Complete and Thorough Auto Repair Shop Invoicing - Part 4

 Invoicing Part 4 - Correction and Confirmation by Rick White, President 180BIZ

I will continue talking about invoicing, but I know, it’s hard to get excited about that. Most people think profit lives on the P & L, but it doesn’t. Profit is reported on the P & L, it lives on the invoice. So far I’ve talked about CONNECTING with your clients and not trying to impress them. And then to be CURIOUS, to make their agenda, your agenda, and to ask questions, to really understand what's going on, and to understand what's driving them. And then I talked about CONTROL. How to keep them in control of the whole process so that their comfort level goes up.  That makes all the difference in the world. We talked about documenting the CONCERN properly, and then documenting the CAUSE while building the value in what you do.

I’ll continue that value building today in two more areas, correction, and confirmation. You want to document exactly what you're doing. We get paid by the word as much as I hate to say that. If I'm looking at an invoice that has one line going across saying what someone did for me with a charge. And then I look at another invoice for the same job that is detailed out. As far as what was done, how it was done, the steps that were taken doing in performing that operation. All of a sudden that second example has more value because it creates an understanding of what they are paying for. It makes all the difference in the world. So, I want to make sure you understand that you want to get CORRECTION documented right.

One of the worst things that happen for an advisor is when a client comes in with a concern and you call them up. You let them know what you found, get the job presented and they say yes. When they come to pick it up they ask, “Is it all taken care of?” Mostly the advisor is assuming that it has been. The advisor will either cross their fingers hoping and praying it is right, or they’ll need to ask the tech. None of us want to do that.

Instead have your techs document that the problem is gone, that the client’s concern is taken care of. I call that the CONFIRMATION step.  How do you do that? You do that by having your tech writing, “Road test, noise gone” or “Road test, runs great” or “Road test, no leaks.” on the work order. All you need is one simple little sentence from your tech that confirms the client's concern has been dealt with.  So, build your corrections up. Now I use canned jobs. I had over 3000 canned jobs in my database or management system. Build your candid jobs. If you're ever going to do that job a second time, build it up once, and then put it into your canned jobs in a way that you can find it easily. That way you can benefit from that creation over and over again. It makes it easier and easier to build value.

The other thing you can do by building the job up like that is you can actually dictate the flow for your technician so that when that job comes over, they have a step-by-step process to get it done. It helps you to make sure that you're getting the same consistent job, regardless of who and when it's being done. So, use your correction documentation in a way that (1) builds value, (2) creates a consistent, desired end product, and (3) makes it easy to do over and over again. So right now, I’ve talked about Connection, Curiosity, Control, Concern, Cause, Correction, and Confirmation. And I have one more step to invoicing that I want to talk about next episode.

If this is resonating with you and you're realizing you need help with invoicing, I’ve got a great webinar titled “The Importance of Your Invoice, It’s Not Just a Piece of Paper.” If you're interested, sign up for my Pocket Business Genius webinar series. It is cheap. And I'm telling you, it's like having me in your back pocket every month. Not only do you get the live webinar monthly, but you also have a library of webinars. And I think there are over 40 of them now. And they are all so relevant. One of my clients reached out to me last week and said, “Hey, this Pocket Business Genius is absolutely awesome. I'm listening to a different one every day to and from work. And it's really helping me out.” I want to be able to do the same for you.  We all need help. We all need training. Getting away from the shop is a tough thing. Use your No Extra Time or NET time where you're driving or mowing the lawn or doing some chore and listen to something that's going to help you expand your thoughts and strategies. I think it's a really great option. So I want to say thank you very much for being here. Stay safe, have fun, and go make some money. God bless.