Book a service bay at an independent garage

Three jobs, one number

The number on the sign, the Google listing and the job card is one number. A caller who wants a Thursday service, a caller whose sticker runs out on Friday, and a caller in a supermarket car park all dial it. Before anyone says yes to a time, the assistant has to know which job this is.

A service holds a bay, a lift, and a length you already use. Oil and filters is not a clutch. Pads you have already seen are not a timing belt you have not.

A KTEO is a deadline. That is not a service, even when the caller says “service” because they want both done in one visit. A caller who says MOT means the same sticker. Write what you actually do: the official test, if you run a station; a pre-KTEO check — lights, brakes, wipers, emissions — if that is your work; or neither, in which case the assistant says so and does not book a test you cannot issue.

A breakdown is a car that has already stopped. This is not Thursday at half past eight. The assistant takes where the car is, whether it will move, and whether they need a tow.

Those are three different answers. They do not use the same hole in the book, and two of them do not belong in the book at all until the car can arrive. If the assistant treats every caller as a Thursday service, a person standing next to a dead car spends three minutes being offered a morning they cannot use. If it treats every caller as a breakdown, the person who wanted an oil change is asked for a street name.

Tuesday makes the split sharper. One car is already on the lift. The other bay has a service open. Both hands have grease on them. Someone in the small office is writing a card. The phone on the desk rings.

Nobody at the wing can finish the booking by hand. Both hands are dirty. The person with the job card has a driver in front of them.

Taking a message and promising that someone will look at the book later is the job a voicemail already does. Finishing the call means the time it offers is free when the car goes up, or the note it takes is the note you would have written — location, will it roll, plate — not “someone rang about a car”.

Read the book before you offer. Write the booking before you confirm. If that book cannot be reached, say so and take a callback. A time the caller was promised and the office has never seen is worse than no booking.

What goes wrong when every caller is a Thursday service

The failure is not “the phone rang”. The failure is a time that sounded finished and was not.

A driver is given Thursday at 08:30 from a gap that belongs to a clutch already on the wall, waiting for a part. They arrive with the keys. The Golf that has been here since Monday is still occupying the hole. They wait on the forecourt, or they leave.

A caller whose car will not start is given Thursday at 08:30. The car is in a supermarket car park. Thursday’s bay sits empty. The person is still in the car park.

A caller wants official KTEO. You only do the prep. The assistant books “KTEO” because that is the word they used. They arrive expecting a sticker. You send them on. They will not book the prep with you a second time.

A caller wants a service and a KTEO on the same visit. Handled as two bookings, they take two mornings, or they take an oil-change gap and a check-length job is forced into it. It is one bay, the longer of the two, in the order you already use. You write the order once.

A caller wants to move Thursday at 08:30 to Friday. Handled as cancel-then-book, 08:30 is still in the book while the assistant looks for Friday. They are told Friday is tight. Sometimes they are told their own morning is the reason. Then, if the new time fails, Thursday is gone as well, and they have dropped out of the diary.

A ready time is spoken as if it were a collection appointment. “It will be ready at five.” The part is still at the factor. They arrive at five. You own the conversation at the shutter.

None of that is a missed call. It is a booking that should not have been spoken.

Service, KTEO, or the car already stopped — then the book

The first question is the split the person at the wing already asks without thinking, if they can pick up. Service, KTEO, or has the car already stopped. Then the plate, or the make, model and year. Then the book, and only if a bay is the right answer.

Service. Oil, filters, a booked inspection, pads if you have already seen them. This can go in the book. The assistant needs the plate or the make, model and year, the kilometres if they know them, and what they think is due. It offers a bay only after it has checked the calendar you already use. Kilometres matter for a service. They do not matter for a car that will not start.

KTEO. The sticker is a deadline. Ask whether they want the official test, the prep, or both a service and the prep. Follow the line you wrote. A lot of independent garages in Greece do the prep and send the car on. The assistant does not invent a station you do not have. If the sticker runs out this week, that is a fact for the note, not a reason to invent a ready time, and not a reason to squeeze a check into a hole that is already a clutch.

Breakdown. Where is the car. Will it roll. Do they need a tow. If you do not run a truck, say so in the first sentence. If you keep a tow number, the assistant can give that number. If they can drive it in, the assistant can look at a bay the same day, if you have one. A warning light described on the phone is a diagnostic, if you take those, not a guessed fault and not a finish time.

A caller who is already a customer — they left a car yesterday, they want to know if it is ready, they want to move Thursday — should not be asked whether the car has already stopped as if this were a new job. Listen for the job card, the plate, the word “ready”. Those calls belong to a card you already have.

The assistant may offer a time only when the type and the length match, and only after it has read the diary you actually work from. A free lift is not a booking if the person who does diagnostics is off, and this is a diagnostic.

A ready time nobody can put in the book

Callers who book a bay want a yes, then a time they can collect. You cannot answer the second part from the phone.

A service that looks like oil and filters becomes a leak. A pre-KTEO check becomes pads. A time said before anyone has opened the car is a time the office then has to take back.

The assistant does not give one. It can repeat a collection window you already use once you have marked the card. “It is ready now” is a fact. “It will be ready at five” is a guess. If a caller needs the car for Saturday, the assistant takes the date and puts it on the note. It does not promise the bay will meet that date.

A car waiting on a part is not a free bay. Mark it, or the assistant will book a second car into the same morning.

“Is my car ready?” is not a booking. The assistant reads the card. If the card says ready, it can say so and tell them the collection hours. If the card does not say, it takes a name and a number. It does not invent half past five.

A parts price nobody can book either

When someone reads the plate and asks for pads, a clutch, a timing belt, the tempting answer is a number, then a time. The assistant does not give the number. The car on the lift is not the car in the catalogue. Axle, engine code, whether the discs come off with the pads — you know this after you have seen it, or after you have the part number in front of you.

It can repeat a published menu item you gave it. A listed oil service can have a list price. A diagnostic can have a list price if you publish one. Unseen parts cannot. The assistant books a bay or a diagnostic. Leave the parts figure to someone who can see the car.

Do not put a pads tariff in the notes and hope it will “use judgement”. It will read the number out, and then it will book Thursday against that number. You will spend Thursday taking both back.

A caller who wants to add a job while the car is already with you is useful, if you want that work. The assistant writes what they asked for and puts it in front of you. It does not quote the extra from the phone, and it does not add the work to a card it cannot see.

One bay, the longer of the two

A caller who wants a service and a KTEO on the same visit is not two bookings. It is one bay, the longer of the two, in the order you use. You write the order once. The assistant follows it.

If you do the prep first and the service second, say so. If you do them as one open job, say so. If you do not do the official test, the assistant must not add “and the sticker” to the confirmation as if you issued it.

An oil service dropped into a clutch-length gap wastes a lift. A clutch squeezed into an oil-change gap runs the rest of the morning late. Give it last month’s real lengths, not a catalogue. Each type has a length and a bay it may use. The assistant looks at the book only after it knows which type this is.

If you do not do that work — windscreens, gas, a brand you never touch, official KTEO — say so, so it stops taking those bookings.

Saturday morning, on plenty of independent garages in Greece, is drop-offs until noon, or closed. Mark those hours the way you mark a lunch shutter. If the assistant treats every Saturday hour as a free service bay, someone is told to come at three and finds the shutter down. If it treats Saturday as closed when you take keys until twelve, a Monday car stays a Monday car.

Who is on the tools

Write it down the way you would for a Saturday hire. Who is in. Who does diagnostics. Who does gearboxes. Who is off. Whether a lift is down.

If only one person does diagnostics, that bay can only go on that person’s hours. A free lift at 08:30 on a day that person is off is not a diagnostic. The assistant must not treat the book as one pool of holes.

A car waiting on a part is occupying a hole even when it is parked against the wall. Mark it, or the assistant will book a second Golf into the same morning. A car you said would be a two-hour service and is now a wait is the same mark. The book has to hear it, not only the transcript.

Lunch is not a bay. Plenty of you close the shutter at two and open again at five. The phone does not close. An assistant that offers 14:30 as a drop-off has not been told the shutter rule. Mark the drop-off window you actually keep, and the collection window, which are not always the hours on the sign.

A caller who asks “can I leave it tonight for the morning?” wants to know whether anyone will be there, and where the keys go. An assistant that answers with Thursday at 16:00 has not heard it. Mark a drop-off window if you use one. Write where the keys go. Do not invent a night drop-off you do not run.

Moving Thursday

The caller already has a time. They are not making a new booking. They are changing one.

Handled as “cancel, then book”, Thursday at 08:30 is still in the book while the assistant looks for Friday. The caller is told their preferred hour is taken — by a system looking at their own service. Then, if the new time fails, Thursday is gone as well.

The order is: find the existing appointment, release it, offer two times that are actually free, place one, send the new confirmation. In that order.

A moved service still needs a bay of the right length. Thursday’s oil change does not become Friday’s clutch gap. A moved pre-KTEO still needs a morning you are open. If they want to move a check and the sticker runs out this week, that is a fact for the note, not a reason to invent a ready time, and not a reason to put them in a hole that is already taken.

A moved booking is still not a breakdown. If they now say the car will not start, stop moving the bay. Take the location. The old Thursday hole is free. The new problem is not a diary problem.

Test this before anything else. Pick a driver who already has Thursday at 08:30 on a named plate. Ask the assistant to move it to Friday morning. Watch whether their own hour blocks them, and whether the new hole is the right length.

After a move, the reminder goes to the new number and the new date, not the old ones. The old SMS must not still say Thursday 08:30.

What it must not place

It will not invent a ready time. A caller who asks “when will it be ready?” gets a bay, a collection window you already use once the card is marked, or a note. Not five o’clock.

It will not invent a parts price from a plate. A listed oil service can be repeated. Unseen pads cannot.

It will not treat a breakdown as a Thursday service. Location first, then whether the car will move.

It will not book official KTEO if you only do the prep, and it will not book a pre-KTEO check if you do not do that work.

It will not diagnose a noise, tell someone they can keep driving to the ferry, or say what a warning light means. It offers a diagnostic if you take those, or it puts the words in front of you.

It will not sell a car. There is no stock. There is no test drive. A caller who asks if you have a used Golf is told this is a garage.

It will not decide a redo or a discount on last week’s invoice. It takes the name and what they said. You look at the car.

It will not put a second car into a hole that is holding a wait-on-part. If that mark is missing, the setup is wrong.

When the diary cannot be reached, the answer is a callback, said plainly. The assistant does not hold a bay it cannot see.

The text after the call

Send the confirmation at the moment of booking, not at the end of the day. A driver who leaves the call unsure whether Thursday is real will ring the next garage. The assistant sends the SMS itself, in the language of the conversation. Seventy-plus languages.

The message goes out after the diary entry exists. It names the hour and the job. It does not name a ready time. It does not name a pads figure. No entry, no message. A text that says “see you Thursday, ready from five” is worse than no text. They arrive at five.

A day-ahead reminder is a different job. An empty bay costs the same whether the driver was never booked or booked and forgot. Once the booking is real, where to park and how to find the shutter can go in the same message. A finish time cannot.

When they cancel

Let callers cancel through the assistant. A Thursday bay released on Wednesday evening can be offered to the next service. Write the cancellation back to the diary immediately. A cancellation that is only in a transcript is a cancellation the next caller cannot be offered.

Treat “I need to move it” as a change, not as a cancel plus a hope. Otherwise you open the old time, fail to place the new one, and have lost them from the book entirely.

Say the notice you actually enforce at the end of a new booking. Do not invent a fee the office does not use. A cancel on a breakdown note is not a bay coming free. There was no bay. Do not let the assistant hunt for a hole to open.

The first thirty bookings

Look at the first thirty by hand. The diary entry, the type, the length, the plate, and whether a ready time or a parts figure appeared anywhere it should not.

Four things to stop on. A breakdown sitting in Thursday’s book. An official KTEO booked when you only do the prep. An oil service given a clutch-length gap, or the other way around. A ready time or a pads figure on the SMS. Any one of those will repeat until the type is corrected.

If a used-car question received a time to “come and see a car”, the sales ban is not tight enough. You do not sell cars. Tighten it before you count how many appointments the assistant placed. Then spot-check weekly for a month.

What you turn on first

Start with the three jobs, not with a menu.

1. Service, KTEO or breakdown as the first question, and the book you already use. Do not let it offer a Thursday bay to a car that cannot move.
2. Four types only. A listed oil service. A longer inspection. A pre-KTEO check, if you actually do that work. A diagnostic, on the hours of the person who does it. Lengths from last month’s real diary.
3. The two bans. No ready time from the phone. No parts price from a plate. Write them in the same words the office already uses when they are being careful.
4. What you actually do for KTEO, and the sentence for a car that will not move — a tow number you keep, collect, or bring it if it rolls.
5. Who is on the tools, which lift is down, and every car that is waiting on a part.
6. The change path, tested with a real plate already in Thursday.
7. The SMS rule: after the booking exists, never before, never with a finish time, never with a pads figure.
8. A failure sentence the assistant is not allowed to improve: if the diary cannot be reached, it says someone will call back. It does not hold a bay it cannot see.

Leave “is it ready”, extra work on a car that is already here, invoice complaints, and anything with a noise or a warning light as notes or callbacks. Turn the SMS confirmation on the same morning you turn booking on.

When those four types have produced a week of bookings you would have been happy to have made yourself, add the next type. Add opening hours, the lunch shutter, Saturday until noon if that is you, whether you close in August, where the keys go after hours. One line that says you do not sell cars.

Rates live on the pricing section of the home page. They are not repeated here.