When it comes to business, blogs, or news we want to know what makes someone credible. What makes us an expert, which person we should believe. You could always read a couple of articles (On a blog) and figure out if someone knows what they’re talking about and why you should choose our business over someone else’s.
That said, what makes my shop the one you want to bring your car to? We might all have some ideas of what we expect from a business. When it comes to car repair it should be simple and straight forward.
First impressions go a long way. It’s not just important that your facility is clean and comfortable (for those who choose to wait), but I believe customer service trumps all. Nobody knows your car as well as you do, so we need to listen to your concerns, to what brought you to us. If we do don’t understand what matters to our customers, our service will be lacking. What I mean by that, is the simple question of the importance of your car to you. Are you planning to keep your car for maybe another 100,000 miles or are you thinking about getting yourself a new car pretty soon? Based on this alone our advice would vary greatly in our recommendations as to what needs to be done to your vehicle. No need to get into costly repairs if you are not planning on keeping it much longer. On the other hand some customers are surprised that a repair that appears expensive to them is still more economic than the alternative of replacing the vehicle with something comparable.
Not too long ago I was talking to a customer who told me she only had 4 payments left and now it was time for her to start looking for another vehicle because hers had such high mileage. Looking at her odometer I saw the car had only 155,000 miles on it, so I asked her why she thought she needed a new vehicle. Something or someone had given her the idea that (after making payment for 5 years) the vehicle was pretty much at the end of what she could expect to get out of it. I remember about 20-25 years ago when your car was approaching the 80,000 to 100,000 mile range, cars all of a sudden seemed unsellable. These days we see cars coming into the shop that the customer just purchased with 180,000 to 200,000 miles on them. Are those a bad deal? Not necessarily, it really depends on how good somebody took care of the vehicle. Consistent maintenance on fluids alone goes a long way. Coming back to our customer; after paying for 5 years, she should be able to get another 5 years out of her car. If she plans it right she can put away payments over the next 5 years and when she finally does need a new vehicle she’ll be able to buy it cash. But that’s a whole other matter.
As a conclusion to all this, I would like to say that your shop’s advice will speak for itself. Our mission will always be to act in the best interest of the customer with the goal to keep their car on the road as long as possible. This doesn’t mean what we suggest to you is necessarily the cheapest repair at the time, but it will be the best advice for your car in the long run. No matter what you decide, we make it our mission to provide you with all the information you need to make an educated decision of which repairs you want us to do for you.
