GarageDoorBossPro Blog — Commercial Doors

Auto Shop Bay Doors: Serving Shops That Can't Work With a Door Stuck Shut

An auto shop runs on its bay doors. Every lift has a door in front of it, and those doors open and close all day in all weather. When one won't open, the car on that lift can't leave and the next one can't come in. Shop owners notice, and they remember which door company got there fast and which one asked them to describe the door over the phone.

Why Shops Are Good Accounts

Storage facilities, with their rows of unit doors, are covered in Storage Facility Accounts: Scheduling Door Service Across Rows of Units. Auto shops are a smaller account on paper, but they are some of the most loyal commercial clients a door company can have.

Shops work their doors hard. Tire shops, quick-lube places, body shops, dealer service departments and independent repair shops all open and close their bay doors many times a day. They need repairs when things break and they appreciate a door company that keeps an eye on the doors before they do. And many shop owners also own homes with garage doors, which is residential work that comes along with the account.

Record Doors by Bay

In GarageDoorBossPro, each address keeps a list of its doors and hardware. At an auto shop, that list is usually one door per bay plus an opener on each, and sometimes a rolling door on a parts room or a back entrance. The bay field is the key detail: Bay 1, Bay 2, Bay 3, shop, or whatever the shop calls them. If the shop numbers bays from the office end, note that in the access notes so every tech counts the same way.

Each door can carry the door type, brand, model #, serial #, size, material and year installed. Each opener can carry its brand, model, HP and drive type. When the shop calls about Bay 2, the office picks that door from the “From House” list, and the tech sees “Commercial Sectional Door · 10x12 · Aluminum & Glass · Bay 2” on the card. For more on building good records, see Door Records Per Building: Brand, Model, Serial, Size and Bay for Every Commercial Door.

Fast Repair Calls

A stuck bay door at a shop is usually a same-day call. When it comes in, the office adds the job to the dispatch board and assigns it to a van. In a typical setup, one van handles repairs and emergency calls, so the shop job fits in with the day's spring and opener calls. Crew GPS on the office map helps the office see which tech is closest, and the tech sees the door details as soon as the job lands on their phone.

Automatic “on the way” and “arrived” texts let the shop know when to expect the tech, so the service writer can plan around the bay being tied up. Replies come back to the office through two-way texting.

Maintenance Between Breakdowns

Shops that have been through a few breakdowns are often open to a maintenance plan. Set it up as recurring work with a minimum number of days between visits — 90 days is common for a busy shop, but use whatever the shop agrees to. When the visit is due, it shows up on the Waiting List map.

On the visit, the tech can work the door safety inspection checklist on each bay door and record a condition — Good, Needs attention or Repair recommended — with written recommendations. The shop owner gets a printed Garage Door Safety Inspection report showing which bays are fine and which ones need work soon. That report is also a natural start for a repair estimate.

Working Around the Shop's Day

Shops are busy, and techs will often be working around cars, lifts and customers in the waiting room. Access notes on the address help:

• “Check in with the service writer at the front counter.”
• “Bay 4 is the alignment rack, call ahead before working on that door.”
• “Best time is before 8am or after 5pm.”
• “Owner wants a call before any repair over the service call.”

Those notes show on the job card every visit, so a new tech doesn't walk into the middle of a busy morning blind.

Getting Paid by a Shop

Most single-location shops pay per job. When the tech taps Complete, the invoice is created and a card on file can be charged right away, so the shop owner doesn't have to find the checkbook. Invoices carry line items from your service list and sales tax. The shop can also see invoices and pay online from the customer app.

A group of shops under one owner can be one client with several addresses, set to Monthly. Each month they get one statement with each line labeled by address.

Keeping the Shop

Shop owners talk to each other, and they talk to their customers about everything. A door company that knows every bay, shows up fast and leaves clean paperwork earns referrals from a shop. For how shops fit with warehouses, property managers and your other commercial clients, return to the commercial garage door software overview.