Hey everybody, I wanted to do a video on maybe why you should specialize in diesel and European cars versus general repair, if you aren’t already.

I’ve got four reasons that we’re going to talk about but, honestly, if you did pros and cons, there’s probably 50.

So, I’m going to try to keep this short, keep it sweet, and just talk about the first four that kind of popped into my mind, okay?

One of the main reasons why diesel and European customers are a little bit easier to work with, is they make their repairs a priority, and they seem, as a group, not to spend as much time. Just like for instance, if you’ve got a car, you call them, text, send them the digital repair, and the general repair shop, some people maybe a day, two days before anybody even gets back to you. It’s not as bad as it used to be, with texting and things like that, but it’s still pretty bad. And it seems like general repair, they don’t respond as quick. So, for sure, diesel and European repair clients, So, for sure, diesel and European repair clients, make the repairs a priority.

Now, I’ll also go into… Number two though, and say that also diesel and European repair people, typically are pretty patient. If you get with them in a timely manner and you talk to them about their vehicle, and everything is good, as long as they know what the timeline is, they’re willing to wait a couple of days to get those vehicles fixed, especially if you have a loaner vehicle, things like that, okay? So, one, they tend to make it a priority. Two, they’re more patient.

Three, what I found with my clients that work with Europeans strictly and then diesel and diesel fleets, is that those customers are better-informed, seems like they know more about their vehicles, they know the working systems of their vehicles, and so when you’re ready to talk to them about this needs this, this needs that, typically they kind of know what’s going on. That can work as an advantage and a disadvantage because those people know if you’re BSing them or not. So, as your sales force learns and tries to talk to these people, if you don’t know the correct answer, then just say you don’t know the correct answer and find somebody that can help you out, because these people will smell your BS really, really quick, right? So, number three is better-informed.

Number four is technology. What we found in the past year with COVID, and everything like that, is the people that had the European cars, people that had diesel trucks and diesel fleets, we were able to go to their houses, their places of business, pick up their vehicles, contactless, bring them in, do the inspections, do the diagnostics, send those people the DVI. And speaking of DVI, we have a great video, a great blog on DVI, that you can reference. But the European and diesel people tend to look at those things and see the video, see the great DVI you did, and respond. Also, with text-to-pay and things like that, they’re really up on it. Those two types of clients seem to do that really, really well. You text them the final invoice, they pay. And then after they pay, you take the car back.

So, really, it’s been really, really great. I’m not saying that general repair is not embracing this, but it seems like the diesel people and the European people are really, really embracing all the things that we just talked about, and embody the things that we just talked about. I’m going to leave this short and sweet, keep it there.

One, European and diesel clients make repairs a priority and maintenance, for sure.

Number two, most of them, most of the time, are pretty patient as long as you keep them informed and they work really well if you have loaners and things like that.

Number three, these clients seem to be better-informed.

And number four, technology.

So, I hope this helps. I hope it gives you a fresh perspective on diesel and euro clients, a little bit.

Again, I could go on and on about maybe why you’d want to specialize in one of these areas. We coach a lot of shops that are just diesel shops only and diesel fleet shops only, and we have a lot of shops that we coach that are European repair facilities.

I hope this helped you out. Have a great day, everybody. And if you get a chance, go out and subscribe to our YouTube channel. AutoFix-Auto Shop Coaching. Thank you. Have a great day.