Most shops lose more work on the phone than they ever lose at the counter. The customer who calls, gets a vague answer and hangs up never appears in any report. Nobody counts them. But they are the difference between a full board and a slow Tuesday.
Here are the phone habits that fill a schedule.
1. Answer within three rings, and say something useful
Give the shop name, your name, and an offer to help. That is it. A caller who hears a name knows they are talking to a person rather than a building, and the whole call goes better from there.
2. Get the name and the number before anything else
Ask early, and write it down. Calls drop, customers get distracted, and quotes need following up. Without a number, every one of those is lost permanently. With one, you can call back.
It also changes the tone of the conversation. Using someone’s name twice in a call does more for rapport than any amount of friendliness.
3. Never answer “how much for brakes?” with a number
It is the most common call and the most commonly fumbled. Give a bare price and you are now competing on price alone against every shop the customer will call next.
Answer with a question instead. What is the car? What is it doing — noise, pedal feel, or is it just due? How long has it been happening? By the time you have asked three questions you are having a conversation, not a price quote, and you can explain that the honest answer depends on what is actually worn.
4. Give a range, then a reason to come in
Refusing to give any number reads as evasive. Give a realistic range for the common outcomes, explain what determines where in that range they land, and offer a free or low-cost inspection to find out.
Customers are not unreasonable about this. They want to know they will not be ambushed, and a range with an explanation gives them that.
5. Offer two specific times, never “when works for you?”
An open question makes the customer do the work and gives them room to end the call with “I will call you back”. Two options make it a simple choice.
“I can do Thursday morning at eight or Friday at one — which is easier?” closes far more appointments than any amount of persuasion.
6. Ask what else it is doing
Before you hang up, one question: is there anything else you have noticed? Any lights on? Anything you have been meaning to get looked at?
Customers routinely call about one thing and mention three more when asked. Every one of those is work you would otherwise have missed, and it means the technician can look at everything in one visit rather than the customer coming back twice.
7. Set expectations on the call, not at pickup
Tell them how long the inspection takes, when they will hear from you, and that nothing gets done without their approval. Every unpleasant conversation at pickup traces back to an expectation that was never set on the phone.
8. Call when you said you would, even with nothing to report
If you promised an update by eleven, call at eleven — even if the answer is that the technician is still on it and you will know more by two. The customer who has to chase you is already deciding not to come back. The customer who hears from you on time trusts the rest of what you say.
9. Take the declined-work call seriously
When someone declines a recommendation, the call is not over. Note what was declined and why. Tell them what to watch or listen for. Ask if you can follow up in a month.
Declined work is the cheapest source of future business any shop has, and most shops never call it back.
10. Handle the price shopper by changing the question
Someone calling five shops for the lowest number is not a bad customer, they are an uninformed one. Nobody has given them a reason to compare anything but price.
Give them one. What parts are included, what the warranty covers, whether the inspection is included, how long the job takes, whether the work is guaranteed at any location. You will not win every one of these. You will win the ones who were looking for a reason to stop calling around.
The habit under all ten
Every item here is the same move: turn a transaction into a conversation. Ask before you answer, offer a choice rather than an opening, and do what you said you would do.
That is not sales technique. It is just the difference between a shop people call once and a shop people call back.
Related reading
- Declined Work Is the Cheapest Sale in Your Shop
- Selling Service Without Pressure: An Advisor’s Guide to Recommending Work
- The Five Objections Every Service Advisor Hears
ARNAZ Group runs 10 Midas shops across Wayne, Oakland and Washtenaw counties. Base pay plus commission, health insurance and 401(k). See our service advisor openings.