JimmyAlauria. (Critiquedbyhiswife) WOMEN'SGUIDE TOCHOSINGANHONESTMECHANIC ISBN

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1 WOMEN'SGUIDE JimmyAlauria (Critiquedbyhiswife) TOCHOSINGANHONESTMECHANIC ISBN FREE

2 The Women s Guide to Choosing an Honest Mechanic By Jimmy Alauria (critiqued by his beautiful wife, Nadine) It has been said that for women finding a trustworthy mechanic is almost as important as finding a good family doctor. If you think about how much we rely on our cars here in the U.S., it only makes sense to have a good relationship with the person who is going to keep them reliable and safe. Yet the process of finding a good mechanic is usually done by trial and error, which leads to frustration, uncertainty and buyer s remorse. The good news is that you will no longer have to go through the process of finding an honest mechanic alone. With The Women s Guide to Choosing an Honest Mechanic, you will be equipped with the right tools to help you choose an auto repair shop that is friendly, honest and reliable. This guide will help you know what things you should be looking for in your research, teach you how to ask the right questions about what you are buying and ultimately knowing what kind of service you should expect from your mechanic. Seven Rules to Finding the Right Auto Repair Shop for You Rule #1 - Do your research Not too long ago the only research anybody could do on a company was to ask the people they knew or make a phone call to the BBB. But today that is not the case. Not only do we have friends, family and the BBB, but we also have dozens of review websites like Google, Yahoo, Yelp, Angie s List, YP.com etc. It is said that 90 percent of all reviews are real and trustworthy. Of course there are always going to be those scam artists out there posting their own reviews or having their friends do so for them. Thankfully, Google and other top websites blackball those companies that cheat, which has discouraged most of the dishonesty. An auto repair shop that is providing great service to their customers will get attention on the Internet. Consumers have always loved forwarding good news about businesses that they love, but the Internet gives the consumer so much more power to help and they use that power by leaving Internet reviews. The best businesses usually have the most and the best Internet reviews. On the contrary, an auto repair shop that is not providing good service will upset enough people that a few of them will post bad reviews about them on the Internet. It s true that some Internet critiques are unwarranted and that there are people out there who abuse the right to criticize without giving the business a fair chance to fix an upset. So, look at the big picture of many reviews and many review sites to make your decision. Once you find the shops that have good reviews, the next thing you want to do is visit their website. What you are looking for is a website that represents quality. The website should be clean and professional and should have pictures of the waiting room, key personnel and a list of the basic services that they offer. The pictures will give you a good idea of the cleanliness of the shop as well as the professionalism of the staff. If they don t have pictures the question you should ask yourself is Why wouldn t they have pictures? If you get a good feeling about the business from the website then it s time to contact them.

3 Rule #2 If they don t sound friendly and helpful over the phone, they probably aren t when you get there either. How the office personnel of an auto repair shop handles the phones will tell you a lot about the kind of service you can expect. When you call the shop, you should expect to be speaking with somebody who has a willingness to help in their voice. Not everybody who works in the office at a repair shop is going to be an expert on cars, but that doesn t mean that they shouldn t be professional, friendly and composed. In today s age of foreign call centers and antagonistic customer service departments it s really common for consumers to put up with poor phone etiquette and bad manners. If a shop is good they will be busy, which means they may have to put you on hold. But they will still ask you if it s OK to put you on hold before they do so. When they get back on the line, the person on the phone should make you feel like the most important person in the world. You are calling with a problem and they should be listening and asking questions making sure that they fully understand your concern. If they are talking over you and not listening, hang up and call another shop. You never get a second chance to make a first impression and this kind of shop doesn t deserve a second chance to get your business because there are plenty of great shops out there waiting to treat you right. Rule #3 - Does the place make you feel comfortable? You know that feeling of going into a really nice restaurant and not knowing how to pronounce anything on the menu nor having a clue what anything is going to taste like? And then the waiter makes you feel like a low- class citizen when you ask him to explain the menu in laymen s terms. I don t know about you but that s not my idea of fine dining! In the auto repair business, one of the most important things your new shop should do is speak in a language that you can understand without you having to ask them to do so. They should make the complicated and technical issues of the modern vehicle simple and understandable. For example, rather than explaining that a top engine and injector decarb service will improve your gas mileage like you should have just heard about what a top engine decarb was while you were watching NASCAR last weekend. They might explain it more like this: Your fuel injectors are like a shower head and they get clogged from the carbon and dirt in the fuel. We want to clean the fuel injectors and the area they spray the fuel into with a special chemical just like you might clean a showerhead with a calcium remover. Then they will spray evenly and not all over like a plugged showerhead and the fuel will have a clean area to burn. This service will improve your gas mileage and make the car take off from those stop lights a lot quicker. The difference in those two explanations is the difference between good communication and bad communication. It doesn t matter how much your mechanic knows about cars. If they can t explain what they know to you in simple and understandable terms you won t really appreciate their expertise. But even more importantly than that, is the fact that when communication is mistranslated, misunderstood or even partially understood, it will lead to an upset or mistake 90 percent of the time. Now that being said, if you don t understand what they are telling you then make sure you ask questions. You have some responsibility in the communication being understood too. And the type of shop you are looking for will take the time to explain things fully even if it takes more time than usual AND they won t make you feel rushed, stupid or assume that you should just take their word for it because they are the experts. If they need to, they will show you pictures, draw a diagram or, even better, they will take you

4 out to the car and show you exactly what they are talking about. The whole point is that your ideal mechanic will always try and make you feel comfortable by listening, asking questions and taking however much time it takes to ensure you are 100 percent confident in their ability to solve your problem because it has been explained to YOUR satisfaction. Rule #4 - Are they interested in solving your problem? By survey, one of the most important criteria that consumers of automotive repairs care about is that their mechanic can fix the car right the first time. Even though most repair shops know this is true, many Service Advisors are still pressed to meet quotas on certain menu item services. Menu Items are the list of basic maintenance that the manufacturers recommend based on time and mileage. They include things like transmission, power steering & brake fluid replacement or the 30, 60, 90 thousand mile service. Although these services are important to the reliability and longevity of your vehicle, they shouldn t be the #1 concern of your mechanic. All too often people take their cars to a shop to handle some weird noise or rattle. The noise or rattle is their problem and that should be the only thing that shop is focused on to start. Yet many people will get a call from the shop with a list of menu items that are due and that the noise was a quick fix by the mechanic. So the customer authorizes the other services after being relieved that the noise wasn t something more expensive. Then they pick up their car and drive down the road only to hear THE EXACT NOISE still there. Was the mechanic and service advisor in this situation really concerned with solving the customer s problem? No, the service advisor was interested in solving his problem the quota. And the mechanic wasn t interested in spending the time to do the, sometimes tedious, job of tracking down a noise or rattle. Yes, once the initial concern is addressed and fully handled the shop should recommend any needed maintenance or other repairs. Don t get me wrong, I m a huge advocate of keeping up with the manufacturer s recommended services, and a mechanic that recommends them and stays on top you to get them done is doing you a huge favor. They should sell you those services regularly because that is part of their job in making your car last. But if I ve heard that story above once, I ve heard it 100 times and it only happens when the mechanic, service advisor or both aren t interested in solving YOUR problem first before moving on to OTHER services that will help you. Rule #5 - Communication during the repair Communication is the universal solvent and it is the key to great customer service. One of the main reasons people leave a repair shop is because of poor communication during the repair process. Your new repair shop should employ people in the office who take pride in providing good communication before, during and after the work is performed. Before you authorize any work to be done, the service advisor should be able to paint a very clear picture for you on what steps they will take in order to fix your vehicle. For example, if a car has a weird running problem they are most likely going to tell you that the first step is to diagnose the problem. This step can range from $0 to $200 depending on the kind of problem they are tracking down. What you want to know is exactly what you are going to get for your money if you are paying for the diagnostic time. Some questions about diagnostic fees are:

5 Will you know what is causing the problem if I authorize the diagnostic? What happens if you can t find the problem in this amount of time? If you find the problem faster than the time I ve authorized to pay for, do you take that off of the bill or apply the remainder to the repair? The whole idea is that your new service advisor should be able easily explain their process and what your money is buying. They should explain things in simple concepts that are easy to understand. If they start talking in technical jargon, ask them what does that mean? And they should politely explain it so you can understand. There are a ton of technical terms used in automotive repair that an untrained service advisor will naturally use and think the customer s understand them. Once they figure out what is wrong with the car, they should again explain the problem and the solution to the problem in layman s terms and concepts. Car repairs can be complicated and expensive, but the best shops will have staff that can explain the repairs in a way that you will both understand and appreciate why they sometimes cost a lot of money. During the repair process you should expect to be updated at specified times. On a larger repair that takes several days it s common to get an update once, maybe twice per day. On the smaller repairs, you should talk to the service advisor once when they sell you the work and once when it is done. That is because they should be able to predict about when the job is going to be completed when they sell you the work. And if there is a problem, the service advisor should contact you if the repairs are going to take longer than expected rather than waiting for you to call and be unpleasantly surprised. Obviously nobody is perfect, but if the service advisor is a good communicator they won t want to upset you with the 5 o clock surprise and so, they will confront the situation early so you have time to make other arrangements. Good communication increases rapport, increases how much you can value the work you are paying for and eliminates nearly all customer upsets. Rule #6 Know the difference of Price vs. Cost One of the biggest fears any consumer has is paying too much for whatever it is that they are buying. People will spend hours going from store to store or surfing the web just to ensure the price they are paying is the best. Unfortunately, the price- shopper mentality for automotive repairs and service usually just leads to more consumer confusion. Why does this happen? Well, there is a big difference between a price quoted over the phone for repairs on a car that isn t in a shop and what it would actually cost after the shop did a proper diagnostic evaluation, visually inspected the vehicle and then gave a proper quote on what it would cost. In the automotive industry there are many big chain operations that tell their associates to ensure the customer that they will beat any price but are then taught to upsell the customer on other items to make up for the losses. So, is the price over the phone going to cost you less? Most of the time it s not. The truth is if you ve followed the rules above, you should already have a good feeling about the shop you are dealing with on your repairs. The fact is that all repair shops are buying the parts from the same places and usually if they are buying the exact same parts their prices are very close. Labor is the same way. Most labor rates at the top repair shops are within $10- $15 per hour. So in a perfect world the prices at every shop should be the same, just like buying a camera at Walmart vs. Target. Well, it s not.

6 The reason for this is the same reason getting a haircut and color isn t the same price at every salon, why a steak at fine steakhouse is more than the same cut of steak at a chain restaurant or why a blue, princess cut diamond set in a gold ring band isn t the same price at every jeweler. Price can always be broken down into Quality and Service. If you want the cheapest price, you are going to give up either on quality of the product or on the quality of the service. You are paying your mechanic to decide what quality of parts to put on your car. Does it need a factory part only available at the dealer? Or can it be replaced with a non- dealer, virtually identical aftermarket part? Most likely you don t want to make that decision and those are the decisions you are paying your mechanic to make for you. That is the quality service you are paying for. The good shops will save you money when they can but they will also insist that you spend more when they feel you should. So rather than getting on the phone and calling around to a bunch of shops who are going to give you their price only to leave you more confused, I recommend you find somebody you can freely talk to so that they will earn your trust. This somebody will explain your options, will give you their expert opinion and will ultimately help you make the best decision given the situation. They will make you feel comfortable every step of the way. Rule #7 Ask Questions Your #1 right as a consumer is to ask questions. Businesses survive when they take good care of their customers and the best businesses always encourage the customer to ask questions. You ll know when you ve found the right mechanic when you find one that will keep a strong level of interest in answering all of your questions. So here are some questions that you can ask your mechanic: Are there any other options to fixing this problem that are less expensive? This question ensures that they are looking at multiple solutions to the problem and will give you peace- of- mind in knowing that you understood all of your options before making a decision. Are there any other services I should be doing while you have that part of the car apart? The reason for this questions is that sometimes a mechanic might not tell you about other services for fear that their price will go over your budget. For example: When you replace the radiator they will be taking off the hoses and for a little more money for new hoses you can get that maintenance, free of labor, because you are already paying for it by replacing the radiator. This type of thing is very common yet sometimes a very foolish decision by the mechanic. So, you can ask this question just to be sure. Are there any safety or reliability related issues that I should fix before I go forward with all of this maintenance? This question will help ensure that the mechanic did a thorough inspection on your car and that they aren t just selling you a bunch of menu items. So, doing the work you are recommending WILL fix the noise (or whatever your complaint is) I brought the car in for today?

7 Again, making sure that YOUR problem is being addressed and not theirs. What would you do if this was your mother s car and you had to pay for somebody to fix it for her because she was 1000 miles away from you? This is just a question you can ask to make sure that they are giving you all of the options. No honest person is going to tell their mother to do repairs that are going to get them the best commission on their paycheck. They are going to tell their Mom to do the safest, most reliable repair when it s appropriate and they are going to tell their Mom when they can save a buck or two. Can I come down there and see what you are talking about? You can use this if you don t trust what you are hearing over the phone. How they answer this questions should tell you a lot about their intensions. An honest shop has nothing to hide and will be more than willing to show you what they see. Any hesitancy to you coming down might not be a good sign and might be your indication to get a second opinion by starting at Rule #1 above. Conclusion This book was written to help women consumers avoid the small percentage of mechanics and repair shops that are not honest. The truth is that most mechanics and auto repair shops are, indeed, honest. Many of them wear their hearts on their sleeves for their customers, and a lot of them will lose money just to keep their customer s happy. Some are better communicators and some are better at the customer service part of this business than others, but 80 percent of this industry is honest. Do your research and find a shop that makes you feel important and makes you feel comfortable. Find one that s involved in your community and one where you would feel comfortable sending your referrals. And don t EVER put up with bad manors and poor service because there are thousands of shops out there that would love to have your business. Thank you. About the Author Jimmy Alauria grew up in an automotive shop as his Dad started their family business, 3A Automotive Service, when he was just four weeks old. After a successful ice hockey career, although he never aspired to be a mechanic, he decided to use his marketing degree and get into the family business. For over 12 years he has help make 3A Automotive one of the top automotive repair shops in the country. Jimmy has also become one the automotive industry s top speakers on customer service, marketing and management, delivering hundreds of seminars all over North America. He currently resides in Scottsdale, AZ with his wife, Nadine.