A workshop price list customers understand

For a customer, a price list is a shortcut. Before picking up the phone they want to know whether a garage is in their range, and all they have is a line, a name and an amount. “Minor service” here, “service from” there, an hourly rate at the third garage — they compare what they see, and what they see is the number.

The problem is not that customers read carelessly. It is that “service” has no fixed meaning. One garage includes oil, filter and labour, another only the labour, a third adds disposal and consumables. Whoever quotes the more complete price looks more expensive and loses the customer to a list that contains less. Or the customer goes to the garage with the lean price, and the trouble arrives with the invoice.

A price list is not a quote, and Carvexia says so explicitly wherever several garages' prices are shown side by side. But it can be written so that the customer understands what they get for the amount and where the figure may change. There are three levers for that: the price type, the name and the description.

In the price list on Carvexia you choose one of four price types for each service. It tells the customer how firm the amount is before they even read it. So it pays to choose deliberately rather than use the same type everywhere.

The most common mistake is the starting price as the default. It is convenient because it commits to nothing, but it tells the customer nothing either: a “from” in front of every line reads like an announcement that it will cost more in the end. Where a fixed price is possible, it is the stronger statement — if necessary for a narrower group of cars. And “on request” belongs to services where any figure would be a guess, not to those where you would simply rather not commit.

You can also give an approximate duration; it appears as “approx.” next to the service. For many customers that is the second question after the price: whether they can wait or have to leave the car.

Each service has a field for a description. It appears on your profile under the name and in the booking request as soon as the customer picks that service. It is the place where a number becomes an offer, and it is surprisingly often left empty.

A useful description answers three questions. What is included — labour, materials, which fluids and filters, disposal, consumables? What is expressly not included and will be charged by time if needed? And does the amount include VAT? The last question looks petty, but in a comparison it quickly makes a noticeable difference. Towards private customers, final prices including tax are the norm in most countries and often a legal requirement; your trade association knows what applies to your business.

On Carvexia's service pages, where prices from several garages are listed one below the other, customers see your garage's name and then only the service name, the price and the price type — not the description. So the name itself should carry the core of the scope: “Minor service with oil and filter” says more than “Service S”. Customers searching the garage directory also find you by the names in your price list — a word customers actually use is worth more there than an internal package name.

A fixed price for “all cars” rarely holds. An oil change on a small car and on a big six-cylinder differs in oil quantity, oil grade and filter; a brake service on an axle with an electric parking brake needs a diagnostic tool that is not needed elsewhere. Quote one price for everything and you either charge too much for small cars or too little for big ones.

Two or three lines with clear boundaries are better than one with a big “from”. Draw the line where your effort actually changes: by engine type, oil quantity, vehicle class or drivetrain. Write it into the description in a way customers can check against their own car. “Up to mid-size, no four-wheel drive” is understood by everyone; an engine code only by someone who looks it up in the registration document.

Say what you do not do, too. Work on the high-voltage system of hybrid and electric cars requires trained staff and its own safety precautions; if you do not offer it, it is better written in the description than declined in a request that never needed to be sent. The same goes for makes for which you lack the tools or diagnostic access.

Each service can optionally be assigned a service type — inspection service, oil change, brake service, periodic roadworthiness test and others. Without an assignment the price appears only on your profile and in your booking request. With one, it also appears on the matching page under workshop services: as an individual price line alongside other garages' lines, with a button that leads straight into the request.

The assignment has an effect in a second place. On car listings, the “After you buy” block shows what comes up after the purchase — for example the periodic roadworthiness test when, according to the seller, it is due within a year or has already expired. Prices from garages in the car's country that list this service type appear there, sorted by distance or name and never by payment.

So for an assigned service, everything above applies twice over: the customer sees it next to other garages' prices and without your description. Only assign what genuinely matches the service type, and check the name first. Two things are worth knowing: price lines on the service pages and in the block only come from garages currently accepting booking requests, and each price shows since when it has stood.

A price list goes stale quietly. Oil gets dearer, a supplier changes its terms, the hourly rate is adjusted — and the line on the profile still says what applied a year ago. The customer notices only at the invoice, and by then the price they saw is the only thing they remember.

On the service pages and in the “After you buy” block, each price carries an “as of” date. It only moves when the price, the price type or the currency changes; reordering or a new description does not move it. An old date next to a price that still holds is not a mistake. An old date next to a price that no longer holds is exactly what makes customers suspicious.

Anything temporarily not on offer is hidden rather than deleted: the line disappears from the profile and the request, and the price stays saved for later. Deleting is for what you no longer offer at all; existing booking requests keep the name of the service. You set the order yourself. In the garage directory your card shows the first lines of the list — that is where the most requested services belong, not the ones created first.

Two things are kept separately in the business profile: the hourly rate, which appears on your card and in the booking request, and the keywords the directory filters by. Both belong in the same review. A fixed slot for it, say once a quarter, is usually enough — and it costs less than an argument over an invoice that does not match the price list.