mate in life saying things after the situation and what ACTUALLY HAPPENS should they be faced with it are totally different

ive seen staff lie down under cars in shirts and ties,,,, even test drive cars to find what parts they need then with someone else use the " i cant touch the car mate, health and saftey,,,,,,,, also noticed that ive yet to see a staff member refuse to help a fit girl,,,,, usually its the fit girls cars they are climbing under to look for leaks in there suits,,,,,, fat girls are given a mechanics number

sometimes its what you look like,,,,,, people may not like the look of you and so choose not to help

when i first we into TVR place ive delt with for years they never met me,,,,, the bloke at the counter wasnt that helpfull tbh and uninteresting in the questions about a sagarais,,,,, then when i said who i was he perked up totally and i was looked after,,,,,, given a discount and then i took my tuscan there and it was checked over, the history of the car told to me as they knew it and they tuned the engine for me,,,,,, they told me " give the technician a drink" ( who was also a subaru owner and a proper top guy too !!! ) and i gave him what i was expecting to pay for the work rather than a drink

as said though i built up a rapour with them over the time with phone calls and buying parts and supplying them with parts too,,,, also i didnt expect anything tbh either which was a nice bonus not to mention the other stuff they done

 

So, with one use I would be £5 in pocket!?

I'm even MORE shocked now that they wanted £25 for a 30 second job!!

 

yeah that happens alot,,,,, customers dont tend to realise how small the car world is,,,,, the partsman who supplys the parts tends to be the one who grasses the customer up at times too " ive just had this reg given to me for the same parts,,, think hes going round a few places mate" or even the garages tend to talk to each other

it gets worse as ive worked for a few parts places and me and my old work mates call each other up to see if there customers are lying about prices they been quoted to work out the good from the bad

oh i found out that i upset the garage who stores my car because i got someone else to MOT my impreza and not him,,,, i felt bad too but i had to tell him that i pay him money each month and the garage who MOT's my car lets me use hes ramps FOC and does loads of work and refuses to take money for it so i need to give him some work when i can and he respects that as he thought i was doing it to be cheep **** and save a fiver

 

you think a garage uses a machine that costs 20 quid from halfords for diagnostic work

most garages either have a few that cost around 600 quid each plus licence each year or one main one ranging from 2k to 7k,,, just for diagnostic work which is why they charge for or

as said would you work for a fiver HONESTLY..... take into account he never even knew you OR knew you was gonna give him a fiver

i know i wouldnt bother IMO, though if it was someone i knew i wouldnt accept money offered to me

infact i paied 60 quid for my mot on the impreza,,, 35 was the price of the MOT and 25 was a drink for the lads

 

You had a fiver in your back pocket? PMSL.

Just the kind of customer im sure they can do without.

 

I think you are maybe reading too much into this 'Customer Goes Elsewhere' thing .... my experience is that people go to who they trust, or who have given them good service.

I go to the same MOT place year after year, for 4 cars ... I know that they will be honest with me - and, tough on the car (I want to know if there is anything wrong!).

Trust is built up over many visits, loyalty is built up out of a mutual respect ... customers, as you rightly say, can go anywhere - a Specialist who shows an attitude of, "Yes, I will help you with something simple - but I want £300 an hour for doing so" will lose the customers he needs to stay in business. (£300 based on a 5 minute job at £25).

 

Quite clearly they think the same as you ....... but, there is a Cambelt service due - a replacement clutch required - an elderly Impreza to maintain.

Like I said, short sighted ..... the £5 was simply to be a gesture in exchange for the offer of free help for 5 minutes - seems fair to me.

 

Would I assist a new customer who came into my office looking for help?

YES

Would I give that help freely?

YES, if it didn't cost me anything of significance

Would I accept the £5 in return for my outstanding Customer Service?

Depends on how refusal may appear.

Would I consider that I had gained free, fantastic, word of mouth, advertising?

Yes, I would ... very profitable being top at Customer Service (ask John Lewis!)

The £5 is niether here nor there ... the lack of free help, when so cheap to supply, is the issue under discussion.

 

By reading i'm sure you had £20 in one pocket for the clutch and a fresh outta the ATM £10 note in the other for the cambelt change.


Diagnostics is a 5 minute plug in but you could spend half an hour going through fault codes and wats involved and rough idea on time to fit said sensor etc as in your case. Wats average Specialst hourly rate? £40?

So half hour or so £20-25. Thats garage labour time alone. So they actually done the diagnostics for you for free, See? So RESULT!!!!!!


And the Proper Subaru Select Monitor ii from Subaru at the time i think was in region £5k str area.. Although don't quote me on this.

How can garages expect to do this for free for people? And as said above just then go to another garage anyway.

If your a regular then the garage knows you'll give them the work and prob do for free no problem.

 

ok what happens if during this free help he damaged your car ? would you expect him to pay ?

what happened if during this 5 min work the diagnostic was unconclusive,,,,, or the car the cut out and wouldnt start ....... would he have to get it back up and running again ????

these are questions he has to ask himself before he thinks about touching a car,,,,, and if hes expected to do it foc or for a fiver its not worth it for someone he has never met before

if you went there for a tyre and then the car cut out im sure he would be different as most places are but for him to find a fault that its obvious someone else cant find local hence the traveling,,,,, its just not worth the "hope" of work that you MAY get done,,, considering any **** can change a cambelt or a clutch so if you dont wanna spend 25 quid on diagnostic would you wanna spend higher labour charges for the other work done,,,,, when its cheeper and closer garages could do that work

 

john lewis aint EVER gave me anything for free,,,, infact they aint ever discounted anything for me unless i found it cheeper elsewhere..... then when they did they never gave there 5 year warranty but they matched the 12month warranty

not exactly customer service tbh and also there a multi million pound profit business,,,,,, they sell things for more than argos do and there customers are not poor people who earn just over minimum wage and drive subaru imprezas but professional people who earn a professional wage and dont haggle over the price hence they pay more for customer service

the same customers of john lewis would take there car to a main dealer for the work aswell and not quibble about spending 200 quid on a oil service and another 40 quid on wiper blades

 

Now, Now .....

Even though I had NEVER done it before it took me hardly any time whatsoever to find the connectors, connect them together, read the flashes, look up a table and know that it was stating Knock Sensor Error Code .... so, where do you get 30 minutes reading through Error Codes for someone who does it every day?

Like I said, 5 minute job - easy.

So, it wasn't free - was it?

Sorry for the quote .... let's assume you are correct - £5,000 .... used on, what? 2,500 cars over its life? That's £2 a car - yep, £2!

The idea is that you speculate to accumulate ... by that I mean you help many in the hope that a few may become your 'Bread and Butter' Customers who will see you through the lean years. Simple Business principles at work

To become a regular you need to be willing to go there agian and again .... because they did something, in the very begining, to help you freely when you needed it most!

Like I said, Customers can go anywhere with their money .... and do vote with their feet in most cases.

 

Mate.


I'm sure the chap with meeting/greeting. Plugging monitior in. and then explaining wat fault code was. Wat symthoms it gives. As in permanant or intermittent check engine light on. When engine light on car won't boost correctly or boost cut due to ecu detecting a possible knock fault. Then explaining wat sensor you need. Pricing sensor. Explaining where and how long fitting time was etc. Was longer then 5 mins.??

 

At the end of the day any workshop whether they are franchised or independent are in business to make money.

Most garages will diagnose a fault for free if they are going to be carrying out the repair(s) which is fair enough but having worked myself in the motor trade for nearly 20 years you do see some 'timewasters' not that I am including you in that category.

You would be surprised at the amount of customers who turn up to have a fault diagnosed / seek advice and then disappear never to be seen from again. Another 'classic' is to price a repair and obtain an estimate which list part numbers and then go and order spurious parts from elsewhere and take the vehicle to another workshop.

What a lot of people do not realise is the cost of diagnostic equipment and even more relevant is that while a technician is taken off a job to offer advice who pays for the time? If I were a paying customer I would be really cheesed off to think that the technician clocked to my job was giving somebody else advice for free while I was paying for his time.

 

Probably one of the many reasons you dont own and run your own successful, profitable business.

 

i doubt that the machine would be used on 2500 cars in its lifetime

prob gets used 15 times a month,,, new cars come out and machine will need changing every 3 years on average or buy the software upgrades, the companys tend to discontinue the machines to make you upgrade,,,, they aint silly,,,,, i know this as i hand over sales "leads" for my customers

2500 cars,,,,, he wouldnt get any time to actually repair the cars as he would be diagnosing all day long

 

Further to the above where I work in a main dealership we have 3 diagnostic laptops (all identical) which we need to meet dealer standards, the first new laptop arrived this week and costs £7000 including software but not including other hardware required ie interface boxes, connectors etc.

There are another 2 coming next week meaning that we have spent £21000 on new diagnostic laptops and they will be out of date in 2-3 years time and at the end of the period the laptops are sent away to be securely destroyed.

And people wonder why they get charged for diagnostics...

 

As above if he done 2500 cars in wat you price at £2 a car for the possible 5k cost say.



Then going with my meet/greet, get codes and explain the price of job repair etc being a half an hour.



So with a 5 day workin week over a 365day year minus sat/sun is 260 days and minus say 10 bank holidays so go with 250 working days per year. At two diagnostic a working day. Thats 500 plug ins a year and two in a workin day per year so over a 5 year period equals below.



So it would cost him an hour a day x 250 x5 = 1250 hours in a 5 year period doing free diagnostic checks.





1250hrs divide that by 8 daily workin hours equals 156 wasted free of charge workin days over a 5 year period or 31 full workin days outta 250 per year.



Do you still feel the same way??





DAVE


Do you agree?

 

Oh come on Pete. First impressions of a company, should be based on whether you received friendly service, not freebies, regardless of how quick a job it is/can be.

If they'd been unpleasant, fine, but charging you for work ffs.

You may well have been sincere in wanting them to do this, and later being happy to give them custom, but be fair, how would they know this for sure, having never met you/dealt with you before?

You are just one person, looking at what is/should be a quick job, but if they were that soft or kind, how much paid work would they miss out on, as they were too preoccupied doing favours? How do they know someone is genuine saying they will give them further work? How pissed would paying customers be, should work on their car be delayed or not done, if a wedge of time was being spent on free jobs (how would you feel if you were expecting a job done, for a certain date/time and it wasn't).

Don't look at it as just a 30 second job, it all adds up, fully dealing with a person, and what may be quick alone, turns into 30 minutes+ all tolled. A couple of them a day, can mean a loss of real business.

Just because you know what you mean, and what you may give back, doesn't mean they will, or can be expected to. Ffs, for every genuine person, there will be **** takers, and not knowing a person, a business can't be expected to know the difference.

 

31 free workin days a year? x 8 equals 248 hrs per year.

So if he charges £40 per hour on normal incoming work then thats £9920 a year of potential loss.


Or business survival or not. Or the rent etc.

How far would your £5 go??

 

care to name the 'specialist' involved? ...as I'm pretty sure they'd remember an 80+ year old asking for a code check?

That way we could then get their side of the story? ...if there is indeed a story & this isn't one of your delusional/ wind up posts, after all you've been on here a while (8 years +?) & surely know how to read them yourself?

 

I agree with what Ginge has said. ''Lets stop what im doing and work on this guy ive never met before's car, for free!''

 

Local Subaru dealer charged me £35 quid a couple of years ago. Still, for peace of mind, it was worth it.

I was worried it might be the MAF as it went into limp home mode. Turned out it was the speed sensor.

 

I see Pete has done a runner on this, lol.

 

Pete has been out living life in the sun ..... hardly running away ....

It seems that good old customer service (the type delivered freely in the old days of the 50's, 60's and 70's) is dead and gone - and some on here think it is acceptable?

Thankfully, some others posting in here have specialists who would freely read Error Codes for them ..... so, good service IS still alive and kicking somewhere!

 

With all due respect to your point of view which you are entitled to we are not in the 50's, 60's or 70's - do you actually realise the costs entailed in running any kind of business which repairs vehicles?

Like I have stated earlier where I work we have just spent £21K on three diagnostic laptops which do not pay for themselves and require a technician to operate them who is paid by the hour (and quite well paid at that).

Apart from the above costs there are a myriad of costs meaning that we have to charge at least 3 times the technicians hourly pay rate before we make a penny profit on the job, and then you want to have a free diagnostic check carried out?

It is not just a simple case of a '5 minute' job, yes we do carry out diagnostic checks for customers but there is a minimum charge because it will take more than 5 minutes just to produce the job card, carry out the checks, the technician has to write-up the job and then the job is invoiced (all of which are included in any manufacturers standard times).

 

Pete, are you missing the point on purpose or are you just dense?

I also get free code reading from a garage i have used extensively and spent hundreds of pounds with as an existing customer. The fact is, you have never used the people you want free work from.

You might also have noticed were in the middle of a recession!

No-one agrees with you, take the hint!

 

Plenty of people would expect a Specialist worth using to offer free error code readings - of that there is no doubt.

Whether the outfit wishes to do that in the hope of repeat business and a long term loyal customer is entirely a matter for the owners of that business.

It's a shame if real old fashioned customer service has disappeared in the chase for money ....

 

To be fair though, especially nowadays, a business has to look after their interests, which yes, is primarily making money.

Just because they didn't do something free, doesn't in turn make them bad in terms of customer service, that's a bit unfair. They had never seen you before, they couldn't know for sure you would ever go back, to them, you are simply someone after a (albeit fairly quick) job done for nothing.

If they did that for everyone coming in, they'd be very good people, but they are there as a business not a charity. I would bet, if you were a regular, they would probably have done this free of charge.

 

As Lisa said. Customer service and not charging for work are two COMPLETELY different things. Sometimes free work is carried out as a 'gesture of good will'.

Usually to those who have been loyal customers of which you dont qualify.

So, quit thinking the world owes you a favour and get a grip of reality.

Were in the middle of a recession and youre complaining companies are not doing work for free.

Cuckoo!