Do Your Shop Techs Have Pride?

7 Tips Shop Owners Should Review

1. A good technician who takes pride in their work empathizes with the customer and is motivated by the opportunity to help another personwith the very technical nature of servicing and repairing today’s complex vehicles. He/she clearly explains, in non-technical everyday language, what needs to be done, how it will be done, what it will cost and why.
2. Each repair or service is viewed as a personal expression of his or her ability and craftsmanship and is approached as yet another opportunity to improve their skills. They know that much of their attention to detail will never be seen by the customer, or likely appreciated. They do this as much for themselves as for the customer. 
3. A good technician verifies that the service or repair properly addressed the customer’s concern with an after repair test drive and always performs an after repair inspection to ensure all fasteners are properly tightened, all tools are removed and all fluids are topped off with their caps properly tightened. A good technician’s work surpasses the expectations of the customer and provides other repair recommendations as courteous preventative maintenance reminders and always leaves the vehicle exceptionally clean.
4. A great technician NEVER abandons a repair or leaves it half done.He/she sees it through, even if they have to stay after hours and use their personal time to properly complete the work. They are like a captain of a ship who always sees it through to the end.
5. A poor technician who does not take pride approaches each service or repair merely as ‘a job’. They don’t think about the needs of the customer and invest little of themselves in the process of performing the service or repair. They cut corners on the service or repair as if no one is watching over their shoulder. Their work area is often dirty and disorganized. When they return the vehicle to the customer, it’s often filthy. Small details like clock and radio stations are ignored and incorrectly reset.
6. Frequently, with a poor technician, new problems appear that weren’t present before the vehicle was worked on by the technician. Additional expense is often required to diagnose and repair these new problems that weren’t present before the technician touched the vehicle.
7. Lastly, poor technicians often ‘bail out’ on the really tough jobs. This usually requires the customer to drive or even tow their vehicle to a more competent shop in order to have it properly repaired.

Repairpal’s Automotive Professional Dan Dillon is an ASE Master Certified Technician with L1 and a State of California Advanced Level Smog Check Technician and Inspector license. He brings his vast knowledge of emissions repair to help create OBD-II articles for the RepairPal Encyclopedia which can be used as a reference for customers to understand what an OBD code means, what the causes may be, and what to do about them. These articles are also used by technicians as they contain in-depth technical information to help diagnose and repair a problem. 

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