I’ve lost count, but a number of our lady customers tell me that they really, really appreciate the time we take to explain things. We provide factual and useful information. Our service writers and technicians treat?everyone with respect as smart customers, “not like a dumb blond.” That’s a quote from one of our customers and I’ve heard several variations that express the same sentiment. It’s hard to believe that repair shops ignore or mistreat half, or over half of their customers like that. I have not actually taken a census of the customers, but I think more than half are women. Fact is, automotive shops often short-change their customers with regard to educating their customer about their car, repair needs and critical information. A few extra minutes and minimal effort to explain would go a long way.
Here at Bryan’s, we want a long term relationship of service with our customers, not just a transaction. It makes me very happy to know that we have a strong reputation for being helpful to our customers. We take the time to explain, it’s easy, doesn’t take much time and builds a better relationship. I would think that most automotive shops know that their female customers or any customer, are not mechanically inept. Rather, customers are often not automotive fluent, regardless of whether they are a man or woman. This would be especially true of people who are younger. Cars are much more complex than when I was growing up and learned how to do basic maintenance and repairs with my Dad. This opportunity has slipped away, it’s hard to do even basic maintenance on many modern cars at home. The learning process has been taken away in some sense by our better, but more restrictive technology. Restrictive in the sense that it requires more specialization, tools and equipment. Automotive is becoming a lost language. There is a solution, bring your car to us and we will share with you what we know about your car. The hands-on experience with Dad we can’t duplicate, but sharing knowledge, that we can do and you can become more fluent in Automotive.
We don’t ever consider our customers dumb or inept. Everything is a function of education, learning opportunities and hopefully experience. When a customer comes to Bryan’s, it’s a learning opportunity and we try to do our best as experienced educators. Nobody should leave this shop without a full understanding of what repair they are having done, how and most importantly, why. Knowing why and how we do a repair is a critical part of the value added in any service. My hope is that the value we add in this effort is better or more than what you pay for in the repair. Better way of saying that: You get a lot for your money at Bryan’s.
Information is power and we like our customers to be powerful. I have not personally noticed, but evidently, we take our female customers more seriously than some other shops. I would like to be right in believing that we take everyone seriously. When a customer leaves this shop they will have their car in excellent running condition and armed with useful knowledge to keep their car in running condition.
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