Customer portal: how much of a repair does a customer need to see?

Inside a body shop, a car passes through more statuses than its owner will ever hear about. It waits for the assessor, for approval, for parts. It goes into the paint booth and comes out again for polishing. The team needs each of these statuses to know what comes next. The customer on the phone only asks one thing: when will my car be ready?

Showing the customer the full internal list gives them more than they need. The answer to their actual question can get lost among statuses like waiting for approval or polishing, and every unfamiliar status raises a new question. Showing nothing is worse: then the phone rings even more.

Car Repair Flow is the software body and paint shops run their repair jobs in. For their customers, we have developed the Track My Repair customer portal inside it. Each shop decides there how much of the repair its customers see.

The shop decides which steps customers see

The shop picks the steps its customers see. A few may be enough: the car has been received, it is being repaired, it is ready for pickup. Another shop also shows the appointment and the drop-off. Ready for pickup and Picked up are part of every portal.

The shop can add a short note to any of its statuses, such as “We are waiting for a part”. The customer reads it at the matching step. Only at Ready for pickup do they see the pickup details instead. While setting this up, a preview shows which status leads to which step and note.

However complex the workflow in the workshop, it makes no difference to the customer. They see a short sequence that is easy to follow and can tell at a glance where their car is.

Nobody keeps a second status

The team carries on working with the statuses it already uses in Car Repair Flow. There is no separate customer status that someone has to update by hand. The shop marks once which of its statuses starts each customer step, for all locations together or per location where workflows differ. Every status after it shows that step until the next one begins.

When the job moves on in the workshop, the portal follows by itself. The customer sees the stage their job has actually reached.

The shop decides when customers hear from it

Whether customers get a message at every step or only when the car is ready for pickup is the shop’s decision. It can also leave the choice to its customers. The message arrives by email or text, and its link opens the repair directly. If a job has to go back after Ready for pickup, the customer gets a correction.

Once the car is ready, the portal shows the pickup details the shop has entered: the time, address, phone number and opening hours. The customer can add an upcoming pickup appointment to their calendar.

Customer and shop write to each other in the portal

The usual contact with the shop stays as it is. The portal adds another way for customer and shop to exchange messages directly.

When a customer writes, the project managers at their location get a notice in Car Repair Flow and reply from the job itself. An email or text tells the customer that a reply is waiting. The notice carries no message text, only a link to the message. If the customer answers the email instead, the reply lands in the same thread.

Question and answer sit in the job, so nobody has to piece them together from a phone note or an inbox. That can shorten the wait for an answer.

The shop also shares photos and documents for the job in the portal. The customer finds them next to the thread and does not have to search through their emails.

The portal speaks in the shop’s name

The portal appears under the shop’s own name, logo and colour. It mattered to us that customers know straight away who the page comes from. The shop’s legal notice and privacy notice are there too, so customers can see who they are dealing with.

Only customers the shop invites from the job get in, by email or text. They need neither an app nor a password. On a new device, though, they confirm who they are with the car’s number plate or a one-time code. The code goes to the email address or mobile number the shop has on file. The shop can also require a code every time. After five wrong attempts the link is locked, and the customer requests a new one. The portal runs separately from the staff system, and a customer cannot get into it from there.

What a shop sets up first

Before switching the portal on, a shop has four things to do:

• Define the steps customers see, and which of its own statuses starts each one.
• Decide whether customers get a message at every step or only for pickup.
• Add its logo, name and colour.
• Check the legal notice and privacy notice the portal shows.