As humans, we talk a lot, but we don’t communicate very well. Poor communication is the Number 1 challenge we have in our daily objective of fixing cars and taking care of our customers. Communication affects every aspect of what we do. It does not just affect some things… it affects EVERYTHING. One very important […]
Technicians
“Where Is My Inspection Report?”
Once your client’s vehicle goes into the shop you will want to be fully aware how long the technician has had the vehicle. Your technician needs to perform the Multi-Point Inspection as the first thing they do after bring the vehicle to their bay. As the consultant, if 15 minutes has gone by, the thought […]
Handling the Pressure
Pressure. Stress. Frustration. Unfortunately, these are a fact of life. They can cause us to come up short on being accountable and being respectful. In our fast paced world, pressure, stress and frustration are increasing. Our business adds to the equation since we repair cars, but we sell time. Time is a limited commodity. We […]
The Grandma Dynamic
“If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything.” This was once a bit of training mothers told their children. From my observations, I don’t think this bit of advice is passed on anymore. It also seems that many who were taught this no longer remember it. This teaching is a good summary […]
What’s In Our Heads?
Our thinking is our greatest ally or our worst enemy in our pursuit of excellence. Below we continue the article we began in the last post from The University of Kent in the United Kingdom. The article gives some examples of the kind of thinking that prohibits us from excellence: Negative performers – Are content […]
Striving For Excellence
“We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we’ve chosen to do with our life. Steve Jobs Striving for excellence is an important part of professionalism in any […]
Good Enough
Have you ever used the term, “Good enough”? Have you ever been working on a project and reached a point when you said to yourself, or others you were working with, “Well, that’s good enough. It will have to do”? Sure you have. We all have. What are we saying when we utter that phrase? […]
The Third C
We have covered the first two C’s in the service repair order documentation process. We now dive into the third C. The third C is correction. This is the technician’s recording of what you did to correct the customer’s concern. It is the description of what you did to fix the car and how you […]
The Second C
The second C in the 3-C’s is cause. Technicians diagnose vehicles to determine the cause of their customer’s concern. There are two methods to arrive at the answer to what is the cause of the problem. One method is to guess at the cause and replace a part. If the guess is correct, the part […]
The First C
One of the main tasks we do as service personnel is create a record of what we do everyday. Each day your customers arrive with needs regarding the cars they own and are looking to us to help them solve those needs. As a business, we have to keep records of the work we perform […]