At the end of the day, customers want to feel like they can trust your shop, they know they'll be taken care of, and you're only doing the repairs that are most necessary.
On the other hand, your shop wants to bring in as much business as possible, and generate as much revenue as you can with the time and resources available to your team. That's made possible with the right tools for the job, streamlined and efficient processes, and transparent communication with your customers.
Better operations means smooth repairs, smooth repairs means happier customers, and happier customers means more business.
When your shop is trying to run like a well-oiled machine, any breakdown in workflow can lead to delays, a frustrated team, and unsatisfied customers.
For example, if a customer's repair takes longer because the part you thought you had in stock is actually on back order, they're going to be less likely to return.
That's where shop management software comes in. Just any other tool in your shop, there will be a return in your investment.
What if we told you that you can get even more value out of the work you already do with the right processes in place?
1. Keep Customers Coming Back With Transparency
One of the biggest hurdles keeping people out of repair shops is a lack of trust. But with shop management software, you can create a level of trust with the customer through transparency. Showing them exactly what needs to be fixed, and why, goes a long way in having repair orders approved.
And when things go well the first time, customers will feel like they can trust your shop, and you'll be top of mind next time something goes wrong with their vehicle.
Digital vehicle inspections (DVIs) make it really easy to build in that transparency right in beginning. Because shops can add pictures and videos into their DVIs, customers can get a visual of exactly what’s wrong with their car. They don't have to just believe you, they can see it for themselves.
On top of transparency, DVIs also make your shop more efficient. Once the technician has finished their inspection and sends it back to the service advisor, the service advisor can put together a repair estimate to send along to the customer for approval.
2. Maximize Your Profit Margins on Every Part You Supply
Once a customer has approved the repair order, service advisors need to know exactly which parts to order (if they aren’t already in the shop’s stock or inventory).
Your shop’s service advisors should be able to quickly and easily shop around for parts, place orders, keep technicians in the loop about when the parts have arrived, and most importantly, bring in more money on every repair order your shop ends up supplying parts for.
Easily order parts by integrating with major vendors, enabling service advisors to place orders with just a few clicks, and take advantage of parts markup matrices to create a streamlined process for marking-up parts in seconds.
By taking the clicks and guess work out of the process, shops can quickly get what they need to keep cars moving, and get the most value out of every repair.
3. Streamline Your Operations to Keep Repair Orders Moving
The service advisor has gathered all the customer information, the customer has approved the repair estimate, and the parts are at the shop.
Now, it’s time for the fun part—starting the actual repair! But it’s important that technicians are set up for success.
The service advisor needs to get a quick snapshot of what each technician is working on and what’s in their repair pipeline, and then quickly dispatch repair orders to an available tech. The service advisor should be able to do this from behind their desk, rather than having to go find individual technicians and ask them questions about their workload.
Shop management software can give service advisors a bird’s eye view of each technician’s workload from their workstation. Service advisors should be able to go into the software and see a list of outstanding repair orders.
From there, the service advisor can dispatch a repair order to the appropriate technician. If it’s more efficient, they can dispatch individual line items from a repair order to different technicians in order to distribute work more evenly.
Tekmetric: Better Than Your Average Solution
Using a comprehensive shop management software like Tekmetric can help streamline the process of creating DVIs and repair estimates, simplify parts ordering, and dispatch tickets to technicians.
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