Need your car serviced?  Don’t go to Just Autos in Takanini, aka Auckland Mobile Mechanics 24/7, unless you are feeling brave. The only positive thing to come from my experience with Just Autos was a great blog topic of how NOT to run a company.

I recently purchased a second hand Mazda RX8 on the suggestion of my wife, who thought it would be good to have a “fun” car to drive for a change, rather than the boring cars I have been driving for years.  What a great wife!  Most wives would say, “don’t be stupid” or “mid life crisis?” when considering a sports car purchase, but not mine.  Bless her.

The only thing about rotary engine sports cars is that they need regular maintenance and so I thought going to a “rotary specialist” and using their convenient mobile service would be the best thing.  BIG MISTAKE.

I won’t go into all the detail, but long story short, I had the worst customer experience imaginable from this crowd.  Subsequent research has shown that I am not alone and how these guys are still in business is a miracle.  Delayed appointment for mobile service (twice) with no proactive advice or apology (I should have recognised the warning signs here), (probably) inventing issues by the mobile technician that required the car to be taken to the workshop, disabling the car at that point so I could not back out, doing work on the car not authorised, questionable standard of work, oil marks in the car, I don’t care attitude by receptionist, promised follow-up by owner never happened.  Need I go on?

The outcome was a major bill for repairs that I suspect was WAY bigger than necessary, a very unhappy client who will never return and a blog article that may be read by hundreds of people who will also think twice about using these guys.

Moral of the story: bad news travels a lot faster and further than good news.  Make your KEY PURPOSE in business the delighting of your customers.  Not just satisfying your customers, as that isn’t good enough these days and leaves you no wriggle room.  Delight your customers and you hope they will tell people to try you out.  Fall short, like Just Autos of Takanini, and 10 times the number will find out and spread the word.

Andy Burrows – The Trades Coach