Three Mrs Patels and a Fiesta sold in 2019
A customer rings to book a service. The advisor types her surname and finds three records: one with her old address, one with her husband's mobile, and one created last year by a different advisor who could not find the first two. Her car is on one of them. Her previous car, sold years ago, is on another and still gets service reminders, which the new owner receives.
Multiply that across a customer list built up over fifteen years, two system changes and many different people at the counter. Reminders go to the wrong people, history is split, and nobody trusts the list enough to use it for anything important.
How a garage list gets this way
Every booking is a chance to create a duplicate. The advisor is on the phone, the customer is in a hurry, a search for the surname shows nothing obvious because the record was saved with a typo, and a new one is quicker. When a car changes hands, the old owner's record keeps the car because nobody knows it was sold.
System migrations make it worse. Records come across with different formats for names, phone numbers and addresses, and the matching the new system does on import is basic. Nobody has time to clean up afterwards, so the mess becomes permanent.
What a messy list costs
| Problem | What it causes |
|---|---|
| Duplicate customers | History split, advisories and past work not seen |
| Sold cars on old owners | Reminders to the wrong person, sometimes complaints |
| Dead phone numbers and emails | Messages that never arrive, reminders wasted |
| Business and private records mixed | Invoices sent to the wrong party |
| Marketing permissions unclear | Uncertainty about who you may contact |
The list is one of the most valuable things a garage owns. When it is untrustworthy, every reminder, follow-up and offer built on it is weaker.
How we clean the list and keep it clean
- We take a copy of your customer and vehicle records and standardise names, phone numbers, postcodes and emails so like can be compared with like.
- Likely duplicates are found by matching phone numbers, emails, addresses and vehicles, and scored by confidence.
- A person reviews each proposed merge on a simple screen, choosing which details to keep. Nothing is merged without that confirmation.
- Vehicles with no visit for a long period, or where a reminder reply said the car was sold, are flagged for the advisor to confirm and detach.
- Bounced emails and failed texts from your messaging tools are used to flag contact details that no longer work.
- Afterwards, a check at booking warns the advisor when a new customer record looks like an existing one, before it is saved.
Merges are written back into your garage management system where it allows that. Where it does not, we give you a list of confirmed merges to apply, and we tell you which applies before starting. Rules on how long to keep old records are yours and your adviser's.
A list you can use again
Mrs Patel is one customer with one current car and the full history of both cars she has had with you. Her old Fiesta is detached, and its new owner no longer receives her reminders. Her mobile is the one that works.
New duplicates stop appearing because the advisor is warned at booking. Reminders and follow-ups start reaching the right people, which makes all the other messaging work better.
- Duplicates merged after a person confirms them
- Sold cars detached from previous owners
- Dead contact details flagged
- New duplicates caught at booking
Is your customer list untrustworthy?
- Searching a surname brings up several records for the same person.
- Reminders reach people who sold the car years ago.
- Many texts and emails bounce.
- You have moved garage systems at least once.
- Nobody trusts the list enough to use it for a campaign.