Trust and value

I dread the thought of taking my car for service. The customer service rep rattles off a list of things wrong with the car and presents a huge bill. At this moment, I begin to wonder if it is cheaper to just buy a new car.

When I push back on the list, citing affordability, the service rep indicates a priority of what is critical and what can wait. This leads me to wonder how much my loyalty would have gone up for the service center if he had offered this information without being asked. (I was going to say respect, but that is a useless emotion. Respect cannot be directly monetized, but loyalty can. If you have a different perspective, I look forward to hearing it)

After the service is complete, I get a call, telling me they found a few other defects and try to up sell and cross sell. When I push back, they retreat, but ominously point out the documentation on the invoice, as if to say, "You have been warned."

If you take the emotion out of the transaction, the lowered trust is from my utter lack of knowledge of how a car work and lack of interest in learning how a car works. The auto service shop is in the business of fixing cars, not education. However, since I am the customer, I still expect the auto shop to do something to set my mind at ease and earn my trust.

Question is, what can they do? They don't want to educate me, just to see me walk out and get the repairs done by a different auto shop, after I get a second opinion. Providing education is a distraction that takes attention away from their core competence of repairing cars.

This is a common situation in strategy execution. Customer or stakeholder don't understand the complexity, they don't want to, but they expect their needs to be met and exceeded.

In this case, maybe the auto service shops can get together to form an association and spread the cost of education customers over all members. This would lead in increased credibility for the industry, leaving each auto service shop with no overhead of the education required to earn trust. They can then focus on the core of their business to provide customer delight.