How do I stop arguments about scratches on returned cars?
Short answer: By doing the same inspection at both ends, with dated photos, and showing it to the customer before they drive off. If the customer has seen and accepted the state of the car when they left, the conversation at return is short. The argument nearly always comes from a rushed check on a sheet of paper nobody read.
Where the argument comes from
At the airport, with the flight late and the children tired, nobody wants to walk round the car. Someone puts a cross on a drawing, the customer signs without looking and drives off. At return there is a scratch on the bumper and each side has its own story. Without clear proof you lose the cost of the repair or you lose the customer, and often both.
An inspection that settles it
- Photos always in the same order: front, both sides, back, wheels, interior and the mileage.
- Every photo with a date and time, linked to the booking, not lost in a colleague's camera roll.
- Existing damage marked and shown to the customer, who confirms it before taking the car.
- A copy sent to the customer straight away, so they have it too.
At return you do exactly the same, in the same order. That way you compare photo with photo, not memory with memory.
Paper, a phone and an app
The sheet with a drawing of the car is better than nothing, but it does not prove when it was done or show how big the scratch is. Taking photos on a phone already helps a lot. The trouble starts with several cars and several people: the photos end up on different phones and, three weeks later, nobody can find the right car's set.
An inspection app solves that. Whoever hands over the car opens the booking, the app asks for the photos in the right order and keeps them all in one place. At return, the photos from pick-up show up next to the new ones.
Before you think about software
If you have a few cars and the same person always hands them over, one rule kept properly is enough: photos in the same order, sent to the customer by message before they drive off. An app makes sense when the fleet grows, when there are handovers at the airport and the hotel at the same time, or when you want the inspections to sit with the bookings on your dashboard.
What to do this week
- Write the order of the photos as a list and give it to the whole team.
- At the next handover, send the photos to the customer before they drive off and ask them to confirm.
- Think back to the last argument about a scratch and see what proof you were missing.
Written by The W2 Collective team, in Santa Cruz, Madeira.
