A customer drops off a PS5 for an HDMI repair. They approve the price by text, the technician replaces the port, and someone else handles pickup. When the customer walks in, can the person at the counter see what was approved and what’s due? Or do they have to dig through messages and type the price again?
Trace five repairs from check-in to payment
Pull five completed repairs and follow each one from check-in to payment. Time every spot where someone has to retype a detail, hunt for an approval, or ask a coworker what happened.
For each delay, write down what the person needed and where they finally found it. If the estimate was on the ticket and the approval was in a text thread, count the time it took to find the thread and confirm the price.
Put a number on the extra work
At 30 repairs a week, three extra minutes per job adds up to 90 minutes at the counter. Multiply your average extra time per job by your own weekly repair count. Start with the step that costs your team the most time.
If looking up approvals is the biggest delay, record the approval on the repair when it comes in so it’s there when the customer returns.
Keep the details with the repair
Those handoffs at Gators Cell Phone & PC Repair in Starkville and Philadelphia shaped how we built RepairHQ. We wanted the person handling pickup to have the same repair details as the person who checked it in, with the estimate, work notes, and checkout tied to the job.
This shop audit was inspired by Caryn Sandoval’s article “The second wall: When too much software slows you down” in Intuit’s Tax Pro Center.
Make it practical
Follow a sample repair in the RepairHQ demoSee how RepairHQ connects the repair ticketProduct references & editorial notes
Published by RepairHQ. Product capabilities were checked against the linked RepairHQ guides when this article was published. Plans, availability and provider requirements can change; confirm the details for your shop. Examples are illustrative, not measured customer outcomes.