Should Repair Shops be Open During Pandemic 🤔?

Should auto repair shops remain open? What's up guys? Oscar Gomez here from Master Automotive Training, SmartAutoTraining.com. Before we continue guys, one thing I want to let you guys know, let's go ahead and put aside whatever thoughts or whatever opinions you might have about people overbuying, people underbuying, people not caring, people going out. Let's put that aside and let's go ahead and talk about what we came here to talk about. What are we talking about today? Should shops remain open during this national or statewide pandemic? As you guys may know, in some states such as California, Washington, and New York, certain businesses have been deemed unessential and some are essential businesses. In the automotive field or the transportation field, auto repair has fallen into an essential category, meaning that most auto repair shops can remain open because they are providing an essential service to the community and to the consumers who want to have their vehicles repaired and be able to function during this statewide pandemic. I feel very strongly that auto repair should remain essential for the reason being if without auto repair technicians or repair technicians in general, we won't have trucks, we won't have big rigs, we won't have delivery trucks, we won't have FedEx, we won't have UPS, we won't have trains, we won't have planes, and all that will disrupt the flow of normal consumer products, toilet paper, water, also medical supplies such as masks, important supplies that are helping everything come together. Without the technician, we wouldn't have that. So I consider that a really good thing knowing that the auto repair industry has remained essential throughout this entire situation. With auto repair being labeled essential, I hope now more than ever before people can see that the auto repair technician is a vital person within our normal day-to-day operation. What do I mean by that? If we didn't have technicians out in the field learning, working, then most people wouldn't have the normal comfort of walking outside, hopping in their car, starting it, and running down to the supermarket. They wouldn't have that. And unfortunately a lot of people don't take into consideration all the training, all the seminars, all the stuff that we have to put in as technicians in order to remain field active and field ready. So hopefully with this being labeled essential, people can start now seeing that it's not a blue collar industry anymore, it's an industry that is there to provide for the community. Without automotive repair techs, you guys wouldn't have a car to drive. You gotta remember that. That being said, I would also love to send out a special thank you to all the men and women that are out there working during this epidemic, especially such as food servers, chefs, cooks, people in the medical field, doctors, nurses, medical supply people. I really thank you guys for all the hard work and all the effort you guys are putting to keep everybody safe and keep everybody still going. And most importantly, I want to give a big thumbs up to all our technicians who are out there still to this day working to keep everybody going on a normal day to day basis. Thank you guys so much. Being that we're in the automotive community, I went out and reached out to a bunch of people that I know, and I got a lot of different reviews based off of where the shops are and who I was talking to, and the community has a little bit of different views of what they should be doing during this epidemic of COVID-19. So one of the things that I heard was there's a bunch of shops who actually said, you know what, this is it. We don't want to put anybody at risk, especially our employees. So we're going to go ahead and close the doors. My hat's off to you guys because that is a major and a big call to make, especially as an employer and a team leader. Why do I say that? Because you're putting your team first. However, you're also, if you are shutting down, you did just cut off your income as an owner and your employees' income. So hopefully if you guys did decide to shut down, I'm hoping that you guys were able to help out your fellow techs in any which way or your employees in any which way, either some sort of vacation time, some small amount of income so this way they're not bone dry for the next couple of weeks. There's also been some other shops that I spoke to who decided to say, we're not changing anything at all. And by that I mean, they're operating on a normal 8 to 5, 9 to 5, 9 to 6 without changing a thing. What I mean by that, they're still doing customer or person to person contact. They still have an open waiting room. They're not supplying gloves to their employees. They're not disinfecting vehicles. That to me guys is a bad thing. Why do I say that? A car is a very, very gross thing. Especially as a technician, we have to touch the grossest things within a car. What is that? The steering wheel, the shifter, the key, the door handle. That alone carries so much bacteria, so many viruses, it's not even funny. But the problem is there's a bunch of shops who really don't care. And that's not surprising in the automotive field because if they don't care enough to educate themselves and be better, then they really don't care about their customers or their employees for that sake. A lot of these shops actually have slogans that say customers come first. Well, if you don't care enough to protect your business and your employees, you don't care about your customers. So that just goes to show those types of shops. Then we have the shops that are in between who said, well, we're going to keep, we're going to stay open. We are an essential business, however, we're going to take some steps in order to protect First, our staff, and then second, our customers. Notice how I said staff first. Your employees and your team come first no matter what. If you don't have any employees or you don't have a good solid team, you don't have a business. So if you don't take care of your employees, then what's the point of continuing taking care of your customers because you're not going to have any employees to help you take care of your customers. So it's a domino effect. Those shops have taken a lot of necessary steps where they're telling their employees there will be no customer to customer contact, which is great. This way you don't have a customer waiting at the shop causing more stress to your technicians because the customer is pacing back and forth, walking through the waiting room and all that fun stuff. You don't have that added stress. Another thing that some shops are doing is you're wearing gloves. Once you grab the key, you change your gloves. You're constantly changing gloves, which you guys should already be wearing gloves anyway. You're constantly changing your gloves. So this way you're not spreading anything throughout your shop, throughout another car, anything of that sort. A lot of shops are taking necessary steps of disinfecting the vehicle as soon as they obtain it. Also doing another disinfecting before they return the vehicle back to the customer. And these shops are also doing email or fax work orders, signing estimates and pay by card. So this way there is no customer to customer contact. I believe that is one of the best ways to actually get this done. This way we can prevent further spreading this virus about and maintaining a good, efficient functioning shop. There are also another couple of facilities that I've spoken to who have taken an extra step which they will actually go and pick up your vehicle. So they send an employee out. Once the employee gets there, he will obtain the keys, will disinfect the vehicle while wearing gloves, will then drive the vehicle back to the facility, service the vehicle, and then disinfect it, bring it back, and then give it back to the customer. So there's a lot of different things that you guys can actually do so you can prevent this to get any worse. One thing that I'll provide in the link down below is a link to a few PDFs that we created here at Master Automotive Training to help shops during this slow time on things the shops can do to either clean up the shop, bring in a little bit more work, get more customers plugged in, and also another one with a few safety steps that you guys can take at your shops to make sure that your shops are not going to spread this virus through contact into other customers' cars. What I mean by that is if you come in contact with a dirty car that might carry a virus and you don't clean yourself up and you go into an elderly person's car for the next service and you leave that there, now I'm going to feel horrible knowing that my shop or my technician or myself caused that other person to get sick based off of my lack of cleanliness. So those are some of the things that we would want to approach and fix, especially right now so this way we prevent further spreading of this virus. Another thing I'm going to add guys is there's a small link that I'm adding down below for everybody here in California. The CDC website for the state of California giving you guys some good insight and information about COVID-19, how it can be prevented, how it comes along. Read up on it guys. Honestly, the only thing I can tell you guys is read up on it, try to stay safe, keep your distance from other people, social distancing is going to be required for right now. If we do this now, then it's going to be a shorter amount of time. If not, we're going to have to do this for a longer period of time. I'm simply just letting you guys know, in my opinion at this point, it really doesn't matter. It's more of everybody is responsible for everybody. Let's keep everybody safe. Let's all stay safe. Let's all do our part so this way we can kill this the quicker we can and get this over with so then we can all continue on our path to success. As I said earlier guys, I hope that most people, if they're people that are not technicians that are watching this video, I hope you guys can see now that the value that automotive shops and automotive technicians bring to the community is by far very valuable compared to other industries for the reason being is even the state considers an essential part of state operation one and two, these guys are out here risking themselves to make sure that we can keep you guys on the road. So hats off to all the techs who are still on the field. Prayers go out to the families of people who have came in contact with COVID-19 and are struggling from that. We hope that you guys have a safe recovery and a quick recovery and we hope that with this video everybody can kind of play their part and help us contain this as best as we possibly can. Put into steps today things that your shop, other people's shops, if you're a tech, put into process today things that can help the shop be cleaner, more efficient, and keep everybody protected. As always guys, a good technician is always learning. Signing off here, Oscar Gomez, SmartAutoTraining.com.