How to take repair appointments online for an auto shop

Get your short Google review link from the profile, save it in your phone as a text you can send in two taps, and send it to every customer as the job finishes, while you are still standing there. Not the next week by email.

Reviews move because of the share of customers who are actually asked, and most owners ask far fewer than they think. A text sent at the moment the work is done, with the person still holding their phone, is the version that gets answered.

Asking is allowed. Paying, discounting or offering anything in return is against Google's review policy, and that includes a dollar off, which owners assume is harmless. Do not filter who you ask based on how happy they seem. On a site built by us this is a button in the app on your phone: your link and your wording are already saved, so asking is one tap at the end of a job rather than something to remember and retype.

How long: ongoing

Write, in plain words, what you charge or your price range, exactly which towns you cover, what you do and do not take on, how soon you can come, and your licence or insurance number. One page, your own words, no polish.

This is the content of your website, and it is the part nobody else can write for you. Every build that stalls stalls here. Every generated page that reads as empty reads that way because this page did not exist, so the words had to come from somewhere generic.

If you only do one thing from this plan, do this one. It makes every later step cheaper and faster, including the ones you pay someone else for.

How long: an afternoon

Write out five sentences you will need on every call and keep them where you take calls. The hours, the price range, the service area, how soon you can come, and this one: "my English is better in writing, can you text me instead".

On a live call there is no time to compose a sentence, so having it already written removes the part that is actually hard. The last sentence moves the whole conversation into writing, where you can read it twice and answer in your own time.

Owners are most reluctant to use the last sentence and it is the one that works. Asking to switch to text does not lose the customer. Asking them to repeat themselves four times does.

How long: an afternoon

Use a business phone service that sends a text within seconds of an unanswered call, saying you are on a job and asking what they need. Most small business phone and CRM products do this. A plain cell phone does not.

The person who called you is still holding their phone and has not dialled the next number on their list yet. A text in that window keeps the conversation alive. A voicemail greeting is where the lead ends for any trade where somebody is working down three numbers.

Cost depends on the phone service you pick and is usually a small monthly fee. We have no conversion figure for this worth quoting: every number in circulation comes from the companies selling it.

How long: an afternoon

Put a number people can text, or a WhatsApp link, beside your phone number everywhere it appears: the Google profile, the site, the bios. Say in plain words that a text gets a faster answer than a call.

A live call is the hardest format there is for anybody working in a second language. It is real time, often over a bad line, with no pause to put a sentence together and somebody breathing on the other end while you do. A text arrives already written. You can read it twice, look up the one word you did not know, and answer it when you are out from under the sink. It is the same enquiry either way.

Answer them quickly or this is worse than not offering it, because the customer has now made contact and been ignored. If you cannot watch two inboxes, pick one number and point everything at it.

How long: an afternoon

We search your business name, find the listing if one is already there, and claim it in your name. If there is none we create it, under the real business name and nothing else. Then we take it through verification, which for most small businesses now means a recorded video: one continuous take, no cuts, starting outside with the signage or the unit number, then branded equipment or stock, then something printed with the business name such as a licence or a utility bill, then opening, unlocking or operating something only staff could. We write that shot list for your premises and run the attempt with you. Ninety seconds of it has to happen on your phone at your address, because that is where the camera has to be. Everything either side of those ninety seconds is ours: the list, the order, the submission, and the appeal if it comes back rejected. The login is yours at the end of it.

The profile is what puts you in Maps and in the local results, and until it is verified in your name nobody can set the hours, the phone number, the categories or the photographs those results are built from. Video verification is checking three things at once: the place is real, the business is real, and you are the person who runs it. Filming only the inside proves one of the three, which is why most rejected submissions look fine to whoever filmed them. It is the step owners fail at, and failing it twice is how a profile ends up stuck for a month. It is near the top because it is quick to start and it comes with the build, not because it does the website's job: a profile cannot hold your prices, explain a service or answer the questions that decide between you and the next listing.

We enter the real business name only. “Smith Plumbing” verifies. “Smith Plumbing Emergency Plumber Chicago” is the most common cause of a failed verification and of a suspension months later. After two rejections we stop resubmitting and appeal with documents, using exactly the address format we typed in. We cannot promise any profile gets verified or reinstated, and nobody who tells you otherwise can either.

How long: a few days, most of it waiting on Google

We design and build the site, $99 one time, from the page of answers you wrote and the photographs you took. Three to five pages is the right size for a local business: what you do, the towns you cover, prices, who you are, how to reach you. If you already have a site, this replaces it, and the addresses people have already linked to are kept pointing at the right pages.

This is the only part of your presence you own, and the only one that can actually sell. It holds what a Google profile structurally cannot: your prices, a service explained in more than two sentences, your licence number, and the answers to the five questions that decide between you and the next listing. Being able to edit the wording of a site is not the same thing as the site being able to do that work. Where we could read yours, the line under this says what it is missing. Where we could not, judge it yourself: open it on your phone, press the number, and try to book a time without telephoning anybody.

After the build you pay the real running costs directly: a .com is roughly $12 to $20 a year and hosting is in the region of $5 to $30 a month. Check current prices, they move. A blog is not part of this and for a referral-driven trade it is not worth starting one.

How long: a week