Autoscope Foreign Car Care

SHOP: Autoscope Foreign Car Care  LOCATION: Dallas OWNER: Nerces Mavelian SIZE: 20,000 square feet
STAFF: 15  MONTHLY CAR COUNT: 380  ANNUAL REVENUE: $3.5 million

1) When Nerces Mavelian set out to build the third location for his business, Autoscope Foreign Car Care, he knew he wanted to design the shop of his dreams, all centered around the customer experience.

“We started out with the premise of, what would I want in a shop if I was a customer?” he says. “Our customers range from people in their 20s to 70s and what they’re expecting is to get somebody who will talk to them.”

That customer experience started with the service advisors, who work in a room directly off the main lobby. Mavelian selected open cubicles to strike a balance between offering privacy and maintaining the bright, airy feeling of the facility.

2) Each cubicle is equipped with a computer, printer, and any office supplies the service advisor might need. Scheduling is very important to Mavelian, and he makes sure to reserve at least 15 minutes per appointment for the service advisor to sit down with the customer, visit, and talk through all of their needs.

3) The cubicles are situated next to floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto the covered driveway in front of the facility. Service advisors are able to see when customers arrive and can walk outside to greet them and bring them into the facility.

4) On the opposite side of the cubicles is another set of windows, which look into the immaculate shop floor.

“I wanted to create a feeling of transparency,” Mavelian says. “I don’t want to hide anything. I want [customers] to see what the shop looks like.”

5) Because the shop works primarily on foreign cars, Mavelian says he has many customers that own specialty vehicles. Over the years, the shop has created short videos that highlight customer cars and the stories behind them, which are played on screens in the waiting area, between news and other television programs. Mavelian says that the videos help create a feeling of friendship and personality in the shop.

“The idea with that is to run this storytelling aspect,” Mavelian says.