Have you ever examined a piece of work and wanted.......

[The Natural Philosopher]

As well they might..

I had an old XJS for a while, and took it to a 'main dealer' who wanted to replace the entire back axle to fix an oil leak at the diff. They quoted £2700. 'we cant guarantee anything else sir'

I took it to a man who raced and fixed MG's. he hummed a bit and said 'we might get away with just an oil seal, or it might need new bearings, or, if the shaft is corroded, a new diff. That will hurt.' 'How much to take a look' ' oh about £60 to strip the front of the diff. I wont offer any guarantees, but I'll give you an honest opinion'

He did, and £130 later and a new oil seal, it never leaked again till I sold it some years later.

Indeed. At a much better Jaguar Main Dealer when I was wandering around waiting to pick up mu XK8, I noticed a lovely looking V12 in a crate in the workshop.. Brand new factory stickers..'What's that for' ' oh that's for an old V12 XJS, it was smoking a bit, and we were going to strip it and rebore it, but the customer said no, he wanted a brand new engine for it. No messing' 'and how much did that cost?' '£6500 I think, exchanged with the old one. About £800 to fit it too. But it isn't a recon. It's brand new' 'And what's his car worth after you fix it? 'about £4500, but its his pride and joy..'

I think that anyone who is involved in sales needs to understand that customers are different animals: Part of the job is working out which sort of animal they are and explaining to them, the options.More grief comes from misaligned expectations than anything else.

The better builders firms will give you written estimates like

- to erect scaffolding to service roof

- to strip all existing slates

- to replace all sarking, and re batten

- to replace all slates and estimated 10% new ones after on site assessment.

etc.

whereas Jimmy the cowboy will pop up his ladder., tuck a bit of sarking under where the slates fell off, and tack them back onto the rotting battens for not a lot at all.

He is in fact the epitome of 'tart it up to sell' whereas the former is the 'pukka solid job'

The man with the V12 is the 'gold plated arab' customer. Expense is not the issue, perfection and absolute customer service is.

The 'council job' would be stripping all the slates selling them and using the cheapest plastic replacements, and not a full rebatten or rearking, but just those that wouldn't last as long as the cheap replacement slates. I.e functional, but to a low standard of materials, appearance and cost.

Frankly, I've been all four customer types at various times.

And supplied all four types of service at various times.

The grief comes when the customer negotiates a 'tart it up to sell' price and expects gold plated arab results..

The first jaguar dealer proved - when I used them again - to be gold plated arab prices for a council house job. My MG mechanic gave me council house job at a council house price. The second Jag dealer who I stuck with, later, has always been pukka solid job at the pukka job price., Costs, but always good results.

If you cant explain the difference when quoting, you shouldn't BE a one man business. If the customer cant, or pretends he cant, understand the difference, quote him the solid gold arab price, and if he doesn't like it, walk away.

[T i m]

Spot on.

Mate (who couldn't get the tiling done) works that way with his garage. People use him and stick with him because they like his customer service, don't mind his prices (he's not *expensive* by any means but not 'railways arches' either) and trust his work. [1]

If they are obsessed with the price they probably won't be the sort of customer he'll want therefore keep. That's not to say he'll put them off in any way just that he's been doing it for a long time now (on his own) and is pretty good at spotting characters.

Cheers, T i m

[1] For some jobs and especially new customers he often videos bits of the various stages of the work and plays it back to them (if interested) when they come to collect and pay. Because he's not 'main dealer' new customers might think they don't get as professional or thorough job but often it's the complete opposite. Showing them the rear brake drums removed, the shoes and general area cleaned up, lubed and re-set, especially when such a thing was supposed to have been done at the previous main-dealer service, or the new and old air filters side by side gives them quite a bit of confidence (and hence a better understanding of the VFM they are getting).