July/August 2020

S o, my recent extended sojourn at Chez Parkit gave me plenty of time to think. I’m much better thank you, by the way. Whatever it was fortunately seemed to shake itself off, so I am back in the thick of it at the garage. It was the right time to come back too, as there is a lot more work coming in as restrictions ease. Anyway, I was saying I had a lot of time to think. I don’t get to think much otherwise, or it feels like that anyway. So many demands and distractions to keep me from really focusing on what is needed from me. When I was stuck at home, all on my own, my mind drifted, and I started thinking about business management, communication, even one of our customers who had a problem with an airbag. I would tend to get a bit mixed up as I went though. My attempts at keeping away the boredom on the off-hours of my isolation really led me down the rabbit hole. Once even ITV4 had grown tiresome (imagine that), and the World War 2 documentaries on Yesterday became just a blur of repeated grainy footage, I did a bit of a box-set binge. Not Netflix though, I don’t have the bandwidth at home if you ask me! No, I dug out an old VHS set of 1960s existential espionage drama THE PRISONER. The set itself was a hefty thing, about the size of your average tool box. I hadn’t seen it for years. I’m not sure it was actually good for me, watching it on my own, as my mind inevitably came back to the workshop. When escapee retrieval system R.O.V.E.R made its first balloon-like appearance, it made me think about one customer’s airbag problem. It also made me think how handy it would be if we could use airbags to ensnare our more truculent customers, who tend to only come in with a problem when the car is essentially one wire-break from total calamity. Why can’t we get them to come a little sooner? Communication is clearly the key in this instance. We need to keep the message out there at all times. In the old days (no not the good old days) it was all a bit one-way. In these times however, there is so much you can do. You can broadcast, you can target tightly, a lot of it on open social media platforms most people are more than used to. If your own lists are in order, and you have the right systems, there is a lot you can be doing. Of course, now I’m back it’s all go-go-go, and I have passed my ideas onto Mrs P to implement as I get right back to it under the bonnet. “What was the airbag problem?” Oh, nothing we would be touching. Manufacturer recall issue. That is a topic and a half, and I would give you chapter and verse on it, if I could just concentrate. As I said, my self-isolation did give me a lot of time to think. What was I thinking about? I can’t for the life of me remember. Pass that sparkplug would you? Sorry, didn’t mean to type that… BACK IN THE SWING 50 AFTERMARKET JULY/AUGUST 2020 TEABREAK: MEMOIRS OF A MOTOR MECHANIC www.aftermarketonline.net