Screen repair intake: documenting damage before the repair

Photograph it before anything else

Take photos before the phone leaves the customer’s sight:

• Front, back and all four edges, in good light.
• Close-ups of the impact point, any dents in the frame and any cracks in the back glass or camera lenses.
• A shot with the ticket number or a sticky note visible, so photos can’t get mixed between jobs.

Take them with the display off, so no messages or notifications end up in the picture. Store photos with the ticket on a shop device, not on a tech’s personal phone, and delete them once the warranty period is over.

Map the damage in words

Photos show cracks. Notes explain what they mean. Write a short, plain description:

• Where the impact was and how far the cracks run.
• Whether the display under the glass is damaged: lines, black spots, ink bleed, flicker, a dark patch.
• Whether glass is missing or lifting at the edges.
• Any screen protector, and whether the crack is in the protector, the screen or both.
• A lifted screen with no impact point. That can be a swollen battery, so flag it and don’t charge the phone.

“Spiderweb from top left corner, lines on right third, touch dead along bottom edge” is far more useful later than “cracked screen.”

Test what the crack might be hiding

A drop rarely damages only the glass. Before quoting, test what you can with the customer at the counter:

• Touch across the whole screen, including the edges.
• Face ID or fingerprint unlock, front camera and proximity sensor.
• Earpiece, loudspeaker and microphones.
• Buttons, vibration and the charging port.
• Rear cameras and flash.

The phone diagnosis guide covers the full testing order. For screen intake, the point is narrower: get a pass or fail on everything near the damage before you open the phone.

Mark “not tested” honestly

A shattered screen often makes testing impossible. If the display is black or touch is dead, you can’t check Face ID or the front camera. Don’t leave those fields blank, and don’t assume they work. Mark them “not tested: no display” and tell the customer why. A blank field gets read as “it worked.” “Not tested” tells everyone the truth.

Look for signs of earlier repairs

An earlier screen replacement changes the job. Look for an uneven gap around the display, missing or mismatched screws, residue from old adhesive, or a frame that has been pried. Ask the customer directly, without judgment, and note the answer. If the frame is bent, say so before you start: a new screen on a bent frame can crack again and lift at the edges. Our page on what to ask customers at intake covers wording for that conversation.

Get the customer’s acknowledgment

Read the damage notes back to the customer in plain language. “The screen has lines on the right side, the bottom edge doesn’t respond to touch, and we couldn’t test Face ID because of the damage.” Have them initial the ticket. Customers rarely object at this point; they’ve just watched you look closely at their phone. The general device intake checklist has the rest of the fields: contact, passcode, approval and quote.

Run the same tests after the repair

Once the new screen is in, repeat the intake tests in the same order and record the results next to the originals. This is where the “not tested” items get tested for the first time, so if Face ID or the earpiece fails now, call the customer before pickup and explain what you found, using your intake notes. That call goes much better before pickup than as a complaint at the counter.

Use the record when a claim comes in

When a phone comes back, pull the ticket before you touch it. Compare the new damage with the intake photos and notes. A fresh crack from a new impact point is a new drop, which most warranties exclude. A touch fault in the same spot as the original damage, with no new impact, points at the part or the install. Either way, you’re working from evidence, not memory. Put the physical-damage exclusion in writing; the warranty policy template has wording you can adapt.

Where RepairAmigo fits

RepairAmigo is free repair shop software, built inside a working phone, console and computer repair shop that has processed more than 50,000 tickets, many of them cracked screens. There are no ticket or user limits. It runs as one VirtualBox VM on your shop network, on a host computer with 16 GB RAM, and staff open it from any browser at the counter or the bench. Setup takes about an hour, and there’s a separate Spanish edition. RepairAmigo is Made in Texas and coming soon.

RepairAmigo runs the counter at 254 Repair, a repair shop in Killeen, Texas.