Identifying damages with customers cars before taking them in the shop

[Razor's Edge]

It's a pleasure meeting everybody once again it's been three years since I've been on the forum.

Ended up relocating from Lady lake Florida grapevine Texas starting a new job today.

Working for housetinters.com

My boss Steve has been running a flat glass tinting business and bringing me on as an automotive center and he's trying to find literature for quality control when bringing in damaged cars making sure that we are not at fault for other people's neglect and damage of the vehicles for proper inspections before bringing them in the shop wondering if anybody might have any waivers that needs to be signed by the customers that they acknowledge the damages on the car before we proceed with a tint job

[Ryker]

One problem with this is if you miss anything then the customer can definitely "prove" you did it...

 

 

[highplains]

There was a nice one floating around autogeek a few years ago that was put out by either Mike Phillips or Renny Doyle, can't remember which. Like Ryker said, if you're going to use one you need to be incredibly thorough and go over it with the customer or it could come back to bite you in the ass if you miss something. 

Edited July 14, 2020 by highplains

[Tintguy1980]

I'd use a diagram for marking blemishes as well as take digital pictures. Whether you save the pictures or calla bluff is totally your decision. Digital pics won't lie, though.

[TintDude]

Yeah, not such a good idea. 

 

If I was a customer taking my car to be worked on and some dude came out taking pictures and documenting damage, I would think they have a big problem damaging cars, and what the heck are they doing that has the potential to damage my car? Heck yeah, I'd inspect it well afterwards.

And like others said, you are opening yourself up to owning everything you didn't document.

[Jerry Hernandez]

That's definently something I've contemplated for some time now.  I still don't don't look over vehicles and dont have documentation because I dont want the customer to try to catch me on something I missed.  I am fortunate that I haven't had an issue with this.  Theres been a few times that a customer tries to tell me small details weren't there beforehand, I just deal with each issue individually.  My customers know that I'm a one man shop so they usually know I'm telling the truth about issues and an careful.  My reputation definently helps though. 

[smookee408@yahoo.com]

I take a through video of the entire vehicle with a picture of my watch and who’s car it is. Pointing out all defects. Its never shown to the customer unless there’s a problem. I use to do a pre inspection with the customer and point out every defect but have stopped doing that because you can see it in their face that they never noticed those things and I think it makes them feel crappy. Video preinspection along with high quality security cameras with many angles should prevent trouble. 

[Razor's Edge]

Thank you everybody for the insights.

it is one of the least favorite questions to ask but needed to know how I would need to remedy that kind of problem if it ever happened.

 

[Whyme]

I just love the conversation . “ THat wasn’t on my car Before  “ . Me “ YEs it was “ . I had One customer say the water spotting on the outside of the glass wasn’t there before . I was like you clearly park right next to sprinklers . 🤢