A service per real length
Brake pads and a timing belt each block their true length.
The daily friction
What actually goes wrong in a repair shop
The same afternoon, twice. The first customer arrives 15 minutes late.
Back to back
Every customer after him starts 15 minutes late
With 15 minutes of margin
The margin absorbs the delay, the timing belt starts on time
One no-show on a long job costs half a day
The car's history lives in your head
The same job is not the same length
Details
- One no-show on a long job costs half a day
- A no-show on a forty-minute oil change is annoying. A no-show on a three-hour timing belt job is half a day of a bay and a mechanic gone, and it is almost never fillable at short notice because nothing else that long is waiting. The longer and more profitable the job, the more expensive the empty bay, and the less likely you are to recover it.
- The car's history lives in your head
- He was in last spring, you did something at the front and told him to keep an eye on the rear pads. Which oil went in, at what mileage, what exactly did you advise? Written on a job sheet somewhere, or remembered approximately. Getting it wrong once costs the trust of a customer you took years to win.
- The same job is not the same length
- Brake pads on a city car and on a four-wheel-drive van are the same line in the price list and two different afternoons. When the diary treats them as one job, the day is planned around a duration that was never real, and every car after it waits.
How it works here
Long jobs, booked at their real length
Repair work breaks when the calendar pretends every job is the same size. Splitting jobs properly and protecting the long ones is most of the fix.
Details
- A service per real length
- Oil change, brake pads, clutch, timing belt: each is its own service with its own duration and price, and the same job on a van can be its own line. The calendar blocks the true length, so a three-hour job never lands in a ninety-minute gap.
- A deposit where it matters
- Deposits are set per service, not for everything. Leave the oil change free to book and ask for a deposit on a timing belt or a clutch, which is where a no-show actually hurts. The commitment becomes real exactly where the risk is.
- The car's history on his record
- Each customer's cars stay on his record with make, model, year, plate, VIN and the mileage at every visit, next to the full history of his bookings and your own notes. A year later you open his record rather than trying to remember, and you pick up where you left off.
- A work gallery by type of job
- Albums for engine work, brakes, suspension or classic cars, with before and after photos. A new customer sees the work he needs rather than scrolling through everything, and arrives ready to trust you with it.
An illustration
What one missed long job costs over a year
One mechanic, one no-show on a long job in an average week.
3h
hours lost to a single missed long job
~150
hours of bay time over a year
most
of that preventable with a deposit on long jobs
An illustration, not a measurement. Your own numbers depend on your job lengths, your deposit policy and how far ahead customers book.
Questions