Dealer APS

Dealer APS Giving you line of sight into the core of your Fixed Ops processes.

08/16/2023

Well documented appointments can do wonders for efficiency.

You have all the information about what the vehicle could need before the customer sets foot in the shop.

Here's how to leverage it:
Dispatch the appointment a day or two before so you know who will work on it and how to fit it in with any back log.

If you know what parts are needed (recalls, maintenance, SOR) make sure those parts are ordered. A well written customer complaint for an appointment could give you an idea of what parts might be needed even for a diag.

When the RO is opened, dispatch the parts for the services that are authorized at write-up.

Get the loaner ready the day before.

The customer arriving is usually the trigger to get these processes started. Doing them a day early will save you a lot of time.

07/20/2023

Handling things in front of the customer is inherently more stressful.

That's why waiters get priority.

So don't wait for the customer to show up to make decisions.

Look ahead 1-3 days and pre-assign your appointments to the appropriate technician. Do you know what needs to be fixed? Order the parts while you're at it.

Our Shop Loading package gives you the ability to set appointments based off true technician capacity and the ability to visually see the workflow coming through your shop.

You can't have "no surprises" but you can limit them.

06/26/2023

What can be done sooner to save time later?

A key to maximizing your efficiency is to design processes so that the previous step aids in the completion of the subsequent step.

Here's an example: What can your Advisors do to aid your Technician in getting work out of the shop before the RO gets created?

đź’ˇRoad Test with the customer before write-up.

đź“ŤEnsures the concern can be duplicated. With the customer.

The customer swears the vehicle is making a subtle noise within a very specific set of conditions. Your tech might spend 45 minutes trying to duplicate the concern to no avail.

Sitting with the customer to duplicate the concern saves your tech that time and makes the "not duplicable" conversation much easier.

đź“ŤMore detailed write-ups

If the concern is duplicable, now you have more information to save the tech time in diagnosing. You might have better descriptors and a better sense of what the concern is.

The challenge now is the document it as a write-up.

DealerAPS provides advisors guides on how to document thorough write-ups. These guides are customizable to your shop language and are organized by vehicle system.

Better write-ups, better productivity.

06/06/2023

You don't need to go conquest customers that defected or were never your customer to begin with. Instead, keep more of this model year's customer base compared to the previous model year's customer base.

How many 2022 model year vehicles came into service last year? This year, your goal is to pass that number for 2023.

How many 2021 model year vehicles came into service last year? Your goal is to pass that number for 2022.

With solid customer experience, and a good customer follow up process, you can leverage these warm customers you have in your DMS to exceed these goals.

Our APSbdc software is a dedicated Service CRM to keep in touch with your customers in between service visits ensuring you keep them around for a long time.

05/04/2023

Metrics tell you where you're at but not how you got there.

Dealers have A LOT of visibility into metrics. It's a lot more challenging to create visibility into your processes.

Visibility into your process answers questions like:
âť“How often are my advisors presenting?
âť“What's being worked on in the shop right now?
âť“How long does each phase of my process take?
âť“Where do I currently have bottlenecks?

With this information, you can better tweak processes, find new opportunities for capacity, and ensure your team is aligned to hit the goals you've achieved.

You could create visibility by creating additional reporting, taking time to get status from each employee, hold more frequent shop meetings.

Or you can get DealerAPS.

With 6 products spanning the entire service process, you'll get additional visibility into the health of your shop and simplify the workflow for each role within your department.

04/18/2023

Walkarounds.

They are key revenue opportunity that are often times fumbled to solely protect the shop from liabilities.

But you can do both.

Arm your advisors with a tire gauge and a battery tester.

These are very easy things to sell because the customer can verify with the advisor that the battery or tires need to be replaced. As advisors get the hang of at least checking those two things, they'll start to find new things to sell during a walking around.

Plus, if the customer does need tires or a battery, finding out at the beginning of the process is much more efficient than waiting for the tech to tell you an hour and half into the service.

04/11/2023

Dispatching is a tough gig.

The entirety of the service department goes through you.

To be effective, you need to *create* visibility. Dispatchers need line of sight into

â–Ş Who's working on what
â–Ş An eye on what to give them next
â–Ş How long the orders will take
â–Ş What repair orders will be carried over
â–Ş Which tickets are on hold

And the list goes on…

You end up with mountains of papers, folders, and notes.

DealerAPS can provide dispatchers, and all those involved, with better visibility into the flow of the shop. See what's being worked on, organize your repair orders, and find gaps to fill all on one page.

More visibility means less tickets falling through the cracks and better throughput for you department.

03/28/2023

While sales and profits have been climbing, are your customers quietly leaving the dealership?

You might be booked out on repairs, but your Maintenance business has likely not recovered since 2019. That business is being overtaken by the aftermarket.

Common issues plaguing dealership maintenance business:

1. It's not fast enough

While hiring technicians is the best solution to expand your capacity, take a look at how much time is wasted in your maintenance business.

-How often do techs walk to the parts counter? For how long?
-How long does it take for a customer to approve an upsell?
-Are your appointments based on *actual* in bay times?

2. Over reliance on New Car Sales

After 3 years of low New Car sales, we haven't been able to replace the normal post-warranty attrition. It's time to shift where we drive traffic.

-What does your Used Car customer retention look like?
-How can you better engage your customers in between visits?
-Are advisors educating customers on maintenance to keep them coming back?

The big money is in repairs, but retention and loyalty come from Maintenance. That's the long term play.

03/22/2023

Service Departments are too reliant on the Multi-Point Inspection.

Many shops don't do them 100% of the time.
Many shops take too long to get it in front of the customer.
Many shops don't review the inspection form during redelivery.

You can sell without it by presenting needed services during write-up.

Plus you'll save yourself a lot of time:
⏱ Customer can give immediate approval
⏱ No additional trip to the Parts counter
⏱ Less things for the technician to inspect
⏱ Additional Service is planned into dispatching

Start presenting early and often - you'll get more sales because you'll have more opportunities for the customer to say yes.

Providing a great customer experience in between service visits is a key lever to pull in the quest for Customer Retenti...
03/13/2023

Providing a great customer experience in between service visits is a key lever to pull in the quest for Customer Retention.

So what does customer experience look like when the customer is not in for service?

It's any engagement or association with your shop: email campaigns, their copy of the RO, your website, even the memory of their last visit.

But the best way for a customer to engage with your shop, is with your employees. People build relationships with people.

Your BDC is the most effective way to improve your customer experience in between visits. They engage with the customer at the most crucial time of the customer journey - deciding where to go.

Having a centralized place to access customer history and document interactions allows your team to pick up where someone else left off giving your customer a uniformed experience.

APSbdc gives your agents a CRM purpose built for the Service Department. Everything they'll need to make your customer feel remembered, known, and ultimately, coming back for service.

03/08/2023

Customers have a "time budget" - spend too much of it and they'll be closed off to additional services.

A key to efficiency is being proactive and using all the information you have early on in the process. Advisors should anticipate what customers need and sell it early.

This will save you time downstream.

Instead of adding more time to a ticket that was almost done, it's planned into the dispatch. Instead of waiting to go get the approval, the technician can get started.

At write-up, you haven't spent any of the customer's time budget, making them more receptive to additional services. Presenting early and often will get you a boost in Dollars/RO.

More presentations, more opportunities.

03/03/2023

It takes 90 days to build a habit into your routine...a full 90 days.

That means when you create a new process, or onboard a new employee, unless the process is executed exactly as prescribed for 90 days, you'll likely have variation in your shop.

It happens. No one's perfect.

That's why it's important when you walk the shop to observe how things are getting done. Even if everything is being done correctly, you might make some key observations:

âť“ Is the process hindering more than it's helping?
âť“ Can any changes be made to make it easier or faster?
âť“ What are common obstacles preventing a processes from being followed?
âť“ Can technology aid in improving this process?

When making observations, avoid the inclination of strict enforcement. Viewing your processes with an open mind can give you new ideas on how to improve the flow of your shop.

The most crucial process is getting a vehicle in and out of the shop.

Our Shop Flow bundle bolsters your Advisors, Techs, and Parts guys in that process by:
âś… Automating the coordination between personnel
âś… Providing RO Status visibility to all parties involved at any given point
âś… Incorporating proactivity into the role of each team member

As a Manager, you'll get time stamps of when each ticket progressed to its next phase allowing you to easily identify bottlenecks. Now you'll know what to keep an eye out for the next time you do your shop observations.

DM us if you'd like a straightforward demo to see how this works in action.

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8860 NW 18th Terrace
Miami, FL
33172

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