Auto Detailing Guide

Auto Detailing Customer Satisfaction

Many auto detailers like to say they're the best. Others like to offer cut rate detailing services for hardly any money just to make a few bucks. Here's the thing to watch for with detailing. If you are the detailer, make sure the customer knows you are insured and that you are the person doing the work or at least supervising it directly. Nothing is worse than having a bunch of teenagers doing the detailing and then having to explain to the customer why something wasn't done correctly. Also, it pays to actually do the work you say you are doing.

Here in Pittsburgh there was a local detail shop that made the news with a bizzare story. Seems the shop owner thought it was a good idea to have two teenagers that worked for him pickup the customer cars and then drive them through a car wash before heading to the shop. They were getting paid $150 to detail the car. Problem is after doing this for a while, the customer caught on when one of the stupid teenagers left the receipt for the car wash in her car. It cost them $25 for the "Supreme" wash and they didn't do anything else on the car. Sounds ridiculous, right? The customer called a local TV news station and they followed the teenagers when they picked-up her car again and did the same exact thing with the car wash. Got it all on tape. When confronted the shop owner still demanded to be paid even though they had proof of what he had been doing. It was really bizzare. He's out of business now.

Let your customer know that the services you are doing are exactly what they are expecting. Make sure you have a check-in sheet so there are no problems with damage you find after washing or moving the car. Do you have garage keepers liability insurance? General liability won't cut it, you need garage keepers liability to cover the vehicle while in your care, custody and control. Ask your insurance agent about this or check out our page on liability insurance for more information. Keep checking back to this site to review our forms page. We'll be uploading all the forms we use and contracts for customer transactions.

If you don't think insurance is important enough to protect yourself, consider it as a marketing ploy. That's how we used it. Not many shops in the Pittsburgh area are actually insured. I heard that from my customers all the time. So we really pushed the fact that we were insured in all our advertising and marketing. It's important so you might as well make your customers aware of it so they ask your competitors for proof before going to them.

The question I would ask everybody is this, why would you want to mess with a small, local shop that may or may not have insurance coverage and probably pays some teenagers under the table to detail cars cheap so they can still make money without actually doing any work on your vehicle? At our shop we offer a safe and very professional service that you can depend on to get the job done right the first time. We maintain full insurance and trained employees, not summer help.

When your customer picks-up their car make sure the services you sold them are completed to YOUR satisfaction. If you are like me, you are most likely more picky than they are. So go over it like it's your car and you'll find anything wrong before they do. It takes a few extra minutes that you probably don't think you have, but it's better than dealing with a ticked-off customer after the job is supposed to be finished.

If you are the end user customer reading this, then you know what to look for now when dealing with your detail shop owner. Your car is your baby, so make sure everything is exactly how you want it done. Otherwise you are doing the shop owner a disservice by telling them you like the job they did. If you don't like the job and you neglect to mention anything about this when picking it up how can you honestly be upset with the detailer. Part of being a satisfied customer is actually saying something about being unhappy with the service provided. I hear that from friends all the time how they were at a restaurant and didn't like something but didn't say anything about it. So now that restaurant owner thinks the food he's serving is great and is going to lose more customers. Tell them about it and let them make you happy so you come back and tell others about their business.

Detailing a vehicle is a hard, labor intensive process. Even though you strive for perfection, things get missed, sometimes often. Phones ring, other customers walk in and you always have problems with poor attitude employees who would rather be home sleeping off their hangover than doing their job. So make sure you the shop owner are looking at every inch of that vehicle before the customer gets a chance to see it. And if you are the customer, give your detail shop owner a chance to fix any problems that might arise. He would rather keep you as a happy customer than have you telling ten other people about his bad service.