The Customer-first Approach to Run a Thriving Repair Business

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Does your cell phone repair business qualify as a customer-first business? Are you empathetic and create memorable experiences in every interaction? 

It’s high time we answer these questions.

In the repair landscape, quality customer relationships give you an unmatched competitive advantage. It’s great if you prioritize your repair services over everything else, but you need to implement a customer-first approach to deliver outstanding experiences. 

This post dives into the factors you need to consider while adopting a customer-centric culture. Read on to find out how you can create a loyal customer out of everyone who walks in or books an appointment with your repair shop.

Why You Need to Put Your Customers First

Like any other service-based business, a cell phone repair shop is built upon trust. The more your customers believe in you, the higher the chances they will come back for their next repair. When you design each process with the customer in mind, you will be able to consistently deliver a positive experience. 

This kind of mindset is closely related to purpose-driven thinking. Your business objectives, operations, and even employees have to align themselves with the same purpose. Numerous industry disruptors like Uber, Warby Parker, and Airbnb are known for their customer-first approach. Instead of promoting their product, their main focus was to build their business around customer needs. 

Now, you must be thinking that these are operating in a different industry. However, the concept remains the same even in the repair sector. 

How to Ensure Great Customer Experience as a Repair Shop Employee?

When you start thinking in the right direction, which is putting the customer first, you get a lot of questions in your mind. For instance, 

• How do I create a memorable experience for a customer who is simply looking for a screen replacement?
• How do I go the extra mile?
• How do I stop a customer from leaving the shop after asking about the repair charges?

The list goes on and on.

But we at RepairDesk have the answers to your questions.

For starters, you can do more than just the repairs. You can add a friendly touch by doing what they don’t expect. According to Jeff Sandridge, the owner of The Smartphone Medics who has over 10 years of industry experience, you need to:

• Make relationships with customers, let them know you care about them and want to help them as an expert in your field.
• Ask questions, get to know your customers, and get to know their situation. You can use this information later on to send personalized follow-up messages.
• Train your employees to be empathetic towards customers and be more interactive. 

Obviously, no customer who hasn’t talked much other than repair-related stuff will ever remember their experience with your repair shop. So, they won’t mention it to their friends and family. Your goal is to create experiences that stay with your customers. For instance, you could talk about the recent game and ask for their opinion, or you could offer candies if they have brought their kids along with them.

Should You Charge Customers for Device Diagnostics?

When it comes to service-based businesses, time is money. You need to make this your mantra as you go through the entire workday. While we have stressed welcoming and being friendly with customers, you should not be offering diagnostics for free. 

In fact, you must charge for any work you do, and that includes data transfers and diagnostics. Since you’re spending time on it, or paying your employees to diagnose a device, there should be a price for it. 

To align this process with your customer-first approach, you need to explain the diagnostics charges to your customers upfront. In normal cases, repair shop employees discuss a repair for an hour without charging any fee. The customer remains at ease but as you lose your time, you are also losing opportunities to generate more revenue. 

While engaging customers might sound tricky using this technique, it is essential to balance great customer experience and charging for your work.

How to Build Relationships with Customers While Making Sales

Most customer relationships are established when you are interacting with the customer. But they don’t end there. Your customers love follow-ups, and if done right, follow-ups lead to positive reviews and referrals. 

The more you interact with your customers, like asking them how they’re doing, or how they broke their phone, you are gathering more information. This information can be useful when you are writing follow-up emails to let customers know you care about them.

Use RepairDesk’s Suggestive Sales Alert 

Moreover, your repair shop employees can also build relationships while making a sale. With RepairDesk’s new Suggestive Sales Alert feature, you get a popup screen every time you press the checkout button on the POS screen. 

In this popup, you get suggestions for accessories and other items you can sell to the customer along with their repair order. Not only does this help the employee process the checkout but it also gives customers an extra push to buy an extra item or two.

How Important is it to Answer Phone Calls at Your Repair Shop?

Answering your phone calls is probably the single most important part of your job as a repair shop owner or employee. People only call repair shops when they have already encountered a problem and want a solution. So if you miss their call, they might check out the next option by the time you get back to them, and move on. 

It is still extremely important to follow up on missed calls and text messages so that you can have a chance to capitalize on the missed leads.

Use RepairDesk PhonePro

To ensure that you are answering the maximum number of phone calls and quote requests, you need one of two things- You should either have a dedicated employee for answering phone calls or incorporate a phone system like PhonePro, which helps you take as many calls as possible. 

Learn how RepairDesk PhonePro helps you follow up on calls and text messages immediately after you receive them.

Growing Your Cell Phone Repair Shop with RepairDesk’s Customer-first Approach

We live in the era of technology, where modern solutions help minimize your manual work and streamline operations. RepairDesk is the POS partner of thousands of repair businesses across the globe, allowing it to innovate and improve based on a customer-centric approach.

Apart from automatically managing your inventory to creating customized invoices, RepairDesk is stacked with features to keep you ahead of your schedule, and your competition.