A photo of the damage with the booking
Customers attach a photo when they book the inspection.
The daily friction
What actually goes wrong in a body and paint 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 next job starts on time
A dent cannot be judged over the phone
Long repairs leave no room for no-shows
Customers judge your work before they ever call
Details
- A dent cannot be judged over the phone
- “It is just a small scrape on the bumper” can mean ten minutes of polishing or a new bumper and a day in the paint booth. Without seeing it, you either book too little time or ask the customer to come in twice, once to show it and once for the repair.
- Long repairs leave no room for no-shows
- A repair planned for a full day ties up a bay, a painter and a slot in the booth. When the car does not turn up, nothing else that size is waiting to take its place, and the day is lost. The bigger the job, the more it costs when the customer changes his mind without telling you.
- Customers judge your work before they ever call
- Someone looking for a body shop compares photos before prices. A shop with nothing to show looks no different from the one down the road, however good the finish. The work that would convince him is on your phone, not anywhere he can see it.
How it works here
See the damage before the car arrives
Most of what goes wrong in a body shop comes from not seeing the job in time. A photo with the booking, a deposit on the big repairs and your work on show fix most of it.
Details
- A photo of the damage with the booking
- When you turn the option on, your booking page asks for an optional photo. You see the scrape or the dent before the car arrives, book the right amount of time and know whether it is a polish or a job for the booth.
- A deposit on the long repairs
- Deposits are set per service. The inspection stays free to book while a repair and repaint asks for a deposit, which is exactly where a no-show costs you a day of the booth.
- Paint and insurance details on record
- Each customer's cars stay on his record with make, model, year, plate and VIN, plus your own notes: the paint colour, whether it is an insurance job, what was agreed. When he comes back, the details are there instead of in a folder.
- A before and after gallery
- Albums for bumpers, scratches, dent removal and resprays, each with before and after photos. A new customer sees the kind of repair he needs, finished, and books with realistic expectations instead of a vague worry.
An illustration
What one missed repair costs in a month
One painter, a full-day repair booked and not turned up for, once in an average month.
8h
hours of bay and booth time lost each month
~96
hours over a year
most
of that preventable with a deposit and a reminder
An illustration, not a measurement. Your own numbers depend on your repair lengths, how far ahead customers book and whether you ask for a deposit.
Questions