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Shop Talk Her Way is where former shop owner and coach JeanAnn Saint Grace opens up the books on what it really takes to run a profitable, sustainable, and well-balanced auto repair business.
With decades of experience in bookkeeping, operations, and leadership, JeanAnn brings an honest, no-fluff approach to shop management — all from a woman’s perspective. From financial systems and staffing to communication and culture, she shares insights that help shop owners (and especially women in the industry) take control, build better businesses, and enjoy the ride.
Whether you’re turning wrenches, balancing the books, or scaling to your next location, you’ll find encouragement, strategy, and a healthy dose of “you’ve got this” in every episode.
Shop Talk Her Way is an AutoFix Auto Shop Coaching production — helping shops thrive, her way.
Thanks to WorldPac and the WorldPac Training Institute (WTI) for sponsoring Shop Talk Her Way. Visit worldpac.com for the latest in auto parts distribution and wtitraining.com to explore training programs that can take your career to the next level.
[00:00:00] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And I'm not judging anybody who hasn't been doing this, but what I'm telling you is now that you know better do better. Look at the requirements for your state. Make sure that you are following those to a T. Make sure you're doing good business practice because again, even if your cu- if your state doesn't require this, the legal system probably does.
[00:00:21] JeanAnn SaintGrace: The small claims court, filing a mechanic's lien, going into a bankruptcy court, whatever that looks like, if you don't have written authorization to work on that vehicle, you probably don't have a leg to stand on.
[00:00:41] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Have you ever wondered why we don't do auto repair on a handshake?
[00:00:44] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Hi, this is JeanAnn SaintGrace, and I am here today with this episode of Shop Talk Her Way to talk about why we do so much paperwork I would say this is probably one of the most neglected areas of the, the operations within the shop, and I think it's in a lot of ways because people don't understand how important it is or what the ramifications of the, the paperwork not being properly processed is.
[00:01:15] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And I, I don't, I don't like putting myself in the position of being, um, telling people what they should be doing in their shops. I'm always here both in the frame of the podcast and as a, as a coach to help shops do better in the, in the w- way they wanna do business. And in certain places, smaller towns, even just communities that people have lived in all their lives, they feel like their, their word is their bond, that they can do a handshake and be good to go, right?
[00:01:51] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Like they have, they have got everything covered. And unfortunately, because of the world that we live in today, that's just not the case. And if you've ever gotten into a misunderstanding with anybody in your life, you know that you can have a conversation, you hear one thing, the other party to the conversation is processing and hearing something totally different, and when it comes down to it, they heard or we all heard what we wanted to hear.
[00:02:25] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So the, the old theory that there's three sides of a conversation: yours, theirs, and the truth of what actually happened. And no matter how hard we try to be good listeners to, to filter and to, to hold memory of conversation, time changes everything, right? And so, um, we h- that we scientifically know it's possible to create false memories.
[00:02:54] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um, at the time that you make that handshake deal, everyone's at an emotional level that is calm, cool, and collected, but if tempers flare, then we've got a problem. And unfortunately, a lot of times when money is involved, which in our business it absolutely is, you know, people's survival instincts kick in.
[00:03:15] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It becomes fight or flight. When it becomes fight, sometimes it becomes dirty fight, right? Or it becomes bringing in the biggest sword that you can find to help you manage it. Now, whether that looks like a state agency, a city agency, a, um, a lawyer, whatever it looks like, a cus- a consumer affairs company, whatever that looks like, if somebody feels wronged, they're gonna go find either the right tool or the right weapon, however you wanna look at that, in order to win, right?
[00:03:49] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And it becomes a who's going to win this. And a lot of times they're not looking for a win-win, they're looking for a win, okay? And we all know this can happen. We all know that people mishear things. We all know that we've said one thing and they've heard something else, and it's very easy with the intricacies of the work that we do for there to be misunderstandings.
[00:04:14] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Now, how do we mitigate this? Because we need to be educating. We need to be talking to our customers. We need to be telling them how the systems in their vehicle work to the best of our abilities, helping them to understand the complexity of what we do, the intricacies and the, the little details that are necessary for us to do our jobs correctly, and we're also fighting an uphill battle.
[00:04:37] JeanAnn SaintGrace: I don't know of any other industry that fights such an uphill battle of they've been hurt by another shop. They've been, quote unquote, "screwed" by another shop. Whether that is real or their perspective, both, again, two sides of a story, right? Um, we've all looked at paperwork and said, "Yeah, this shop looks like they did everything right," or "Nope, they, they missed the mark," right?
[00:05:02] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So, so again, we have to be conscious of building the relationship, taking care of our customer, and at the same time protecting ourselves, right? So back to the handshake deal. So as an example, how many of us standing on the counter have heard, "I don't care how much it costs, just get it done"? We've all heard that, right?
[00:05:23] JeanAnn SaintGrace: "Here's the keys. Just fix it. I don't care how much it costs." Well, they don't care up to $250, or they don't care up to $500, or they don't care up to $1,000, but at $1 over any of those amounts, then it's too much, quote unquote. And now what, right? To us, no matter what it takes sounds like no matter what it takes, so we're thinking blank check.
[00:05:50] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They're thinking blank check up to $251, and that's what they're willing to pay. So if we've gone off on this handshake deal of just do whatever it takes, we're opening ourselves up to a huge problem. And there's... I know there's gonna be shop owners out there thinking, "Who in their right mind would do something like this?"
[00:06:12] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And I'm gonna tell you, it happens every day, every day in shops across the country And whether it's just ease of doing business, you've known that person your whole life, whether it's laziness, for lack of a better word, or just don't wanna do the paperwork, it, it's opening us up to not only co-con-concerns with our customer, that relationship that we've worked so hard to build, but it's also opening us up to legal issues.
[00:06:46] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So this isn't something that I talk about lightly, and I'm kind of surprised it hasn't come up before except, as you guys know, when something happens in my coaching practice, I, I generally wanna talk about it, and this has come up multiple times in the last three weeks, so, like, when I see it three times, it's time to talk about it.
[00:07:05] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So here we go. We're here to build trust with our customers. We're here to serve them. There's a lot of misinterpretation that can happen when we do a handshake deal like I'm talking about. I had a service advisor tell me, um, they had a vehicle apart in the shop, and I said, "I can see their... You know, I can see their, their work orders.
[00:07:26] JeanAnn SaintGrace: I can see their shop management system." I said, "There's no ticket in here for this." And he's like, "Well, he's one of our good customers. He doesn't care." Um, and I'm like, "He doesn't care up to what point?" Right? He doesn't care, but up to this point, we've always given him an estimate. He doesn't care, quote, unquote, but we've always kept him informed of the cost and the process as we went along.
[00:07:51] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Those are two different things And the conversation unfortunately devolved into, uh, I went from, you know, "This is not good customer service," to, um, you know, "This opens up the company to liability," to your, because I said so, right? And I don't like going to that level. If you guys have listened to me at all, because I said so is not the best reason.
[00:08:17] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And, and this was coming from, I'd spoken to the owners, we were trying to figure this out. They gave me the authority to have this conversation, and my because I said so was essentially, um, blessed by the owner. So this, this is not okay, right? We don't have a scope of work. We don't-- the customer, um, in my opinion, they were supplying parts, which that's a whole other conversation.
[00:08:42] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But again, what parts were they supplying and what parts were we supplying? No agreement, no detail, no nothing. So we're off in the abyss taking apart a vintage vehicle with no authorization, no written work order, no nothing. And this is an extreme case. Like this is an absolutely extreme case of the system just absolutely breaking down.
[00:09:07] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And no matter how you cut it, the responsibility for this laid squarely on the shoulders of the advisor. And the tech didn't follow proper procedure because they didn't have paperwork, and they shouldn't have touched the vehicle without paperwork. But they were in on the conversation with the customer, so they just kind of went on with it.
[00:09:31] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So breakdown after breakdown, the system just absolutely broke down, and everybody threw the rule book out the window and it was a free-for-all. Now they're mid-project, so we don't have a total of how much time and effort they have in this at this point. We don't have a scope of work. Um We don't know how...
[00:09:54] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Is it a $2,000 bill? Is it a $5,000 bill? Is it a $10,000 bill? I don't know. Neither does the customer. And his "I don't care how much it costs" compared to our theory of I don't care how much it costs could have a wide chasm there, right? Because you and I know as well just amongst each other that we remember the days when replacing spark plugs, the spark plugs cost $1.99 a piece to the customer, right?
[00:10:23] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And now they cost 20, 25, 30, however much d- however much OE spark plugs cost these days. When, when we talked to a customer about replacing eight spark plugs back in the day, it was, what? $20 worth of parts. Now we're talking $200 worth of parts. That's a wide chasm. So what does the paperwork do? The paperwork gives us a roadmap for what exactly we're going to do, how much it's going to cost the customer, and they're making and entering into a legally binding contract with us at that moment that they sign that work order or they give us verbal authorization.
[00:11:00] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Now, this is just good business, right? This is just good business. I, as a shop owner, am going to priv- provide you, the customer, with a dollar amount of work in exchange for your dollars. I'm gonna exchange our labor and parts for your dollars. This is an agreement that when we do that, you're agreeing to pay us that much money.
[00:11:22] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If we jump into one of these, quote-unquote, "handshake deals," again, one side heard one thing, the other side with the checkbook heard something else, and somewhere in the middle, there's a huge potential for a bomb to go off. Now, again, the conversation was, "This is one of our really good longtime customers."
[00:11:43] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Okay. Are we willing t- willing to risk that good relationship with this long-term good customer because we didn't spend however much time building an estimate and getting their authorization? Does that show your customer that you value their relationship? Does that show the customer that we want to make sure that all of our details are, are, are written down and done, and we're covering not just our legal and liability, but we're covering theirs as well?
[00:12:16] JeanAnn SaintGrace: I mean, at that point that they don't sign an estimate or give you authorization, we don't even have permission to take the vehicle apart. We don't. And anything that happens from the moment we unscrew that first lug nut, we own it if we don't have permission, okay? And why am I so passionate about this?
[00:12:38] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You can probably hear in my voice how upsetting this is to me. And we can talk about all the scenarios, we can talk about all the dollar amounts, but whether it's $1 or $1,000 or $10,000 or however many dollars you wanna talk about In most cases, the customer is not obligated to pay you $1 over what they authorized.
[00:13:06] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So if they authorized zero and you put $2,500 into something, they don't owe you anything. And if you-- if they decide not to pay you, then what? Okay, so across the country, there's different courts. I'm used to California 'cause that's the place I, I did business in. In California, they have small claims court.
[00:13:29] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Small claims court is up till a, a certain dollar amount where you can go in, the two parties, no lawyers. You walk in and say, uh, "Mr. Judge, I agreed to do this job at this price, and now the, the customer either decided not to pay or they bounced a check or they did a chargeback or whatever that looks like, and now I'm trying to collect the money that they owe me."
[00:13:54] JeanAnn SaintGrace: The very first piece of documentation, the very basis of any repair, is your estimate, the written estimate with their signature or a time and date stamped phone authorization. And the phone authorizations could be a wobble. I was lucky that any time I had to go into the situation, I actually had a signed work order or a signed estimate.
[00:14:17] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Okay. Now, most or, or all the shop management systems that I have seen, once you do that initial written estimate, then it documents every time there's an increase in that estimate and what it's for, the date, the time, the, the date, if it was verbal or written or texted or whatever the authorization looks like.
[00:14:39] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So once that initial estimate is complete, then it- the computer can take over. But we don't have a way unless you have some form of a digi- digital signature or a text authorization. We don't have a, a digital time and date stamp, right? We're, we're relying on us to have written phone authorization with a date and a time.
[00:14:59] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If you've got a phone recording system, then you can go back to your recordings and pull the phone authorization if that's what you need to do. But if, if they're there in person, you should be getting a signature. If you need to file a mechanics lien, guess what they want? Signed estimate. If you go to court, signed estimate.
[00:15:18] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If you're in California and you have the Bureau of Automotive Repair s- you know, crawling up your neck, the first thing they wanna see is a signed estimate. If you don't have that, you're gonna lose. You are automatically guilty. Everything that happened after that moment is null and void because you did not have the basic document.
[00:15:39] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And for whatever reason, automotive repair seems to be under a lot more scrutiny than other trades. And other trades do handshake deals, um, you know I've walked into shops down here and handed over my keys and they're like, "Well, we'll call you when it's done." And I'm like, "How about you tell me how much it's gonna cost?
[00:15:59] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You know, I don't have a, an unlimited pocketbook to just write you guys a check. Like, what's this gonna cost?" And, and they're kind of sometimes taken aback by that. And I haven't checked the consumer laws in c- in Texas, but I have checked in other states, and other states, California one of them, Florida another, New York, um, I haven't checked all 50, but I'd almost guarantee that the basic document that you need in order to have a solid legal framework for a, a complaint or a legal situation is a written e- is a hand- a written esti- a signed estimate or, or verbal authorizations that, that are date and time stamped.
[00:16:44] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So if you're a shop owner Or a service advisor, and a written estimate or a documented estimate is not part of your workflow, it should be. It should be tomorrow this change needs to happen. If you're a service advisor and you know you're supposed to do this but you're not, you need to start doing this because every time you do this, you're opening up your, your company, your team, your owner to a legal liability issue.
[00:17:16] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They go to court, they need to file a mechanics lien, they get into a Bureau of Automotive Repair or, or customer, um, Department of Consumer Affairs issue, whatever your state calls that part of it, and the customer files a complaint, you've got no leg to stand on. You're gonna give them every bit of your money back, and you're probably gonna be fined, and you're guilty until you're proven innocent with these, with these government agencies.
[00:17:44] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So I hate to be the bearer of bad news, and I don't wanna be shaking my fingers at anybody, but you need to know the laws in your state. You need to know what's right, what you're legally obligated to, and what can come back on you if it's not b- done properly. And is California going to the extreme and giving a tremendous amount of enforcement to their Bureau of Automotive Repair?
[00:18:10] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Yes. In California for automotive repair, they are the boogeyman. They can come in with no cause, they can go through your paperwork, and they can fine you for every infraction that you, that you have. If you have a customer complaint, they can come in and not only limit their investigation to that one complaint, they can go through all your paperwork, and you're required by law to present it to them, and they have the power to fine you, and every infraction is a fine.
[00:18:41] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So just because California, in my opinion, is doing it wrong and being biased towards the consumer instead of looking this as a 50/50, you know, innocent until proven guilty situation, they're coming in with enforcement behind them, and they're going to try to dig into your checkbook, all right? And just because, like I said, they're doing it with too much enforcement, that doesn't mean the things that they're asking for are wrong, right?
[00:19:11] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It just means that they're too heavy on their enforcement. They're too quick to adjudicate guilty on the site of the shop, and they're too quick to, uh, levy fines. But that doesn't mean they're not asking for good business practices. So, you know, I s- I am... I have been accused of taking the fun out of this, but, um, you know, one of my shops is in a situation where they're in a small town.
[00:19:39] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They did a handshake deal, deal. They found out through the grapevine that one of their clients who they have a truck on the lot- With a transmission out of it, um, this person may be filing bankruptcy. And in order to be part of the bankruptcy, in order to file a mechanic's lien, guess what you need? A signed estimate for initial tear down.
[00:20:01] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They don't have that. So they've got a little over $1,000 invested in, in labor and time in this vehicle, and they have no way of recapturing that because somebody at the shop was too busy that day to stop and write an estimate. And now if that customer files bankruptcy and that vehicle is claimed as an asset and is sold as part of the, the bankruptcy, now they've got a truck with a transmission out of it that's basically a paperweight.
[00:20:30] JeanAnn SaintGrace: What's their legal obligation? They're probably obligated to at least reinstall it whether it works or not. We don't have an agreement. We don't have authorization. So I don't want you guys to get stuck in this situation. You know, and 1,200, 1,500, $2,000 when you're doing a million dollars a year may not seem like a lot, but it's still a loss, and we have to take profit from other jobs to cover our mistake.
[00:20:58] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And depending on your profit margin, if you're running at a 10% profit margin, it's gonna take 10, 10 times that cost. So if it's $2,000, you have to sell $20,000 in labor to get back that $2,000. And that's not counting the opportunity cost of the money, the interest you could have earned, et cetera, et cetera, the cost of carrying that.
[00:21:23] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It- It's just gone, right? So that's, that's why I'm so concerned about this. That's why in my heart of hearts I'm spending some of my time and some of your time talking about this because it is so, so, so important. Right now I'm going to take a break to pay some bills and just to share with you that today's episode is brought to you by AutoFix Auto Shop Coaching.
[00:21:48] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Running a suce- a successful auto repair shop, as you all know, takes more than knowing how to fix cars. You've also got to manage your people, your processes, your customers, and your profitability, and that's where AutoFix comes in. AutoFix Auto Shop Coaching helps shop owners strengthen their operations, develop their teams, and build a healthier business with practical coaching designed for the realities of the automotive industry.
[00:22:14] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If you're ready to spend less time putting out fires and more time building the shop that you want, learn more at autoshopcoaching.com. That's autoshopcoaching.com. AutoFix Auto Shop Coaching, helping shop owners build better businesses. So back to this conversation about documentation. The other thing that needs or should be, and you need to, again, check your state.
[00:22:40] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Go to... I very simply have Googled a couple states, what are the requirements for automotive repair documentation, California, Florida, New York. The open- the beginning mileage has to be on the ticket, not a picture of the odometer in your DBI. The entry, the mileage has to be entered on the signed estimate.
[00:23:00] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So if you're just having an, a, a customer sign without updating the, the mileage or it says zero, zero, zero, zero, you've lost your case. You do not have the minimum amount of, of documentation required. To go even further with that, if you're doing an oil change and part of your oil change service is to do a digital vehicle inspection, then that needs to be listed on there If part of your digital vehicle inspection is to inspect the air filter or inspect the cabin air filter, that needs to be clearly stated because you have to disa- disassemble those items in order to do those inspections.
[00:23:43] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They're behind covers. Now, what happens, and it's happened to all of us, if you don't document that you're going to inspect the air filter and the air filter housing is damaged in the process, say s- strip screws, somebody cracks something. If you haven't disclosed that that's what you're doing, you own it.
[00:24:03] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If you write on your work order, "Part of our d- digital vehicle inspection is to access and inspect your air filter and your cabin air filter," then you're covered, and by signing that estimate, your customer is authorizing you to do that work. You can see how this then moves down to tires. If you are pulling a wheel at any point during that inspection without authorization, if you strip a lug nut, if you seize a lug nut, everything required to fix that is now on you because you didn't have authorization to do it.
[00:24:34] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And if you've listened to my DBI, um, uh, podcast, you know that I don't recommend pulling wheels during a DBI. If we need to pull wheels to do a brake inspection, that should be an additional authorization at an additional charge And we have to think about this stuff, right? How much could a seized lug nut cost you?
[00:24:56] JeanAnn SaintGrace: A lot of money. How much could a broken air filter housing cost you? A stupid amount of money for a piece of plastic, right? But because we didn't authorize it, we didn't get authorization to do it, if we damage it in the process or it's damaged and we finish it off, whatever that looks like, we either have to prove that it was broken before we got there, or we own it, and that's the right thing to do for the customer.
[00:25:23] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If you haven't cautioned your advisor, or not your advisors, but your technicians to, to be like, "Hey, this air filter is put together with duct tape and, and Silly Putty," they should be taking a picture of it and they should not touch it. They should take a picture and be like, "This air filter housing is trashed.
[00:25:43] JeanAnn SaintGrace: I'm afraid to touch it and break it further. We're not checking the air filter on this one." And you should empower your people to do that, to see that there are problems, and to, to step back and be like, "Hey, I need somebody above my pay grade to come and look at this and tell me whether I should proceed or not, or whether we should call Mr.
[00:26:01] JeanAnn SaintGrace: or Mrs. Customer and say, 'Hey Mr. or Mrs. Customer, here's a picture of your air filter housing. Somebody has put this thing back together in a way that is not original from the manufacturer, and we don't wanna touch it. Do you want us to get you an estimate to replace these parts, or do you just want us to leave it alone?'"
[00:26:21] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We have to be this proactive. We have to be this proactive because regardless of how long you've known someone or how long they've been a customer or how much money they spent or how good they are, if on that day they're having a bad day and now all of a sudden their air filter housing is damaged, you might be the one who becomes the focus of whatever else is going on in their life.
[00:26:46] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They may have gotten some bad news about something else, but you're the guy on the phone or the girl on the phone, and you're gonna take the heat for whatever this is 'cause it might be the last straw that blows them up. So, we talk about all the time covering your assets and in some way, in some ways it's just a way to avoid saying a curse word in polite conversation, but it is not untrue.
[00:27:13] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We are covering your assets because liability problems can either turn into insurance issues or they can turn into asset issues. Your cash in the bank is an asset. If you have to suddenly tap into your assets to pay a legal fee, or you have to tap into your time asset to go to small claims court, or if you have to tap into your team's time as assets to deal with a governing body you're, you haven't covered your assets.
[00:27:44] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So I know this is not a fun conversation. I, I feel that, but there... And we can't live in fear. You know, I'm, I'm always telling you guys we can't live in fear of what could happen. But one way to remove fear from the situation is to have a good, solid policy, accountability for that policy, and to make sure your assets are covered.
[00:28:09] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And that's just good business. It has nothing to do with how much you like your customers or even love your customers. If you wanna preserve a relationship, then you do everything in, in, in your power to avoid conflict with them, to avoid getting into some kind of, of, of a problem with them where it could hurt the relationship, right?
[00:28:31] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We need-- We do this with our spouses, we do this with our children, we do this with our team. Like, if we see a problem coming down the road, we need to be proactive and put up the stop sign and be like, "Hold on. Stop. Let's evaluate this. Let's look at our processes and procedures, revise them a- as necessary, and then retrain the team."
[00:28:49] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But if you're doing, um If you're doing work order audits, and I say if as though it's an option, if you are an owner who is not on the counter, you should be auditing your, your, um, work orders, and you should be looking for those signatures. If you upload a digital file of that signed, um, signed document, that is enough proof, but it has to be easily accessible.
[00:29:15] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You have to give it to the consumer on request, and it becomes part of the discovery if you do end up in a legal situation. And, and I, I have run up against people telling me, "I don't have time," and I'm talking about documentation on your estimates. If you are too busy as a service advisor to go out to the car, get the mileage, write up an estimate, and then get authorization from the customer, there's a problem.
[00:29:48] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Whatever that problem is, it needs to be addressed. Could be an ownership problem, could be a service advisor problem, could be another institutional problem, but that problem needs to be fixed. And there's that old saying of, you know, uh, uh, you're writing checks that you can't cash. If you're a service advisor and you're ignoring the standard operating procedures, you're signing checks you can't cash because you're not the one who's gonna be drug into court.
[00:30:16] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Your, your shop owner's gonna be drug into court, and they're not gonna be happy about it, especially if they're assuming, and assuming is, you know, a whole other story. But if they're assuming that all this is being done, we're documenting mileage, we're getting clear customer concerns, it's on the owner to have clear can job, um, descriptions so that when the customer signs that authorization, they're authorizing to do whatever we need to do to do that job.
[00:30:42] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um, we're not doing our job right, and it's opening, opening us up to much bigger challenges that, that when you look at that day, you would much rather be up to your elbows in a hard diag than going to court dealing with insurance, dealing with governing body, whatever that looks like, right? And and I don't wanna be Debbie Downer because I'm-- that's not the point.
[00:31:06] JeanAnn SaintGrace: The point is be prepared. The point is be proactive. By simply spending an extra minute or two on every work order that comes in the, in the shop, getting the mileage, making sure we've got all the customer's information, making sure we have a clear documentation of what that initial estimate involves, what that can save you in the future if you get into a situation like this is priceless.
[00:31:33] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And again, you all know I'm a big fan of the low car count, high average repair order model, and if you have one service advisor and they are doing five cars a day, if they don't have ten minutes to spend two minutes on every car getting this information, we have bigger problems, and we have to fix those to fix this.
[00:31:54] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But we need to look at priorities. We need to look at our staffing model. We need to look at, um, is our service advisor making themselves too busy to do this work, okay? And, and I, I try to be very diplomatic when I get that too busy thing because I'm not on the ground, but sometimes too busy is a self-induced prison, and generally we have the keys to fix that.
[00:32:21] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So if your service advisor is telling you they're too busy to do something, then we need to look at their job description. We need to look at how much we're asking them to do, and we may need, we may need a service advisor, uh, an additional service advisor, a junior service advisor, a CSR, or a customer service rep, who handles these little details for them so that they can do bigger work that is more targeted towards their job description.
[00:32:48] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But as always, we have to look at this from the levels of responsibility. As owners, have we given the advisor everything they need to do this work? Do we have a standard operating procedure in process? Have we audited this process to make sure it's being followed? So what I'm saying is you can't go do an audit tomorrow and then go guns blazing at your advisor.
[00:33:09] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You need to stop, take responsibility for the part that's yours, make sure that you have all the pieces in place, and then have a conversation. This needs to be implemented. This is non-negotiable, right? These, these legal issues are non-negotiable. Your, your work order is a legal living document, and every time it's amended after that initial repair at...
[00:33:32] JeanAnn SaintGrace: after that initial estimate is written, your, your shop management system should be keeping a written track, and it should document it on the invoice of every time that estimate is updated and every time the customer is contacted to, to authorize further work So I know, no fun getting into the legal beagle stuff of this, but it's a real thing, and I have had multiple conversations with multiple shops having this conversation.
[00:34:03] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If your customer, again, does not authorize a work order, they have authorized you to spend $0. If you spend $1, they are not obligated to pay you. If you spend $250 or 1,000 or 5,000, they are not obligated to pay you, but you are obligated to pay your parts supplier, and you are obligated to pay your team members So let's just avoid this at all costs, right?
[00:34:29] JeanAnn SaintGrace: In all seriousness, all kidding aside, let's not put ourselves in this situation. This would be a self-induced wound, right? If we let this stuff go and we're not on top of it, we need to be aware. We need to be proactive and active and have accountability for this kind of stuff. And I really... This comes from the bottom of my heart, and I'm not judging anybody who hasn't been doing this, but what I'm telling you is now that you know better, do better.
[00:35:00] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Look at the requirements for your state. Make sure that you are following those to a T. Make sure you're doing good business practice because again, even if your c- if your state doesn't require this, the legal system probably does. The small claims court, filing a mechanics lien, going into a bankruptcy court, whatever that looks like, if you don't have written authorization to work on that vehicle, you probably don't have a leg to stand on.
[00:35:27] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So let this be a foundation of your business. And speaking of foundations of your business, this is a new partnership between AutoFix and ADP, the payroll company. AutoFix has partnered with ADP to help auto repair shops simplify their payroll, their human resources compliance, their hiring, and their employee management while unlocking exclusive savings for eligible auto repair shop owners.
[00:35:56] JeanAnn SaintGrace: This isn't just a partnership on paper. The owner of AutoFix, Chris Cotton, um, has three repair shops of his own, and he believes in ADP so much that he has transferred all of his v- all of his, um, businesses over to ADP. This-- Through this partnership, eligible AutoFix members may receive a 20% lifetime discount on eligible ADP service- services, waived setup fees, and up to six months of free payroll.
[00:36:26] JeanAnn SaintGrace: ADP can help you accurately pay hourly, salaried, seasonal, and split shift employees while supporting your tax filings, your hiring, your onboarding, your compliance, your employee benefits, your workers' comp, and so much more. If Chris trusts ADP across all of his businesses, it's worth seeing what ADP could do for yours.
[00:36:46] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Check your eligibility and connect with the dedicated ADP partner using the AutoFix and ADP link that's in the show notes So this is a great new partnership. I encourage you to check it out if you've been... If you're with ADP already, maybe there's some savings to be had, or if you're thinking about changing your payroll company, this is something that could really work for you.
[00:37:04] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So back to the body of the podcast. I think I've given you guys a good reasoned argument for why we should be doing this, and again, it's never my job as a coach to tell you what to do, but this is good business practice. This is what we should be doing. This could be the difference between you having a good long relationship with your customers versus your work order being the one that's handed over the counter in another shop saying, "I think these people screwed me."
[00:37:35] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Right? We don't wanna be that. We don't wanna be the cautionary tale. I've seen too many of them. And did I ever have problems with the Bureau of Automotive Repair when I was in California? We had one, I believe, complaint filed against us, and we were a smog inspection shop, so at that point they're totally, you know, in your, in your drawers looking for everything.
[00:38:00] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And guess what? We had a signed work order. We had documentation. We had everything that we needed, and the, the, um, the, the guy looked at me and he's like, "Okay, well you've done everything right. Do you feel like there's something you can do for the customer to help them out?" And I was like, "We did everything we could when they were here, so no, I don't feel like I owe them any money.
[00:38:21] JeanAnn SaintGrace: I don't feel like we need to do anything more. We've clearly done our work. They agreed to it. Legally we're complete and I'm done." And he's like, "Well, that's your, that's your option. I'll take this all back to the, to the consumer." And I was like, "Cool." And it was... It turned into a nothing burger. But because we had all of our I's dotted and T's crossed He was literally in my shop for 20, 30 minutes instead of hours, instead of going through all the other estimates and work orders and looking for places where we hadn't done our work.
[00:38:54] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So, you know, I never go off on one of these rants for no reason. I'm here to tell you five... two to five minutes a car is going to be the difference between hours of challenge, emotional energy wasted, dollars wasted, your assets uncovered, your insurance opened up to errors and omissions, whatever that looks like.
[00:39:17] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And there's enough challenges in this industry. We don't need to be shooting ourselves in the foot with stuff like this. And you know, I've had enough David and Goliath moments in my life, and most of the time when I was David, I, I survived because I had done all the right things leading up to that problem.
[00:39:37] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And so that's my advice to you. Do the right thing, do it every time, and if there is a problem, then chances are you're gonna come out on top. Okay? You know I love you all. You know I speak all of this from my heart and, and in, in your shops with you on a day in and day basis, I wish you all the best and all the success.
[00:39:57] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But we've got to take the steps to protect ourselves. We've got to take the steps to protect the consumer. We're one of the few industries where we do as much to protect the consumer as we do to protect ourselves, and I think probably in a lot of cases, we err on the side of taking care of the customer over serving ourselves.
[00:40:15] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And I think that's a beautiful thing. I really do. And I, I trust and I love the heart that this industry brings to the world. And I know that you guys are out there, especially if you're listening to this podcast, that your heart is in the right place. Now we just need to get the paperwork in the right place.
[00:40:31] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Okay? So as always, thank you so much for the time that you spend with me. I hope this has been helpful. I hope you've been able to take at least a few crumbs from it. I hope I haven't sounded too preachy, but this is one of those things where I really feel like I need to get on my soapbox and shout to the top of the bleachers because this is so, so, so important for the health and wellbeing of not just your business, but yourself, your family, and your life.
[00:40:56] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So as always, go out there, love your people till it's weird, build your shop your way. Have a great day, and we'll see you next episode. Thank you so much.