Q & A | Should You Charge for Unverified Diagnoses?

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Our service department charges for a diagnosis fee, but if we can't duplicate the concern, should there still be a diagnosis fee? What do you guys think? Let me know. Thanks.

So, I mean, I think. I think there's a few questions.

That come along with this, Danny. In the sense that.

Did we do everything we can do to diagnose it? In the sense that, did we, you know, have somebody go for a ride with the customer? Did we have the technician drive the car home and try to duplicate it? Like, did we go as far as we need to go? Because most of the time, customers aren't making it up. And so, you know, if. If it happens when the car is cold first thing in the morning, then maybe we get permission from the customer for the tech to drive at home or, you know, something like that. But the idea that it. That it doesn't happen is completely separate from the fact that we didn't duplicate it versus does it actually happen?

Yeah.

Right. So I would put a little more effort into having the customer come in and show us or going for a test drive with the customer, like I said, having a tech drive at home, something like that. But usually we can figure this sort of thing out. We just kind of. If it's. The tech had it for 30 minutes, said, I can't duplicate it, and then, you know, close it out. That's really probably not the best thing for. For the customer. So we might want to put in a little more effort on our end. Like, I used to go drive. You know, when I was an advisor, I would go for rides with customers, or I would have the shop foreman or the tech do it. But, you know, customers really aren't crazy. Usually. Also, if you're putting in that much effort, the customer understands that time has been spent, and so they're less likely to feel disappointed in paying diagnosis.

If it wasn't fixed. So, you know, you kind of want to go down all paths. Then the next thing is the tech. The tech probably needs to get paid.

Right?

So you're gonna. We're either gonna Write it off or we're gonna charge the customer. And so that's a cultural thing of how you, how we want to run the business personally. If it's me and it's my dealership, and we've done everything that we can do to try to diagnose it and we can't duplicate it, I probably am eating that personally. But.

I don't think there is anything wrong with charging a customer for diagnosis if we're actually, you know, doing all the stuff we need to do to diagnose it. So I don't think it's an ethical thing. I don't think this is a right or wrong question. I think this is a what do we want to be in the marketplace question.

Yeah, yeah. An interesting thing too.

On no problem founds on, on Diag. Also, just, just an observation that I have is that the advisors that are able to navigate this really well have a very good relationship with their techs. And so, you know, you want that extra effort. You want that if a tech knows you're putting in that extra effort and, and you know, asking those questions, writing with a customer, doing those different things, that makes their job a lot easier. If you're not doing any of those things and you're going to hand it to them and.

You know, for, for them to figure out and all of that stuff and they start to feel like they're wasting their time and not going to get paid for it and all that stuff. Right. So there's like two aspects of this that just kind of are on a collision course with each other that aren't, you know, that aren't great. So. Yeah. Do you know, doing as much homework on our side as we can and, and, and then when you have a good relationship with your, with your technicians, you know, you kind of have some deposits there. Because I definitely think sometimes we got to kind of lean on the text and be like, hey, you know, can, can I invite them up here for you to ride with them or, or, you know, do the different things get with the shop foreman check bulletin, you know, just all the different things. Really doing our, our due diligence.

Yeah. Because that, that is the hard thing. Right. Like, people don't want to come in and, and tell you about something if it's not there. You know, like, they're not making it up like you said.

But customers also have like a weird thing where they, they don't really think about it. They experience the thing. Right. Like, let's just say it's a clicking noise or something. They experience it, but they're not paying attention to when it's happening.

Right.

What they're doing when it happens, what's going, what is on and what is off when it's happening. And so it takes a lot of time for a technician to one experience it, but also do a process of elimination. Right. So the thing that I developed when I was an advisor, just because I would get a lot of, you know, C and D back from the tax, is I would tell the customer when I, when I wrote them up, I would be like, hey, there's like a force field around, like within a two mile radius of the dealership. And I, I would say this in, you know, with a little humor, but I'm also just trying to manage expectations. So I'd say there's a force field two miles within the dealership where your rattle, your, you know, won't start, doesn't happen. And so we got to do a little extra work to make sure that we duplicate it. So what I need you to do is I need you to really pay attention to is it happening first thing in the morning? Is it cold out, is it hot out? Are you. And then I would abstract it to the customer. My description, I'd say, are you going over a bridge in reverse on the curb? Like, I would sell these things that are kind of goofy, but all I'm trying to do is get the customer to pay attention to all the details that are going on when that thing is happening. And so, you know, how you frame it up front with the customer and how you ask questions and kind of, you know, inspire the customer to think about all those little details. All give one, it lets the customer see that it's harder to duplicate than they thought. And second is it gives the technician way more information because like, you know, I don't know how many times the thing like Volkswagens would have this issue with like fuel, fuel relays where the thing would start cutting out. But it was after it'd been driven for two hours.

Yeah.

And that's an odd thing. Like, well, how long have you been driving? Well, I don't know. Well, I went, well. And then it's like, oh, I'd been driving a while.

Yeah, that two hours is a really.

Important, you know, fact in, in the, you know, the tech goes out, grabs it, drives around the block, goes, runs great. Yeah, like what? You know, they need that information because why would, how would a tech ever imagine to drive it two hours in order for it to happen? And so, and that was the other Thing is, we had some techs that had longer commutes and, and so in a scenario like that, we would just ask them like, hey, do you mind driving this home? This is the issue. And then, you know, usually they could duplicate it because they were driving, you know, an hour and a half each way or something. And so how you frame it with the customer and, you know, putting it back on the, Even if it's under warranty, putting it back onto the customer to be able to duplicate it before it goes in the shop is a very powerful tool in your equity with the techs. Because there's nothing more demotivating than getting, you know, a warranty rattle or whatever.

Yeah.

And you go, I don't hear it. You know, how much time are you going to spend on that when after they do diagnose it, it pays 0.2 or something. Right.

Yeah.

I think that you get equity with the tech and with the customer because I, I do believe that the customers kind of have, have a preconceived notion that whatever they bring their car in for, our goal is to not have it happen. I think that there's probably a little bit of a that going on. It's funny that you use the force field thing. I always used to tell the customers it was like taking your kid to the dentist when they have a toothache. And by the time they get to the dentist, the tooth never hurts anymore or they can't tell the dentist what tooth it is or whatever it is. But I think that. I think of could not duplicates as like four areas somewhere to fail communication. It's either fail communication between customer and advisor, advisor to tech, tech to car, or car to customer. Like, that's like four possible arenas. And I would say that, like, you want to have the kind of team that takes. Could not duplicate as I failed.

Oh yeah.

Like, it's got to be one of those things where, like, they've done everything they can before. They write that NPF or CND or whatever it is on the paper. Like they're admitting defeat.

That's why they say I would eat it.

Yeah. So like, so. And at the end of the day, I think that you, you said the best thing is that the reason texts will do the NPF faster than they want is because they, they, they perceive that they're not going to get paid one way or another. Whether the house does it or the customer does it or warranty does it. Like, those tests have to get taken care of. As long as I, as an advisor, I absolutely went to bat for my tax when I knew that they put everything into trying to figure something out. Like, I think that's the relationship thing that you were talking about is if your techs know that your advisors go to bat for them, they'll, they'll, they'll go to the extreme.

Yeah.

To try to figure it out. But it's gotta be like CND and NPF have to be dirty words.

Thanks for the call. Great question. We'll send you out some swag. We'll see you next time on Service Driver Revolution.

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