GaraShield ‘must-have’ tool for independent garages, says Hayley Pells of Avia Autos

Date: Friday 09 April 2021

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GaraShield, the new digital workflow platform exclusively distributed from TMD Friction, offers garages the ability to manage the complete customer and vehicle workshop journey, leading to increased efficiency and an enhanced customer experience.

It was born in a garage, with the clear objective of making it easy for the mechanics to follow and document their work without any additional time requirement.

GaraShield is a web and tablet-based platform that ensures vehicle maintenance and repair is protocolled and documented, easily and transparently.

Owner of Avia Autos, Hayley Pells, has embraced the new solution:

"GaraShield provides my independent garage with all the tools needed to carry out an efficient job. From access to technical data, quality checking, job management and reporting information, GaraShield is a must-have tool for a busy independent garage."

GaraShield can be used directly on the vehicle and gives the technicians a clear task description with all the necessary process steps for a specific vehicle model.

The new platform has an interactive user interface including work steps to be carried out, which can be confirmed with just a click, and vehicle defects and/or faulty parts can be described easily and documented with photos and videos.

Since GaraShield can be integrated into existing IT solutions, this information can be made available in real time to everyone involved: internally to procure the right spare parts and to design the job handover reliably, for example, or externally to inform the customer about the status of their repair at any time.

Pells added:

“GaraShield caught my eye as it can be incorporated into our existing IT solutions, offering an add-on software solution specific to the automotive aftermarket. It’s a digital solution that has made our customer experience more professional, enabling them to view reports from their smart phones.

“Historically we’ve used lots of different platforms and paper to share information, images and videos with our customers. As the modern motorist is becoming more disconnected from the vehicles they drive, this can lay the foundations for mistrust and misunderstanding.

“Garashield means we can send one quick and easy report to our customers that allows them to take the time to read through and make an informed decision on whether they want to proceed with the work. And I certainly don’t miss all the paper!”

TMD Friction worked closely with workshops to ensure the tool provides genuine value to their processes in a simple and easy-to-use way. It was garage owner, David Poole who, with his in-depth knowledge of everyday working life in a garage, came up with the idea for the digital tool.

He said:

“The mechanic in the workshop decides whether a system is good or not. If they are impressed by the processes in place, then they will be happy to use it.”

Scott Irwin, Head of Technical Training at TMD Friction explains:

“Digital is the direction of travel, but past digital concepts have proven to be too complex or interfere too much with the technicians work processes – which has meant they prefer not to use them. GaraShield plugs this gap, offering workshops an easy-to-use online platform encompassing everything they need. And makes the process more transparent for their customers.”

You can read more about Garashield at https://www.garashield.co.uk/en/

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