The customer left and never came back
He was not upset — he forgot. He remembered the oil on the road and drove where someone reminded him first.
Online booking, interactive check-in, work orders, the shop floor, stock and parts, seasonal tyre storage, handover and warranty. Customers come back not because you remembered them, but because the system reminded them in time.
The system is in development. Here is what it does — and we are onboarding the first workshops now.
This is not about bad mechanics. It is about records living in a notebook, in chat messages and in the advisor’s head.
He was not upset — he forgot. He remembered the oil on the road and drove where someone reminded him first.
One customer never showed up, another came late, and the lift is empty half the day.
Taken from stock, never added to the work order. The shortfall shows up a month later at stocktaking.
The advisor gave a discount, the foreman added a job, and the customer saw a third number.
Every step below is a screen in the system, not a line in a procedure on the wall.
Full workshop records: not separate modules you have to wire together by hand, but one path of the car from booking to handover.
One app is installed, people sign in as employees, and the start screen and available actions depend on the role. Separate apps per role make no sense: in a three-bay workshop one person is both advisor and foreman, and an update has to reach everyone at once.
| Workplace | Who | Device | What matters on screen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reception | service advisor | tablet, desk | today’s bookings, check-in, approvals, call list |
| Shop floor | foreman | large screen | board of bays and technicians, job assignment |
| Technician | technician | phone, shop terminal | my jobs, start and finish, parts requests |
| Stock | storekeeper | phone with scanner, PC | issue to the bay, goods in, reservations, stocktaking |
| Cash desk | cashier, advisor | PC, tablet | payment, receipt, handover of the car |
| Manager | owner, manager | PC, phone | workload, revenue, productivity, stock levels |
Works on tablets and phones, large tap targets (a technician wears gloves), camera capture, barcode scanning, two languages. Nothing to install from an app store: the system opens at an address and can be pinned to a tablet as an app.
Day, week, month: bays down the side, time across. Drag a booking between bays and times, change its duration.
Lift, pit, tyre bay, alignment, diagnostics, paint booth, wash. A job only goes on a bay where it can actually be done.
Technician shifts, branch opening hours, days off and lunch. You can see how many labour hours are sold for the day and how many are still free.
A customer on a tow truck is squeezed into the schedule — and the system shows exactly what moves because of it.
A step-by-step inspection on a tablet. The result is a handover report signed by the customer: it is sent to them as a link and stays attached to the work order.
The central document. The server does the arithmetic, money is stored in the smallest currency unit, a closed document is frozen, and a discrepancy is handled by a correction — not by editing history.
Draft → agreed → in progress → waiting for parts → ready for handover → handed over and paid → closed. Separately: customer refusal and warranty return.
The foreman added a line — the customer receives the list and the total. The answer is recorded with date and time, and until they agree the job is not assigned.
Found it, the customer put it off. It stays in the vehicle record and lands in the call list next time round.
Manual with a reason, by loyalty, by company contract. A discount above the threshold needs the manager’s approval.
Work order, completion certificate, invoice, delivery note, warranty card. Every change carries an author and a time.
Gloves, rags, cleaner, paint materials, oils and fluids from a drum — written off by the norm for the job or by actual volume.
A request from the work order, selection by VIN and model through catalogues, search for alternatives.
Price requests, comparison by price and lead time, the order itself, expected date, partial delivery, returns of faulty or wrong parts.
Customer prepayment for a part on order, settlements with suppliers, reconciliation.
The work order moves to «waiting for parts», and the advisor sees it on the working screen — the customer is warned before they call themselves.
A sale without repair as a document of its own: selection by catalogue and stock, receipt, returns as the law requires.
Cost and markup by category, personal prices for companies, promotions, a reservation for a customer with an expiry date.
What is in stock right now and what is on its way — so the advisor can answer without leaving the conversation.
The invitation goes out early and the booking is made straight from the reminder. Handover means checking against the photos and a customer signature.
Damage, jobs, parts, materials and coefficients. Insurer referral, claim number, limit and approval.
A report after stripping down and a second approval — before the work continues.
Strip-down, panel beating, preparation, painting, drying, assembly, polishing — each with its own person and time.
Colour matched by paint code, paint consumption per car, photos at every stage for the insurer and the customer.
Raised with a link to the earlier work order — the whole history of that job and its parts is already at hand.
A warranty case or not, the decision, who is responsible and what is at fault: the technician, the part or the supplier.
A repeat repair at no charge to the customer, but with the cost recorded. Report: how many cars came back, whose fault it was and what it cost.
This is what all that history is for. Every line shows what it is based on — otherwise the call turns into «we have not seen you in a while».
| Reason | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| A scheduled service is due | the workshop’s own job history and mileage |
| A postponed recommendation | the previous visit: found it, the customer declined |
| Tyre season | the storage contract for the set |
| Mileage from AvtoNote | the owner granted access — a real reading, not an estimate |
| A document expiring | only if the customer told you themselves |
| Long time no see | the last visit was earlier than your chosen cut-off |
The result of the call is recorded: booked, call back, declined, no answer. An opt-out is respected. Channels: push into the customer’s app, a message, an email, an SMS.
Position, role, qualifications, branch, shift plan, timesheet.
Who sees purchase prices, who may grant a discount, who closes a document, who sees revenue. An employee works in their branch, a manager sees them all.
Base salary, a share of labour hours, a share of parts sold, bonus, deductions for warranty returns.
Labour hours sold against hours worked — per technician and per shop.
Bays and equipment, opening hours, company details, print templates.
Service, labour hours, rate, category. Several price lists: retail, companies, insurers.
«The 15k service for this model» — a set of jobs and parts in one line, together with time norms per model.
Makes and models, tyres, suppliers, part categories, notification texts in both languages.
The customer record pops up on an incoming call, the recording is attached to the enquiry.
SMS and messengers: confirmations, reminders, approval of extra work.
Online till and card payments, export of documents to accounting.
Selection catalogues and supplier price lists.
An online booking widget on your own page.
Exchange with the car owner’s app — with their consent.
AvtoNote is our app for drivers. The customer keeps fuel and expenses in it, and with their consent opens the car’s data to you: the mileage you see is real, not remembered. The owner can close that access whenever they like, without a word to the workshop.
With the customer’s consent the system sends completed jobs and recommendations into their app: the owner keeps a complete history of the car, and your workshop is visible in it.
The owner puts a visit together in the app — complaints, wishes, mileage — and sends the advisor a single link. The advisor opens it without signing in, sees only what was shared, and replies with an estimate and a date. For the workshop it is a new enquiry: a provisional booking is created from that link.
The two systems share no common database: they exchange only what the person agreed to share. Privacy rests on how the product is built, not on staff discipline.
The screen the day starts from. It is not a «list of work orders» but an answer to two questions: what am I busy with today, and who do I have to call.
Mileage is shown on two different lines. You do not promise a due date from an estimate: someone told «you are at 15 000» when he is at 8 000 stops picking up the phone.
Call, message and booking into a free slot all happen right from the call list, without leaving the screen and losing the customer mid-conversation.
They have real current mileage and upcoming services — the most accurate lines on the list. The moment the owner revokes access, the data disappears from the screen.
Cars handed over with an unpaid balance sit in a block of their own, so the debt does not surface at the end of the month.
We take the first workshops through it ourselves: we set things up, train people and fix things as we go. This is not «here is your login, good luck».
A tablet at reception and a phone for every technician.
Your labour price list and the list of bays — in any form, a spreadsheet will do.
One person responsible for the rollout who can make decisions for the workshop.
The workshop’s data belongs to the workshop. You can export it at any time, and you configure staff access yourself.
The system works online: the server calculates totals and stock levels, and we will not promise offline work where document money is concerned. A form already open survives a short drop.
No. The system opens at an address in the browser and can be pinned to a tablet as an app. Updates reach everyone at once.
No, branches live in one system: an employee sees their own, a manager sees them all.
We are taking on the first workshops now and agree terms individually. Leave a request and we will explain, with no obligation.
No. The system works without it. The owner’s app gives you real mileage and a reason to call — but only if the customer opens that access themselves.
We will get in touch, show you the system and talk about what your workshop actually needs.