Originally Posted By: Kestas
When your customers do an about face, where do they go for same day service? How are those shop taking care of the customer? I see nothing wrong with what you're doing --- being up front with the circumstances.
Exactly. The only way they could possibly be getting same day service would be if they are going to a dealer or a chain type place in a large metro area. Obviously, the issue you have is geographic. Every shop in your area is going to face the same plight. How do they deal with it?
Really, I can't imagine same-day service on A/C work, unless it is a simple refrigerant recharge or the stars align perfectly. Every time that I have ever had to have A/C work beyond a recharge, it has been a 2-3 day process. Things roll quicker in a metro area, you can't necessarily fight that. The best you can do is offer quality service at a fair and reasonable price. That is all you can do. Irrational, unrealistic people will always conduct themselves in that manner regardless. You can't fix stupid.
My suggestion has already been mentioned. Diagnosis fee in advance, with that being deducted off the cost of the repair. That way, you commit people. Try to schedule diagnostics early morning before the cutoff with the parts source you mentioned previously to try to facilitate same day repair. Consider Amazon prime. One possible idea: there was talk of WalMart getting into auto parts. If this occurred, and if you have ready access to Wally World, this could be a possibility. Not sure about the parts, but they have fantastic logistics, and they once had a tire shipped to a WM of my choice in < than 3 hours.
If you differentiate your business by offering service/value, the parts factor becomes a trivial issue.