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Learn why work orders benefit your business and how to create one.
Wouldn’t it be nice if your customers stayed ahead of car maintenance? Unfortunately, our investigation demonstrated that this isn’t the case for most in the auto industry.
As a mechanic, you know that scheduled maintenance is ideal, but many customers don’t contact you until there’s a problem with their car. This makes your day-to-day schedule unpredictable.
Thankfully, as indicated by our tests, mechanic work orders keep your business grounded. Whether you like spreadsheets or prefer QuickBooks work order forms, work orders can:
Keep reading to learn why work orders benefit your business and how to create one. Better yet, you’ll get a free mechanic work order form template that you can start filling out right away!
Since work orders are an important part of your business, it’s worth becoming an expert on how to create them. But there are a few steps to cover before you get started on your work order.
Before creating a mechanic work order for a new job, here’s what to do first.
Based on our firsthand experience, you can split most auto service jobs into two categories:
Scheduled maintenance services are relatively predictable until you find an unexpected issue while servicing your customer’s car. This means you usually have more notice to create your work order.
Maintenance services include:
On the other hand, auto repair jobs are usually last-minute customer requests based on a new issue with their vehicle. Your customer may initiate the request one of three ways:
Timing is often tight for the latter two options, so you have less time to create a work order. However, you should still complete it quickly to ensure customer satisfaction.
Under these circumstances, a service order template speeds up the process.
Regardless of the nature of the job, if you start with a mechanic work order Excel template, you can easily customize it to suit any job.
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No matter what your customer tells you the problem is, you must have one of your techs properly inspect the vehicle.
An inspection gives you a better idea of the state of the vehicle and the scope of the job. You may even find issues that your customer was unaware of.
What’s more, an inspection lets you create an accurate estimate to present to your customer.
Before your tech gets to work, make sure that your customer agrees with the details of the job, especially the price.
You often hear stories from drivers about when they brought their car to the mechanic for one issue and were told that their car actually has several issues that need fixing. This results in a higher bill, and the customer frames the mechanic as the villain.
Well, you know from experience that this is usually due to the driver’s neglect when it comes to regular vehicle maintenance. When you present the estimate to your customer, be sure to walk them through why their car needs the work you recommended, as well as costs.
Once your customer agrees to an estimate, you’re ready to create your service order and have your tech get to work.
As per our expertise, your work order should have your estimate’s information and a few more key details. Let’s look at what to include in your mechanic work order forms.
The goal of your automotive work order is to:
For this to happen, it’s important to include complete and accurate information in your work order.
To help you out, here’s a list of what to include in your mechanic work order.
