Personally, I prefer that, unless I asked for something specific like an oil change and that's all they're going to do, they give me a call once things are open. Then we'll get to the "while we're in there" recommendations, and I'll approve (or not) things, and then they'll do them.
Anything that's going to be longer than a week, such as paint or an avionics upgrade, especially at a shop that's not at my home drome or at least in town, I want at minimum a weekly progress update, preferably with pictures, and including a list of what was accomplished that week, what is expected for the following week, as well as any challenges that led to them not completing last week's next week list. And preferably, I want to know about those challenges right away.
Sadly, a lot of shops seem to think that all pilots are just open checkbooks with no interest in the workings of their airplanes. Explaining what's going on, how things work, the ramifications of doing or not doing a particular thing, etc are not the default when IMO they should be. There's also very few shops that will bother to look into alternative options. I'm not a fan of Mike Busch, but this is how he makes his money, and he clearly knows his stuff.
