The Mercedes Benz service experts at A Better Wrench know a thing or two about premium customer service. By using R.O. Writer and DVI Suite, they’ve improved service writing efficiency by 20-30%, saving five minutes per ticket—time that adds up fast in a busy shop.
With faster estimates, seamless parts ordering, and clear digital vehicle inspections, customers stay informed and confident in their repairs, strengthening trust and long-term loyalty.
From a small pen and paper shop to a modern, digital experience
A Better Wrench is a family business, which began in an old garage in Chapel Hill, NC 41 years ago. Over the years, Max Scroggs Jr. has built on his father’s legacy of exceptional service to grow the business.
Today, A Better Wrench operates in a bright, modern 12-bay shop, where 6 technicians care for approximately 20 cars per day. A Better Wrench is a Mercedes specialist shop, with staff who boast over 100 years of combined Mercedes Benz service and repair.
From the beginning, the Scroggs family understood that first-class service is important for their busy customers. They first invested in R.O. Writer’s auto shop management software in the early 2000s. Over the years, they have expanded their use of the solution to include R.O. Writer DVI suite and texting as well. These innovations keep customers informed and engaged with what’s going on inside their vehicles.
“It makes the explanation easy. When you can explain the repair, and send a picture of it to the customer, it helps. You just need to build that trust and then they're like, ‘Oh my gosh, they're really looking out for me here. That's why they're telling me, not to just make money, but so that I'm safe while I drive my car’.”
Max Scroggs Jr.
Clearer Estimates, More Trust: Why Customers Love Digital Vehicle Inspections
Customer experience is a core value at A Better Wrench, and it shows. The shop has an enormous database of loyal customers, who are willing to travel for better service. Max shared how much these busy people enjoy the digital vehicle inspection reports.
Max notes that, especially in the case of complex and potentially expensive repairs, his customers love to be able to see an image of what needs to be done. This helps them understand every aspect of the repair process.
A 20-30% Boost to Efficiency
In addition to DVI Suite, Max and his team use many different functions of R.O. Writer to run an efficient and streamlined shop. He points to the all-in-one nature of the R.O. Writer solution as a game changer for his operation.
Instead of having to move between applications or leave the computer to check the bay for parts, Max and his team members can effortlessly build estimates, pull up catalogs, check stock, and order parts from a variety of locales.
R.O. Writer’s service writing tools help his service experts accurately create estimates while on the phone with customers as well, so an appointment can be booked without delay.
“My counterpart at the front of the shop loves it,” he told us. “It really helps that we don’t have to physically go out and walk into a bay, and don’t have to be taken away from the phone. It’s seamless.”
Max estimates that R.O. Writer’s powerful system for ordering parts saves five minutes per ticket at his busy shop. Since it usually takes 15-20 minutes to write a ticket or estimate, this time savings represents a 20-30% efficiency gain.
In fact, the increased efficiency at the shop is so significant that when a team member retired lately, Max found that the shop could continue to service the same number of cars without replacing that resource.
R.O. Writer’s Smart eCat
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Learn moreFeature-Packed R.O. Writer Offers Room to Grow
Max is delighted with the gains in efficiency and improvements in customer experience that his team have achieved, using the R.O. Writer tools. But he has not finished expanding his use of R.O. Writer just yet.
“There are so many aspects of R.O. Writer I haven’t even touched,” he says.
“I know there’s the YouTube channel and other places where I can learn things and it’s just trying to figure out what I really want to learn first. That’s the thing with a solution like R.O. Writer, there’s so much knowledge base there that it would be hard to recreate anywhere else”.
