Twentyish Simon Musa had cause to frown one day. Four years as a mechanic and a customer accused him of stealing his jack, or did he mean misplacement? Whatever the case, the man had come storming to the workshop and said he didn’t see his jack after they (the mechanics) had worked on his car. So it wasn’t just Musa that was the suspect – they all were. They had to put together money to buy him a new one to keep the peace. Then there was another with a similar complaint who later realised he had left his goods at home. Musa dodged both when they came to the workshop and they never exchanged greetings.
But with some customers, Musa formed friendships. He has a habit of telling customers to pay what they can. This he does to put their minds at rest while he works on their vehicles. But it doesn’t always end well. “Sometimes a customer gives you below what’s expected and apologises,” he said, adding that he collects the money to build a relationship. In this way he keeps his customers. Then at other times Musa receives a pleasant surprise when he does little work and gets a handsome reward – more money than he anticipated. Still, at other times all he does is loose a bolt and get more cash than he expected. The list of memorable experiences goes on. A favourite was when a customer pulled over in his car and shouted for him to come over. Musa had worked on his car a long time ago and had already forgotten. That day the man gave him a nice cash gift.
Adamu Amodu who repairs cars along Gudaaba road in Kuje local area council operates like Musa. He understands the wisdom of building good relationships with customers. A mechanic with seven years’ experience, he likes to treat his customers like kings so they can recommend him to their friends. While repairing a gearbox, he toyed with the idea of asking for N3, 000 from the owner and then decided he would let the man pay what he could.
“I do this because I don’t know what’s in his mind and I may just get lucky and he will give me double the amount I intended to ask for,” Amodu explained.
Some days Amodu gets his share of battles with car owners. He particularly hates it when a customer hovers over him and tells him what to do. When it happens it’s usually a quarrelsome person who would end up not getting the desired result at the end of the day, he intimated. “I work best when not under that kind of pressure,” he said, adding that that’s when his experience flows into the work. So with certain customers a bond quickly forms from the very first encounter, while with some, the relationship ends there.
It gets even worse. “I once worked for a customer who gave me the go-ahead to fix any problem while he was away, only for him to return and accuse me of lying when I gave him feedback. It was painful,” Amodu narrated.
To every incident or experience, good or bad, there’s the flip side. Havila Havila is not the kind of owner that walks away while a ‘trusted mechanic’ fixes his vehicle. No. He sticks around and studies the mechanic’s every move.
Havila is an advocate of stay around while your car is in the hands of a mechanic, no matter what. Also, he believes in using a particular person, which means he works hard at developing a good relationship too. He calls it the recipe for a stable automobile. First, he rates the individual based on his first-time experience. If the work is satisfactory, he uses that mechanic unfailingly.
“Sometimes I come to the workshop when my mechanic isn’t around and when another offers to help I decline,” he said, adding that a mechanic that starts working on one’s car and understands it should be retained, so it gets to a point when there’s a problem the mechanic handles it with familiarity and not as a fresh hand. So Havila never completely trusts a mechanic. Despite the bond created, he’s always alert and spots when a mechanic “sounds like he’s helping, but is actually killing you.”
“Even if he will put my car in good shape, I have to watch out because I know my financial capability,” Havila pointed out, adding that a good mechanic is one who gives the true price of what he buys for the car and it tallies with one’s personal market survey.
Then there’s that mechanic who names his price before touching your car. Havila distrusts this brand of mechanics and vouches for one that would concentrate on the work at hand before bothering about what he will be paid.
When Havila’s car engine was emitting smoke, he decided to change it and approached his mechanic. They agreed that he (the mechanic) would find out the price and they would start the work. “I went to do my market survey too and when the mechanic later mentioned his price, I realised it was N10, 000 above what I learnt,” Havila intimated, from where he told his mechanic he knew someone that would sell at a cheaper rate. He observed during the course of the engine’s replacement that the mechanic worked reluctantly and without zeal. After that experience Havila never showed up at the workshop again.
Surprisingly, while Havila hates to be outwitted, another car owner, Kayode Joseph allows it to some point and doesn’t argue with mechanics. Joseph’s mechanic owns a workshop in Gwarinpa, but when his gearbox had a problem he was far from home and had to visit another. “The mechanic wanted to buy a screw and when I asked him the amount he hesitated and I requested to know if it would be more than N1000 and he said no,” he said. But Joseph knew it was far less than N1000.
For him, as long as the work is perfect, he doesn’t mind to pay twice the amount. “However, when it’s at a disadvantage to the giver it is uncalled for, particularly when the price of what’s N1, 000 is inflated to N20, 000. Everyone knows N19, 000 can affect a man’s livelihood a lot,” he pointed out.
But Joseph stresses he has had fairly good experiences with mechanics so far because his mechanic leaves home to attend to him late at night when he is stranded. Joseph pointed out that sometimes mechanics can be “funny because they are trying to make profit on things they buy for your car,” adding that this was not peculiar to them, but rather is common to average Nigerians because an average Nigerian always thinks of what he would get from an existing scenario. He advised vehicle owners to be sensitive and logical in dealing with them.
