Repair Experience (RX): Accurate Diagnosis, Repair Quality, Repeat Repair

Your dealership’s Repair Experience is something that can make or break your dealership’s reputation. Developing and maintaining the finest long-term relationship with customers is extremely sensitive; it takes time to build and seconds to blow. For any dealership, the reward of playing long-term is years of repeat customers. In today’s competitive business landscape, where customer expectations for vehicle quality and repair quality are very high, ensuring accurate diagnosis, timely vehicle repairs, and getting it fixed right the first time is very critical.

Current Challenges:

In a real-time scenario, dealerships do not resolve their customers’ problems on their first visit. Nothing is more annoying for customers to bring their vehicles more than once to the dealerships to fix the same issue, leading to an unpleasant and bad customer experience. Bad experiences can quickly alter your dealership’s reputation and detract new customers before they even walk through your service reception or dealership door. Customers only need one bad experience to move their business forever to your competition. According to research, “91% of your unhappy customers don’t take the time to complain and move their business to your competition.”

During my tenure heading the After-Sales department, we encountered similar challenges: Low Fix It Right Rate (Accurate Repair Rate), high Repeat Repair Rate, and declining Customer Satisfaction Scores. We conducted a root-cause analysis that revealed several key factors contributing to these challenges:

1. Customers’ VOC (Voice of Customer) was not properly captured and documented.
2. Incorrect diagnosis leading to Repeat Repair (RR).
3. Road Tests were not being conducted along with customers to understand the actual problem condition.

Way Forward:   

To consistently deliver a reliable Repair Experience (RX) to customers at their every service visit, you need a system, best practices, or guidelines to be followed with letter and spirit. Major distributors(OEMs), such as Toyota, Honda, Suzuki, Hyundai, KIA, DFSK, MG, and Changan, have implemented the “Fix It Right (FIR)” system to fix the customers’ issues accurately on their first visit, thereby enhancing workshop efficiency, customer satisfaction and retention.

This Fix It Right system has also helped a lot to these OEMs and their dealership network across the country to build a reputation for high-quality vehicles and high-quality repair by ensuring the right approach to fixing customer issues right the first time.

When distributors(OEMs) implement “Fix It Right” activities at dealerships on a live-it basis, this will not only reduce the time that vehicles spend in the workshop but also help them to reduce the number of warranty claims and improve customer loyalty and satisfaction. Here are some best practices to ensure a consistent and reliable Repair Experience (RX):

1.Quality Gates: Introduce the concept of the Quality Gates (QG) where the Job controller verifies that all customers’ complaint contents or customers’ VOC (Voice of Customer) have been completely captured and documented in Repair Orders (ROs) and signed off by the customers. 

2. Technical Advisor(TA): Introduce the role of a Technical Advisor (TA) responsible for conducting road tests along with the customers (whenever required) to confirm the actual problem condition being faced by the customers. So that, the Technical Advisor (TA) could estimate the actual problem condition. Second, he had to guide the Technicians for proper repair.

3. Quality Control: Managing the customers’ repair experience and exceeding their expectations depended heavily on Quality Repair & Quality Control. This can turn the customer from unhappy to happy, angry or disappointed to delighted and frustrated to fulfilled. After the repair work, be sure to perform a comprehensive quality check to ensure the issues mentioned on the Repair Order (RO) are resolved satisfactorily and won’t recur in the future.

4. Promised Delivery Time: Ensure vehicles are delivered as per the promised delivery time and date.

5. Recovered Parts: Have recovered parts been placed in the customers’ cars? Since customers can’t see the replaced new parts inside their vehicles. Therefore, Service Advisors must ensure that old parts have been placed inside the cars and the vehicles should be cleaned, properly vacuumed, and have a nice fragrance inside the cabin.

Customer loyalty, customer retention, business sustainability, and customer satisfaction go hand in hand. Companies/Dealerships must reinforce the “Fix It Right Mindset” on the service floor to deliver a reliable Repair Experience (RX) to customers at their every service visit and convert them into loyal and lifetime customers.