In a repair shop the customer is rarely spontaneous. They come back — after 10,000 kilometres, before an inspection, when the seasonal tyres change. The only question is whether they come back to you.
The customer is a vehicle, not a person
This is the key difference from other services. One customer may own three cars, and one car may change owners twice. If your system tracks only people, you lose the most valuable thing — the history of the specific vehicle.
Look for a CRM where you can record the plate, make and model, mileage at each visit, and what was replaced and when.
Where the money leaks
- No reminder for the next service. The customer goes to whichever shop thought to call first;
- Quotes take too long. While you look up a part price, the customer has already asked elsewhere;
- Declined work is not recorded. If the customer refused new brake pads last time, that is a scheduled sale, not a lost one.
The minimum that actually works
You do not need a complex system. You need this, working every day:
- A vehicle card with full history;
- Planned work — who should be called and when;
- An order pipeline: enquiry → quote → approved → in progress → done;
- A report on how many quotes turn into real orders.
Connecting to stock
If you keep parts in an accounting or inventory program, the CRM should not duplicate them. It is better for the system to read stock from your ERP than to maintain two inventories by hand.
Feel IT CRM works this way, and Feel IT Insight adds sales and inventory analytics straight from your ERP.