The repair shop in your dealership might be deemed as the place where your engineers get their hands dirty whilst performing repairs on your customer’s vehicles but sometimes this can lead to your repair shop being neglected when it comes to keeping it tidy and clean. There is usually a lot more focus placed on making your showroom look nice and tidy however, equal importance should be placed on the cleanliness of your repair shop. You should take just as much pride in how your service centre looks as you do in how your showroom looks. It may not necessarily be a place the customer sees but that doesn’t mean that the standards should slip. Here we look at ways to keep your auto repair shop clean and the importance of doing so.
Give Your Employees a Clean Environment to Work in
Set the standard for how clean the employees that are working in your auto repair shop should keep the area that they work in. You should be advising your employees that as well as servicing and repairing the vehicles that come into the shop that they are also responsible for keeping the area that they are working in clean and tidy. It may also be worth incentivizing your employees as a reward for consistently keeping up these standards and setting an example to their fellow workers. This will also help with productivity as your repair shop; will be easier to organize in terms of both tools and workloads.
Improve the Appearance of Your Employees
Boost the morale of your employees working in your service centre who can sometimes be forgotten about behind the scenes. It may be worth linking up with a local apparel service to ensure that your engineers are provided with brand new clean uniforms to boost their confidence and help them to maintain standards of personal hygiene. It may also be worth investing in new tools and equipment if some are tired, run-down, bulky, or inefficient. This will motivate your engineers and send the message that you are investing in them so that they can invest themselves fully into delivering the best possible service to your customers and the importance of keeping the repair shop clean, tidy, and efficient plays in that.
Take Pride in Your Waiting Area
If you have an area in your auto repair shop where customers wait to pick up their cars from your dealership make sure that you take pride in how this area looks. As much as the service centre itself may not be the most appealing of places, ensure that your waiting area is neat and tidy. This, after all, is one of the first impressions that the customer will have of your service centre. If you make the right impression, this will then lead to the customers potentially returning to you in the future, and, even better, telling their friends and family members about the positive experience they have had at your dealership, potentially leading to more custom.
Take Care of Customers Vehicles
Another reason why you should be keeping your auto repair shop clean is that it will minimise the amount of damage or mess that could be caused when a vehicle has come in to be serviced/repaired. Keeping your customers vehicles as clean as possible and returning them to them in a cleaner condition if anything than when it came in is key to generating repeat business for your shop. Returning a vehicle that is messy and damaged from the repair can be one of the quickest ways of losing a customer altogether and a quick way to ensure scathing reviews.
To ensure that this doesn’t happen, using disposable paper floor mats or plastic floor mats can ensure that any debris or paint is captured to prevent them from going anywhere over the interior of the vehicle. Having these in place also means that your staff can get on with the job and get it done in a shorter space of time without the need of worrying of being overly anxious about making any mess as the floor mats ensure that any stray paint, oil, or other debris is captured and if they are paper they can be disposed of afterward or if they are plastic they can be cleaned and re-used elsewhere. If you are in need of supplies to keep your auto repair shop clean, a good resource is https://mbrmarketing.com/service-department/floor-mats, which is the website of MBR Marketing who is the largest distributor of disposable paper and plastic floor mats in the United States.
Provide a Safe Washer for any Vehicle/Machine Parts
Hygiene and employee safety needs to be paramount in your auto repair shop. As well as having a washer that can thoroughly and efficiently wash any machine or vehicle parts you’re also going to want one that is ideally not solvent-based. Inhalation from the solvents can pose a health hazard and risk to your employees. However, if you get a parts washer that is bio-based and ph-neutral you can massively improve the air quality of your auto repair shop and minimize the damage that any fumes could be causing to your employees.
Focus on Restrooms and Bathroom Areas
Regardless of whether your dealership has a bathroom for employee use only or both customers and employees you need to ensure that your restrooms in your dealership and auto repair shop are not only deep cleaned routinely but are also continuously stocked with all of the sanitary essentials. This can include soap, paper towels, and toilet paper. This ensures that employees/customers have the resources needed to clean their hands after use. With the current COVID pandemic, this is more important now than ever. Having your restrooms fully sanitized with all the essential personal protection and hygiene product requirements available sends a clear message to both your employees and customers about the importance you place on their health and wellbeing.
In Summary
The key to a healthy and productive auto repair shop is keeping it a clean and welcoming environment both for customers and your employees working in the repair shop. Ensuring that your auto repair shop is well stocked with all of the tools and resources that your employees need to carry out their job properly, safely, hygienically, and thoroughly is a huge priority for any car dealership owner.
