Taking the time to “bull shit” with a customer or even potential customer is honestly one of the biggest hurdles to get over running a shop. It takes away ALOT of time, lost time = lost money. Its a fine line between reeling in a customer with said bs’ing, or loosing a hand full in a few days and seeing 5 hours time/labor lost.
And that if you are even “given” the chance. Most people tend to just form their own opinions and walk away, or worse spread rumors. So you can even pull those epic pics out to show them.
But yes, great CS can and will change a customer. 100%
I started as you assume I did. And my wife can tell you, from seeing me every day, every week as I climb into bed, and get out of bed to repeat the process… if I could save the time used for the same old BS “even though this green car is a turd but my work is awesome, here look, please let me work on your car next” I could be efficently working on something and maybe be home for dinner once a week. So, I let, like you said, allow my work to do the talking for me. If they want my shop to do it, they can come… I aint fishing!