Inside a Bohaus Sprint: An Auto Repair and Body Shop

The situation

The client is an owner-led auto repair and collision shop. Six bays, a handful of technicians, a body tech and a painter, two service advisors, and an owner who still writes some estimates. Tekmetric runs repair orders, digital vehicle inspections and the schedule. QuickBooks runs accounting. Collision estimates go through a separate estimating system and the insurers' portals.

Every digital inspection turns up items the customer does not approve today: brakes getting thin, a leaking valve cover, tires near the wear bars. Advisors note them as declined. Most are never mentioned again until the car comes back with a bigger problem, or goes to another shop.

The owner is willing to invest in AI, but wants proof it pays.

What the sprint finds

In Discover, before anything is built, we decide how success will be judged.

We map the path from inspection to approval. Techs complete the inspection with photos in Tekmetric. Advisors present it, the customer approves some items and declines others. Declined items sit on the vehicle record. There is no follow-up schedule. Advisors are busy with the cars in the lot.

In Diagnose, declined-work follow-up ranks first. Then, before building, we record a baseline for a few weeks from the shop's own data:

Time. How much advisor time goes to calling customers back about past recommendations, if any.

Quality. How often a declined safety item is followed up at all.

Outcomes. How much previously declined work comes back and gets approved, which Tekmetric can report.

Three measures. Enough to judge, few enough that someone will look.

We also agree on what freed-up advisor time is for: walking customers through inspections in person on busy days.

What it builds

In Build, we create declined-work follow-up inside Tekmetric. Each declined recommendation gets a follow-up date based on its urgency. Safety items get a sooner reminder. When the date arrives, the customer receives a message with the tech's photo and note from the inspection and a link to book. Replies with questions go to the advisor who wrote the repair order. Approved bookings land on the schedule with the recommendation attached.

Diagnosis, estimates and safety calls stay with technicians and advisors.

Hand over

In Hand over, both advisors learn the follow-up queue and how to set urgency. Techs get a short session on clear inspection photos and notes, since the follow-up depends on them. The lead advisor owns the system. A dashboard shows the three measures beside the baseline, updated weekly, visible to the whole shop.

We set a review date about three months out. A few weeks is usually too early for a full picture.

What changes

At the review, the owner compares the measures to the baseline instead of relying on impressions. They check adoption: are declined items getting urgency set and follow-ups sent? They check whether advisor time went to customers at the counter, as agreed.

If the measures moved, the next system on the roadmap, often collision estimate status updates, gets a green light with evidence. If they did not, and adoption is not the cause, the shop has learned cheaply and can stop.

What this means for your business

Measure before anything changes. Pick two or three measures across time, quality and outcomes. Decide what freed-up time is for. Make the numbers visible. Set a review date. Be willing to stop.

An auto shop measures declined work recovered. A pest control company measures cancellations at renewal. A landscaper measures days to payment.

Every Bohaus Sprint sets measures at the start and ends with a KPI dashboard the team keeps using. Six weeks, fixed scope, one live system, and a clear way to see whether it is paying off.