Top tips for consumers

During the Golden Garages competition we were keeping an eye out for the most impressive approaches to customer service. Here's our starter for ten, these ten simple practices featured again and again throughout the garages making it through to the finals - have a look, you never know it might work for you and your customer satisfaction.

Customer Care Checklist - a great garage will:

Agree required work with you and check before starting additional jobs

Set a clear price/payment method and won't change these without checking with you

Encourage technicians to discuss work required in a straightforward way

Not charge for small/easy jobs

Contact you after a few days to make sure you're totally satisfied

Collect customer feedback and act on it to make improvements

Treat any complaint as an opportunity to restore satisfaction

Leave you feeling well treated and happy to return

Offer you a loyalty bonus or reward

Clearly of benefit to all to know what the best garages are doing, why wouldn't we want to shout about the fact that they are all Motor Codes garages!

If you're a motorist, use this as your guide along with the Motor Codes Garage Finder at http://www.motorcodes.co.uk/

All the best
Chris