Two hours on an intermittent fault, one hour charged
A customer brings in a car with an intermittent warning light and a loss of power that comes and goes. The advisor books an hour's diagnosis. The technician reads the codes, which point in three directions. They check wiring, test a sensor, road test twice, and eventually find a chafed loom near the gearbox. It has taken most of the afternoon.
At collection, the customer is told the diagnosis took longer than expected. They agreed to an hour. The advisor, keen to keep a good customer, charges an hour. The rest of the time is gone.
Diagnosis is priced as if it were a fixed job
Customers think of diagnosis as plugging in a machine, so they expect a small, fixed fee. Some faults do take only minutes. Others, particularly intermittent electrical faults, can take hours, and nobody knows which kind it is at the start.
The mistake is agreeing one fee at booking and then not going back to the customer when the job grows. The technician keeps working because they want to find the fault, the advisor does not want to ring with bad news, and the extra time is presented as a surprise at collection, when there is no room to negotiate.
What written-off diagnosis costs
| Pattern | Effect |
|---|---|
| One fee agreed, no stages | Extra time written off or argued over |
| Findings not recorded | Customer cannot see what the time was spent on |
| No approval for extra time | Hard to charge fairly at collection |
| Parts swapped to test | Cost that nobody agreed to |
| Technicians avoid diagnostic work | The jobs that set a good garage apart get turned away |
Diagnostic ability is one of the main reasons customers choose a good independent. If the time is not paid for, the garage ends up discouraging the work it is best at.
How we build staged diagnosis with approvals
- You set diagnostic stages and prices for your garage, such as an initial code read and assessment, a further period of investigation, and a specialist stage for complex electrical faults.
- At booking, the customer agrees to the first stage and is told, in writing, that further stages will be offered before they start.
- The technician records readings, codes, tests done and photos on the job screen as they go, so there is a clear record of what the time was spent on.
- At the end of each stage, the findings so far and the next stage's price are sent to the customer with an approve or stop choice.
- If the customer stops, they are charged only for the stages approved and receive the findings in writing.
- Diagnostic time is shown against what was charged, so you can see how your stages and prices compare with the time actually spent.
The stages and prices are your decision. We build the process so that the conversation with the customer happens before the time is spent, not after.
The intermittent fault, the second time round
The customer agrees to the first stage. After the code read, the technician records three possible causes, and the customer gets a message with the findings and the price of the next stage. They approve it. Midway through the second stage, the chafed loom is found and photographed, and the repair price is sent for approval.
At collection there is no surprise. The invoice shows two diagnostic stages, each approved, and the photo of the loom.
- Diagnostic stages agreed before time is spent
- Findings and readings recorded as evidence
- Customers can stop at any stage and still get the findings
- Diagnostic time and charges compared over time
Is diagnostic time being given away?
- Diagnosis often takes longer than the fee you agreed.
- Extra diagnostic time is written off at collection.
- Customers cannot see what the diagnostic time was spent on.
- Technicians are reluctant to take on intermittent faults.
- You do not know how much diagnostic time you give away.