Do I have to offer Contact Free Repairs & Servicing?

The safety of mechanics and customers is top priority in these difficult times, and with that in mind - we’d like to share with you information around "Contact Free Repairs & Servicing".

With the situation changing daily, we ask you to take a little time to keep up-to-date with the government and NHS advice and guidelines.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/

What is a Contact Free Repairs & Servicing?

From Tuesday 24th March 2020 all bookings are now “Contact-Free Repairs & Servicing”. This is any repair or service that is carried out from start to completion without any direct contact with the customer. The customer must pay via the platform (Stripe) to avoid any contact collecting payment.

Our Mechanics in Residence team have set out some basic guidelines below on how to carry out these repairs and services.

• All bookings are to be completed without any physical contact between yourself and the customer. We’re working on making a reminder clear in the mechanic app over the next week.
• Communication is critical; a telephone call to the customer at the earliest opportunity will help set minds at ease. Please do not leave this until the last minute. We recommend calling the customer within 2 hours of accepting a booking.
• Exchanging keys: This hopefully will be a straightforward process, please discuss this with the customer and decide on what works best for you both. This will vary from location to location. For example, the car is outside a customer's house on a busy street; there is no front garden and no safe place to leave a key. You can ask if the customer has two keys. If they have, ask them to open the car and leave a key in the glove compartment, then lock the vehicle with the second key and return to the house. On your arrival, give the customer a call, the customer would open their vehicle via the remote central locking from a safe distance. You would then have access to the key left in the glove compartment.
• As always, it’s a good idea to take some photographs of the vehicle before you proceed with the repair or the vehicle is collected for repair. Please let the customer know if you see any defects.
• We recommend that disposable seat covers and steering wheel covers are used.
• Disposable gloves must also be worn.
• You can then carry out the service or repair as usual. It will be fantastic for the customer if you take a few photographs while carrying out the repair. We do ask that a picture is taken of the completed repair at least, if it's a diagnostics inspection that requires a plug-in, again please take photographs or a screenshot of the findings.
• On completion of the work, communicate with the customer how the repair has gone via telephone or via a message in the app, return the vehicle, remove the seat covers and dispose of them appropriately.
• Complete the booking in the app as usual and arrange the return of the key in a similar way to how it was collected.