The repair order is the handoff between the person who talked to the customer and the person who has to fix the car. When it is written well, the technician starts diagnosing immediately. When it is written badly, the technician spends twenty minutes guessing, road tests for something that was never happening, and hands the car back with the problem still there.
Service advisors — service writers, depending on the shop — control that handoff entirely. Here is how to write one that works.
Write what the customer said, not what you concluded
The most common failure is diagnosing at the counter. A customer describes a noise, the advisor writes “needs front brakes”, and the technician now has an instruction instead of a symptom. If the noise was a heat shield, nobody finds it, because nobody was looking.
Write the complaint. Add your suspicion separately if you have one, clearly marked as a suspicion. The technician can then confirm or rule it out rather than working inside your assumption.
Get the three W’s on every concern
For any symptom, the technician needs three things before they can reproduce it.
- What — describe the symptom in the customer’s own words. A grinding, a squeal, a vibration, a pull, a smell, a light.
- When — cold start only, after twenty minutes of driving, first thing in the morning, only in the rain, every time, once a week.
- Where — front or rear, left or right, under braking, over bumps, at a specific speed, while turning.
A concern with all three is usually reproducible. A concern with one is a road test lottery.
Ask the follow-up questions the technician will need
You are the only person who will speak to this customer before the work starts. Ask now.
How long has it been happening, and is it getting worse? Does anything make it better or worse — speed, braking, turning, temperature? Has anyone worked on it already, and what did they do? Is the light on now, or does it come and go?
That last question alone saves enormous time. A light that is currently on is a different job from a light that appeared twice last month.
Note what has already been replaced
Customers frequently arrive having already had something done — by another shop, by a relative, by themselves. If a technician does not know a part is three weeks old, they will treat it as a suspect and possibly recommend it again.
Ask, and write it down, including where and when.
Be precise about noises
Noise complaints are the hardest to reproduce and the ones most often written vaguely. “Makes a noise” is not a repair order line.
Push for detail. Is it a squeal, a grind, a clunk, a hum, a click, a rattle? Does it change with road speed or with engine speed? Does it happen when the car is stationary and you rev it? Does braking change it? Does turning change it?
If the customer cannot describe it, ask them to record it on their phone. Most will, and a five-second recording is worth a page of description.
Ride along when it is worth it
For an intermittent or hard-to-describe symptom, a two-minute ride with the customer is the highest-value thing you can do. They point at the moment it happens; you now know exactly what to write.
It also builds trust in a way that nothing at the counter does.
Separate concerns into separate lines
Three complaints on one line becomes one complaint addressed and two forgotten. Give each concern its own line so each gets its own cause and correction, and so the customer sees each one answered on the invoice.
Write the authorisation limits down clearly
What is the customer approving right now? What is the diagnostic charge? What is the number above which you must call before proceeding? Is there a hard budget?
Ambiguity here is where the uncomfortable conversations come from. Write it, and confirm the phone number and the best time to reach them.
Close the loop with cause and correction
The three C’s — concern, cause, correction — are not paperwork for its own sake. The concern is what the customer told you. The cause is what the technician actually found, with the measurement or reading. The correction is what was done.
Written properly, this gives you everything you need to explain the invoice, it protects the shop if there is a dispute, and it gives the next technician a real history if the car returns.
Read it back before it goes to the board
Ask yourself one question: if I had never spoken to this customer, could I reproduce this problem from what is written here?
If the answer is no, go back and ask one more question. It is the cheapest minute in the shop.
Related reading
- Turning the Multi-Point Inspection Into an Honest Sales Process
- Selling Service Without Pressure: An Advisor’s Guide to Recommending Work
- How to Explain Brakes, Tires and Alignments to Customers
ARNAZ Group runs 10 Midas shops across Wayne, Oakland and Washtenaw counties, and we hire service advisors who care about getting this right. See our service advisor openings.