Engineering a 94 NPS in a 30-NPS Industry

The Industry Baseline

If you've ever taken your car to a repair shop, you know the experience. Unclear pricing. Work you paid for not getting done right - or done at all. The feeling that you're being taken advantage of, especially if you're a woman. And scheduling? Call during business hours and hope for the best. The industry average NPS (a -100 to 100 scale measuring likelihood to recommend) hovers around 30.

Self-service garages weren't better. The ones that existed were dimly lit, dirty, and cramped. Everything was rented à la carte, so you couldn't predict what you'd actually spend. Most didn't offer online booking. The message was clear: you're lucky we let you in here at all.

I looked at this and saw an industry that had never once designed around the customer.

The Design Choices

The Physical Space

We made the space bright, big, and obsessively clean. You could eat off our floors, and the tools were never dirty. Every bay was well-lit and spacious enough to work comfortably.

This wasn't cosmetic. A clean, professional environment signals respect: for the customer, for the work, and for the craft. When someone walked in, the space told them this was a different kind of operation before anyone said a word.

The People

I didn't hire for technical skill alone. I hired for emotional intelligence and a genuine desire to teach. Every staff member was someone who could make a first-timer feel welcome and help an experienced mechanic without being condescending.

I hired people who wanted to be there and who understood that their job was as much about supporting people as it was about cars.

The Digital Experience

I wanted customers to be able to book online, see availability instantly, and know exactly what they'd pay before they showed up. The website answered every question a potential customer might have. No phone tag. No surprises. No "call for pricing."

This sounds basic, but in an industry that still runs on phone calls and handshake estimates, it was a significant differentiator.

Building an Inclusive Space

The auto repair industry has a well-documented problem with how it treats women. Women walk into shops expecting to be talked down to, overcharged, or ignored. Many avoid the experience entirely.

I wanted to build a space where that didn't happen. We ran women-only classes so people could learn in an environment where they felt comfortable asking questions. I hired women staff members, an extreme rarity in the automotive field, because representation matters, and because it changed the dynamic of the entire shop.

This wasn't performative. When a male customer harassed one of my female staff members, I fired the customer. The message to my team and to every other customer was unambiguous: everyone is welcome here, and nobody gets to make someone else feel unsafe.

The Feedback Loop

We sent a six-question survey after every visit. Not quarterly. Not annually. Every single visit. We used an industry standard NPS calculator to track our score over time, and we conducted regular customer experience interviews to go deeper than any survey could.

But measuring is the easy part. What mattered was closing the loop.

We published a monthly newsletter that documented the specific changes we'd made based on customer feedback. Customers could see their input turning into real improvements. Two examples:

Toolbox standardization. Customers kept coming to the tool room asking to borrow tools they frequently needed, tools that weren't in their bay's toolbox. Sharing common tools between bays caused friction. We redesigned the toolbox layout from scratch, creating a standardized tool set for every bay optimized around the most commonly requested tools. Same set, same layout, every bay. No more hunting, no more sharing.

Online booking rebuild. Our most frequent users told us the booking flow was confusing and that availability was hard to see at a glance. We didn't patch it. We rebuilt the entire booking system around their feedback, designed with our power users' input.

The Results

Over eight years of continuous measurement:

• 94 NPS score, in an industry where anything above 40 is considered exceptional
• 500+ five-star reviews backing up the NPS data
• 75% repeat visit rate; once someone used us, they became a lifetime customer
• One review that summed it up: "Better service than a 5-star hotel's concierge", at an auto repair shop

What This Demonstrates

1. Customer experience is a system, not an attitude. You don't achieve a 94 NPS by telling your team to "be nice." You design it into the facility, the hiring criteria, the tools, the booking flow, and the feedback process. Every touchpoint is intentional.

2. Feedback loops only work if you close them. Surveying customers is easy. Implementing their feedback and showing them what changed is what builds trust and retention. The newsletter wasn't marketing. It was accountability.

3. Inclusion is a competitive advantage. Making space for customers and employees who are underserved by an industry isn't just the right thing to do. It expands your addressable market and creates loyalty that competitors can't replicate.

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