A Question of Value

Great North Auto Services started with the vision and value of supplying high-quality vehicle servicing, in an environment that makes all customers feel welcomed and comfortable.

All the businesses we are involved in have shared the same value: integrity, quality and fairness. What this means is that we do what we say. We are going to do, in a way that makes us all satisfied and proud of our work. To make sure we work in a way that benefits the customers, the business and its employees.

You might think that this is all obvious because it’s simply the correct way to do things, right? Well, if you think that, you probably share this value. But a while ago, before we opened Great North Auto Services, several things happened:

• We were let down repeatedly by several garages looking after my family’s vehicles; they definitely did not do what they said they would do. While they probably benefited from what they charged us, we did not feel like we had benefited much at all.
• A female friend of ours was asked to pay an exorbitant and unnecessary fee to fix a fault. She was being talked into accepting their charges with talk of high-speed failures, accidents with children onboard etc. We looked into it for her and concluded that the work being recommended was unnecessary and a far cheaper fix was available.
• Another female friend asked if it was reasonable that her garage should be doing MOT repair work this year that they had also done the previous year. Plus, it was supposed to last 5 years or more. They had clearly forgotten to check their records and had defaulted to the same money-making MOT fix.

Conclusion

All three stories showed us that these companies did not share our core values. More alarmingly it showed that there are still garages out there willing to pressure women into carrying out unnecessary work and charging excessively for it.

That is where the garage business started – because we felt then (and still feel now) that there is a proportion of people who share our values. Who might become customers of a garage that puts integrity, quality, and fairness at the heart of what they do?

The rest, as they say, is history. All of our work, all of our recruitment and our interactions with customers are guided by the core values. Which means we can hold our heads up and be proud of what we deliver for you.

If you share these values, I genuinely hope that you have found a garage that does as well. You should not accept anything less. And if you ever feel you are being pressured into having work carried out then please give us, or somebody else you trust, a call for a second opinion.