A mobile mechanic can be an invaluable asset to your company, but picking the right one takes some diligence on your part. Take the steps necessary, and your company will thrive.
What is the value of a preventive maintenance fleet mobile mechanic, and how in the world do you decide if one is for real or not? Certainly, you have run across the breed before; he washes out in some other endeavor, so he decides he will be a mobile mechanic. He may even be fairly proficient at working on cars and trucks, but are you willing to trust your service to your customers to that level of performance? Without doubt, you demand more of yourself when it comes to customer service, ensuring that you take every available step to deliver the best you can. Depending on someone to service your vehicles, on which you depend for your ability to service your clients, when that person operates on any other level but the highest invites disaster.
The first step in evaluating a mechanic is, like any other decision of any weight, research. The internet makes this very easy in one aspect, in that you can find a lot of information very quickly about a business. However, it is important to weigh the source of each piece of information, being careful to consider the fact that anonymity makes for very brave “reviewers” in many cases. One thing to consider is to take the “median” approach: try to read as many reviews as you can, throwing out the very best and very worst. Then see what you have left. Don’t, however, make your decision solely based on the reviews. Remember that people have many varied motivations when they sit down to write on their computer; maybe they had an unreasonable demand, or maybe they were rude and demanding, and when answered, decided they should not be talked to that way. Again, only make the reviews a part of the overall decision making process.
The next step is to call around to see if any of your colleagues have used any particular mobile mechanic in the past. Again, dig a little deeper, and your effort will pay off. How many times did your colleague use that service? How big or how tough were the jobs? Were they far from his home base? Was he efficient in getting parts to the job (this can be a major setback if a mechanic is more amateur in his approach; a good mechanic with years of experience will recognize key obstacles or challenges in working on a certain vehicle or part of that vehicle, especially in the mobile setting. He will take the necessary steps, calling for parts ahead of time, checking availability, thus saving a lot of time)? How was his billing handled? Billing itself, in this scenario, can cause more headaches than the original breakdown, because inexperienced, amateur mechanics will not have invested the time and money into a professional, efficient billing system, and your business will suffer for that.