Everyone thinks they have great customer service.

Have you had a vendor that never answered your emails? Or, worse, one that locked you into a contract but now won’t take your calls?

When it comes to delivering excellent service, MROs are from Mars.

When you pick your repair partner, service excellence is a must.

Think about your last customer service experience with a repair station.

Here are three things to look for to ensure you get excellent service from your aircraft part repair partner:

How do they communicate with you?

A repair partner who has truly great service will also have great communication skills.

They’ll answer your call every time: Not just when they think they’re going to make a sale, but when they know you’re calling with tough questions.

They’ll reply to your emails quickly, too.   

Have you ever sent someone an email and waited a week or more for a reply?  Or you just never received a reply, so you had to call or email them again to follow up?  

That’s not the kind of repair operation you want to deal with.

Do you get updates without asking?

A good repair partner won’t wait for your call to let you know how things are going. They’ll call you first.  

Whether there’s a problem with your repair or everything is going smoothly, your repair partner should be providing regular updates.

They don’t need to smother you, and you likely won’t hear from them every day (unless you ask for daily updates), but they shouldn’t go long enough without communication that they fall off your radar.

Are they available?

You’ve dealt with repair stations that are available 9:00 - 17:00, Monday through Friday.

Those are “their” business hours, they likely told you.

But what if you’re not in “their” time zone?  Do they want you to stay up all night to contact them so they don’t have to work outside their business hours?

And what if you need to talk to someone on a weekend?  Most repair stations will make you wait until Monday, but there is at least one that will be there for you no matter what day it is.

And that is the one that should be your next repair partner!

When you’re hiring your next repair partner, screen them on their service. If they’re good, they’ll likely save you a TON of time.