You can’t build lasting relationships on crumbling foundations
Would you get upset at Ruth’s Chris if you couldn’t order a Hamburger? Would you be angry if a pediatrician wouldn’t make an appointment for Grandma? Why not? Because you understand that both of these businesses have chosen a business model. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Hamburgers or Grandmas, it’s just that those businesses chose to provide other services. For our shop, nothing causes more angst and confusion than our policy of declining to start new service relationships with people with older, often challenged vehicles. Sadly some of our existing clients think (incorrectly) that we won’t continue to work on their vehicles as they age past maturity. Here’s why we decline new service relationships with people with potentially used-up vehicles, why WE DO CONTINUE TO SUPPORT AGING VEHICLES FOR EXISTING CLIENTS, and why we think this policy is in YOUR interest as well as ours…
Long-term relationships are our goal
“Auto repair” covers everything from the cars people most commonly drive to antique specialty cars, exotic speed beasts, or heavy diesel trucks. No one company can do it all, so the choice of services is one of the first decisions any auto repair company must make. We chose to provide ongoing maintenance and repair services to people with major-manufacturer vehicles to help them get the most from their automotive investment. Tom refers to this as “delivering impeccable serve for average people’s average cars”. This initial choice had implications for the facilities, equipment, software, employees, training, and process we currently use to deliver that service.
As important as those things are, a feature that sets us apart from so many other shops is that we have built our business around developing and maintaining full-service long-term, trusting relationships. We consider people who use our services to be clients, not customers. “Customers” are buyers who want specific goods or services based primarily on convenience or price with less emphasis on value or long-term outcome. There’s certainly nothing wrong with customers, but “client” implies all those things and more… a long-term arrangement in which professionals work to provide ongoing services and advice. Client relationships depend on mutual respect, communication, and trust, none of which exist on a person’s first visit to any shop. Nor should they… why should you trust anyone the first time you meet them?
It’s hard to develop new relationships with owners of challenged vehicles.
We encourage new clients to have our Comprehensive Inspection (or Inspection For Repair; IFR), an in-depth vehicle evaluation. The IFR gives us the full-view baseline condition required to develop a sensible plan of action and a list of specific needs prioritized by safety, breakdown-prevention, and maintenance. For well-seasoned vehicles not receiving ongoing maintenance, this list is likely to be long and it can be difficult to decide which repairs, if any, should get priority. We don’t like to be put in the position of providing triage; we are not psychic and we can’t guarantee patch jobs. Aside from any issues of service neglect, time takes its toll as well; sensitive electronics age, wire harnesses and connectors corrode, seals dry and harden, gaskets fail, moisture intrudes, rubber decays, and plastic gets brittle. At the same time these deferred maintenance costs are raising, the resale value of the vehicle is falling. At some point the cost of catching up backlogged service to ensure continued safe operation exceeds the value of a vehicle. We call vehicles in this situation “economically totaled”.
Consider the new prospective client with a challenged vehicle, standing at our counter as we present them a list of issues and estimates for repair. With older, often neglected vehicles, just the top-priority tasks can economically total the vehicle! We prefer people not play catch-up in some cases when vehicles have reached the tipping point of the return on repair investment. Just drawing straws and fixing a few things rarely ends well. A new client may be understandably hesitant, but if our existing clients ever reach this point they trust our judgment if we encourage them to move on to a different vehicle.
Trust works both ways.
People often fail to take responsibility for their aging vehicles needs and conditions, and new clients can be more likely to attribute failures to a shop when they have little track record together. No one likes to pay repair bills and no likes paying for multiple repairs, but if a person brings in a vehicle for a repair and another system fails either immediately or days after, it is not always the technicians’ fault! We have numerous examples of people expecting us to pay for failures or repairs or their vehicles just because we touched it last… “You worked on my car last week and now the driver’s window does not work! Your mechanic must have slammed the door!” Possible, but it’s more likely the client’s 178,000-mile, 14-year-old vehicle needed a window motor! Nevertheless, we would now be expected to fix it for free. Certainly there are cases in which a shop could be responsible for problems associated with a specific repair, and any honest shop will step up and take responsibility and make it right. However, there should be trust and equity in the resolution. Not only does a vehicle owner need to trust the service provider, the provider needs to trust the owner.
These types of responsibility issues don’t usually occur on newer vehicles and we can talk comfortably about unexpected problems with our existing clients. Generally after a few visits clients realize we are looking out for them and their best long-term outcomes; but on a first visit? It is much easier to blame a shop than pay for unexpected repairs. In short, it’s too damn difficult to start a new, trusting service relationship based on a vehicle that’s falling apart.
Keep the client, lose the vehicle.
We absolutely care about our clients, so we understand that it’s not always possible to buy a new vehicle just because your existing one starts to fail. Clients appreciate being told when it’s time to move on if a vehicle has reached a point that it has lost its value a needs major work. We feel it is our responsibility to offer the information and not just keep taking the money for more repairs that don’t make sense. We often hear clients say “I can’t afford a new car!”, but our answer to that is “you can’t afford this one!” Pouring money into a used-up vehicle never ends well and can keep you from affording a newer one that reliably meets your needs. When people who are not existing clients call us with challenged vehicles and no option but to patching things together, we try to refer them to honest, competent shops that will take on the challenge.
We continue to support older vehicles for EXISTING clients!
While systematic, scheduled maintenance can extend your vehicle’s lifetime for many years, eventually entropy will make it too expensive to make the vehicle safe and reliable. If that’s true, then why do we continue working on older vehicles for our existing clients? Because keeping up on vehicle maintenance is what puts off the day your vehicle gets retired. Many of our longtime clients have vehicles with high mileage or are much older than 15 years, but we’ve been maintaining them for many years. We’ve addressed problems as they happened, keeping minor issues from becoming major ones. We know the vehicle, and we know the client. When problems do inevitably arise, we know the condition of the vehicle and the client’s goals so we know if it makes sense to do the repair. And most importantly, when the vehicle does reach the point of unviability, our clients will trust our motives when we recommend they move on. In short, we work on existing clients’ older vehicles because we built a relationship that allows it. These clients know us, we know them, and we know they will take responsibility for their vehicles.
Because most people are rightly suspicious when they try a new shop, we do everything we can to earn their trust and provide peace of mind service. However, years of experience has shown us how difficult it is to build new trusting relationships centered on older, often challenged, vehicles. Our business is not designed to just to fix stuff when it breaks and send you on your way, even though we do that part very well. We’re here to be your driving resource, your automotive concierge, building a relationship you can rely on for many years to come. Our new client policy might feel unfair or inconvenient sometimes, but we think it’s the best way for us to ensure we will be here for all of our established clients in the future.
