How To Grow a Phone Repair Business in 5 Simple Steps

Are you overwhelmed? Frazzled? Stuck?

If you run a phone repair business and you’re struggling to grow, you might experience these feelings. Rising demand should fuel expansion — more locations, staff, and happy customers.

But attempting to scale without the proper systems will pump the breaks on that vision fast. Instead, you need a path to growth. And you need the right tools to help you along the way.

This quick guide explains how to grow a phone repair business in five simple steps, and shows how investing in a phone repair point of sale (POS) system will speed up the process.

How To Grow a Phone Repair Business With the Right Tools

Growing a phone repair business brings many challenges. Some you’ll already know about, others you won’t see coming — because they rear their ugly heads as soon as you start getting busier and scaling your business.

For example, you get more customers — great! However, you might struggle to keep up with repairs, accurately track inventory and purchase orders, manage more staff, and leverage customer data. Running your business becomes complicated and stress-inducing.

Instead of growing, you start losing customers due to long wait times, miscommunication, and lack of quality control.

The good news is that you can push through many of these stumbling blocks with the right tools. A purpose-built point of sale system gives you the visibility, structure, and automation to manage your growing business easily.

Your phone repair business might have some growing pains, but with the right tools and strategies, you can overcome them and drive profitable growth.

Step #1: Understand Your Customers

Your first step to growth is understanding your existing customers. What do they need from your repair shop? Is it quicker repairs or better customer service? Perhaps they want added-value services. Whatever the case, you can find out.

A POS system with a centralized database with customer and transaction data is key. Here are some examples of insights you can get:

What service repairs do they request most often?
Do weekends bring different customers than weekdays?
How much does the average person spend?

Tracking purchase history helps spotlight opportunities to provide add-ons.

For example, if George comes in every few months to fix his kids’ cracked iPad screens, offer him a discount on protective cases. Or send another customer a coupon for her birthday since you know the date from her customer profile.

Another benefit of a POS system is that it makes a rewards program easy to implement. Reward customers for their loyalty with special perks and discounts. If you capture customer email addresses, you can keep them posted on new services, deals, and store news.

The better you know your customers, the better you can serve their needs.

Step #2: Streamline Your Repair Process

A rushed repair shop strains your staff, customers, and you! But creating a streamlined repair process isn’t as hard as it seems.

It all starts with accurate inventory management. Running out of iPhone 11 batteries or scratch polish mid-repair is frustrating. There are various challenges proper inventory management overcomes, including:

Missing parts: Delays happen when parts you need to complete a repair are out of stock. You’ll have to turn customers away or push their repair to a later date. POS systems track real-time stock tied to repair orders to ensure you always have what you need.
Lack of visibility: If your staff doesn’t have an easy way to check item availability or notify vendors when supplies run low, stockouts can happen unexpectedly. A POS system can alert you when items need reordering.
Too many errors: If you’re still using spreadsheets to track inventory, it’s easy for multiple people to make errors editing them. A POS system automates transaction tracking and inventory updates in real time to inform accurate inventory counts.
No forecasting: Without inventory tracking and reporting, spotting trends or predicting ideal quantities to keep in stock is challenging. Robust reporting provides inventory usage data for informed purchases.

With streamlined inventory management and reporting, you can ensure you have the parts you need without overstocking. This leads us nicely onto step three!

Step #3: Create a Memorable Customer Experience

Streamlined inventory management doesn’t just help your staff and processes; it also leads to a better customer experience.

We mentioned using customer data earlier, and it’s never more important than in customer-facing scenarios. A seamless repair process starts with informed interactions. For example, you can greet George with, “Good to see you again! Are we fixing another cracked iPhone screen today?”

You’ve got the right products in stock to complete his repair. What about during and after the repair process? A modern POS system updates customers on their repair status. You can keep them updated in real time — from when their repair starts to a notification when it’s complete and ready for collection.

A repair shop POS system like CellSmart POS also lets you:

Create repair tickets with IMEI numbers and customer information
Reserve parts when creating a repair
Capture images of the device before and after the repair
Create repair tasks and assign them to an employee
Give customers a loaner phone

All of these features help create a better customer experience. You can survey customers to gauge if wait times were reasonable, quality met expectations, and technicians were polite. Create a personalized, transparent service and watch as your business grows.

Step #4: Expand Your Services

There are always opportunities to expand your services beyond repairs. Dig into your POS analytics — your sales reports reveal popular devices, repair types, and customer groups.

Perhaps iPhone screen repairs outpace Android phones?

You might carry tempered glass screen protectors and designer cases to bundle. Other add-ons to consider include data migration during the repair process, accessories like chargers, cables, and wireless earbuds, and out-of-warranty manufacturer repairs.

Lean on your POS system to ease growing pains. For example, some POS systems let you add service selections and assign prices within your interface rather than in separate systems. The key is to brainstorm add-on services that solve problems for your customers. Don’t forget to market these add-on services!

Related Read: 5 Marketing Tips for Repair Stores

Step #5: Implement a Scalable POS System

As you can see from the previous steps, a POS system is a fantastic tool for growing your phone repair business. However, you need a POS system that grows with you to power long-term growth.

Look for a POS solution that has robust features, yet is easy to use and requires minimal training — especially if you have multiple locations. Prioritize cloud hosting that lets you manage your store from anywhere and share data across your stores.

Another feature to look out for is employee management. The best POS systems let you:

Track employees with simple time clock features, create paystubs, and provide reports on daily working hours, and completed, ongoing, and uncompleted tasks.
Manage employees’ performance by setting goals and deadlines.
Implement a commission module to drive add-on sales and reward your top performers.

Scalability is crucial to ensure smooth growth in your business.

Related Read: 7 Ways To Motivate Your Employees

How To Grow A Phone Repair Business With Cellsmart POS

You now know how to grow a phone repair business:

Get to know your customers
Streamline the repair process
Create a memorable customer experience
Expand your services
Implement a robust POS system

That last step is the most important. A purpose-built POS system is the number one tool for overcoming your challenges. And CellSmart POS meets all your needs! From digital repair ticketing to customer text message updates, we know how to help you grow.

Whether you own a single location or aspire to have multiple repair stores, our solution will power your operations. See for yourself! Schedule a demo of CellSmart POS tailored to your needs today.

How To Grow a Phone Repair Business in 5 Simple Steps