text or Email Customers Directly
Customers want things fast, simple, and on their phones. When they're already texting their doctor, babysitter, or coworkers, why shouldn't they be able to text their shop when they drop off their car?
Well, now they can. With a digital automotive repair order form process, shops can text or email inspection findings, estimate forms, or even directly communicate and answer questions customers might have through text or email.
Tekmetric makes it easy and lets shops text directly from the app with their shop's landline number, so no extra phone services or phone lines to worry about.
4. Make Paying Your Shop Easy
Shops should look to take advantage of alternative payment methods when possible to provide customers with flexible service to simplify the payment process.
Whether you let customers text-to-pay directly from their estimates, or offer Buy Now, Pay Later options, your shop will surprise customers with the convenience offered, and have the opportunity to sell larger repair orders.
Not only does this make it easier for your customers, but Tekmerchant and our buy now, pay later options provide shops with the necessary protections, working to prevent any potential fraud from falling on your shoulders. You can relax with that peace of mind, knowing your shop will always get paid for completed work.
Streamline Your Auto Repair Order Form Process, Boost Your Sales
By digitizing your automotive repair order form process with Tekmetric, you can simplify your shop’s data, improve legibility, provide a full picture of each vehicle, and give your customers more freedom and convenience.
Make the switch to a modern digital solution to drive your sales, your team, and your success.
As much we like to think we’ve always been at the top, no one is born a boss. Before you became an auto repair shop owner, you probably held other positions and had someone else bossing you around. Think back to those bosses, and how you felt about those jobs.
You may have had some bosses who you didn’t like. Their leadership style might have been too aggressive, or maybe they didn’t take the time to show you the ropes.
But hopefully, you had at least one boss who helped you get to where you are today. Typically, good bosses:
Strongly support your career growth by encouraging you to gain new skills
Understand when you have to take some time off or shift your work hours
Trust you to get the job done instead of micromanaging you
Show you they value your contributions to the team
Effectively communicate instructions and priorities to you
If you had a supportive boss who championed you at work, you probably went above and beyond—you knew they valued your work. Your former boss’s great leadership qualities probably set an example for you, influencing how you run your own shop today.
We’re willing to bet you’re already an excellent leader, running your own shop in a way that inspires your team, just like how your previous bosses might have inspired you. But, just like you expect your employees to grow in their roles, your employees expect you to continue growing as a leader.
By fine-tuning your leadership skills, you can bring the absolute best out of yourself and your team.
When my husband Dana and I started Haglin Automotive, our loyal customers found us from The Yellow Pages.
Things have drastically changed since then thanks to all the technology advancements. Online reviews and Google play a big part in whether a customer will set foot in your shop or return for future repairs.
At Haglin Auto, we always adjust to meet customers, and whether they’re a return customer or a new customer, we prioritize how they feel.
It’s important to meet your customers where they are. We even offer customers free vehicle pick-up and delivery service, free shuttle services, and free loaner vehicles.
But, more importantly, we make sure they understand their repairs and can see everything that’s going on with their cars.
Build Trust with Digital Vehicle Inspections (DVIs)
Haglin Auto has been around for 41 years in the Boulder area, and twice a year 30,000 people come in and out because of Boulder University of Colorado, so we’ve always had an influx of students.
And in order to cater to our college students, we started implementing DVIs.
The reason we made the change in the first place was because our service writers would call a local college student and say, “You car is doing this, this, and that,” and a lot of the times a student would respond with, “I don’t understand,” “I’m not the one paying,” or “Let me call my mom or dad.”
From there, the student would make a phone call home, they would ask questions, and then the student would call back with questions.
More than anything, partnerships should be mutually beneficial to everyone involved. When good partnerships are formed, the whole should be worth more than the sum of its parts.
Why Should Your Auto Business Partner with Other Brands?
For example, McDonald’s burgers make you thirsty enough to want a Coca-Cola, and sodas have a high margin. By partnering up, McDonald’s can lock in their costs on soda and improve their profit margins for the long term.
On the other hand, not all partnerships are beneficial. Partnerships can expand your opportunities but can also force you into making decisions you never intended to make. When McDonald’s decided to partner with Coca-Cola, they had to exclude other soda brands from their locations.
This exclusivity may have been worth it, but it meant removing options from customers, such as Dr. Pepper and Pepsi products. What may have made the partnership intriguing for McDonald’s is the fact that Coca-Cola owns a variety of beverages, including Diet Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Powerade, Minute Maid and Pibb Xtra.
Thanks to a variety of options, McDonald’s is able to satisfy most customers who ask for a Dr. Pepper by saying, “Will Pibb Xtra be okay?”
Partnerships in the Auto Repair Industry
In the auto repair industry, we face similar challenges when it comes to partnering with other businesses and brands.
Potential partnerships may include teaming up with parts suppliers, software companies, marketing and trade show affiliates, and any other service, resource or tool that could potentially improve your shop. In some cases, these partnerships will help shop owners enhance performance, save costs and drive revenue.
Other times, auto partnerships may bind you to an agreement that doesn’t pay off.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to determine whether a partnership is mutually beneficial or if they’re asking you for more than you’re getting in return.
1. Are You Free to Choose the Tools and Solutions You Want?
One sign of a bad partnership is being forced to do something you don’t want to do. If partnering with another company means taking valuable options off the table, then you may be at a disadvantage.
If your partner implies or directs you not to do business with their competitors because they would like for you to instead use their services or their partner’s services, think it through.
Before officially entering a partnership, imagine your shop one year, five years and ten years down the road. Where will it be then? What will happen if your shop grows? What if innovation has slowed down with your partner? Will you be allowed to innovate your business by using new tools and solutions that become available in the future?
If you’re restricted in a way that prevents you from innovating or adapting to market conditions by testing other products, tools, solutions, and software, you may be handcuffed and unable to compete with other shops.
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