AEI DataWorks

The courtesy check is the key to increasing profits in the automotive service business.

A thorough inspection of every vehicle your technicians encounter creates opportunities to provide additional important high value services to your customers and more income for you.   What constitutes a courtesy check?

This varies widely throughout the industry.   It may be a simple as a tech handing the Service Writer a hand-written list of things he happened to notice on a car that came in for a quick oil change.   In our shop, we experimented with paper forms that started out as a 14-point check then became a 30-point check.

In either case, the end product was an ugly piece of paper with grease smudges, a bunch of OKs circled and some hand scrawled notes about the fluids being dirty.   Give that to your customer and you look REAL professional.   Give that to your customer and you don't have a copy.

Copy the ugly form and file it... where?

Getting techs to perform and record checks is another issue.   Get them to buy into the process and they do them – for a while...   Then they run out of forms or can't find a pen or they're in a hurry and don't have time and, before you know it, your courtesy check campaign has ground to a halt.

The next problem is that a 30, 40 or 50-point checklist doesn't cover the minute details that a good tech might spot on any given vehicle, and a paper checklist doesn't teach a junior tech what to look for.

Finally, a dirty handwritten form with indecipherable notes doesn't add much value to the sales process.   What's needed is a concise compilation of the results of the check produced in an attractive form with visual keys so that any customer can understand the results.