Repair work uncovers things. Setting an authorisation limit for repairs at booking in turns that from a problem into a process, and it takes one line on the card.
Setting the limit
Write it on the job card and have the customer sign against it:
Authorised to spend up to 15,000 without further approval.
Below that figure you proceed. Above it you stop and ask. The customer knows the worst case before they hand the keys over, which is usually why they hesitate.
Pick a figure that covers the common surprises in your trade. Too low and you are phoning about every 800 shilling part. Too high and the limit is not doing anything.
When you go over
Stop, then call. Not the other way round.
Four things in the call, and the same four in the message afterwards:
- What you found.
- Why it needs doing.
- What it costs, and the revised total.
- A direct question.
Stripped the front end this morning. Both lower arm bushes are perished, which is what the knocking was. Parts and labour is about 9,400, taking the job to roughly 24,000. Shall I go ahead?
Get it in writing
A phone call is how you have the conversation. A text or email is what you keep.
Confirming our call: proceeding with lower arm bushes, additional 9,400, revised total approximately 24,000. Job JOB-0231.
Send that even when the customer is standing in front of you. The nod is not the record.
Who can authorise
For a private customer, the person who booked it in. For a business, whoever their process says, which may not be the driver who dropped the vehicle off.
On commercial work, ask at booking in who approves additional spend and get a name and a number. Finding out afterwards that the person who agreed had no authority is a bill you may not recover.
Recording it on the card
Add a line to the job card as the work is approved, not at the end:
14 Aug 09:40 Lower arm bushes both sides, perished.
Approved by M. Otieno by text, +9,400.Three lines like that turn a disputed invoice into a paperwork exercise. The invoice then shows the original scope and the approved additions as separate lines, and nothing on it is a surprise.
When they say no
They are entitled to. Record the refusal on the card too, and be specific about the consequence:
Customer declined replacement of lower arm bushes. Advised vehicle unsafe at speed. Declined in writing 14 Aug.
That protects you if the item fails later, and it is the reason to write it down even though the conversation was uncomfortable.
When you cannot reach them
It happens, usually on a Friday. Do the work you are authorised for, stop at the limit, and note the attempts:
Called 11:05 and 14:20, no answer. Message left. Work paused at authorised limit pending approval.
Do not proceed on the assumption they would have agreed. That assumption is unrecoverable if it turns out to be wrong.
Collection
At collection, walk them through the card: the original fault, what was found, what was approved and when, what was done. Then the second signature.
A customer who has been told three times during the job is a customer who reads the bill as confirmation.
Next
For the document itself, see how to write a job card. For a form that prompts for the right things, see a job card template. For the same problem on quoted work, see when the final bill differs.