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Frustrated employees and communication
Hello everyone Im fairly new to this forum but have received a lot of wonderful information. I was curious on everyone’s input for this topic.
We are a fairly small shop but have been growing pretty quickly this past year. We have expanded with new employees. The frustrating thing for me as the owner right now is, communication. I have technicians who want this flawless service writer and I have a service writer who is asking questions that dont make sense and or seems to be squirrel hunting all day. The service writer is a former tech and knows the manufactures we work on but it seems ever since he went into this role he forgot everything he knew? As far as technicians I feel like they want this service writer thats perfect no flaws which seems to be impossible to find. Do any of you have training or any information on how to handle this. Its becoming very frustrating and debating on just a whole staff overhaul at this time….. -
4 Replies
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A couple of quick suggestions:
90%+ of tech – SA communications (both ways) can be done with instant messaging. This removes most of the emotion, people think more about what they are saying, and the converstations are saved. Plus, you can copy and paste parts photos, etc.Have a 5-10 meeting every day with everyone present to address any issues from the past 24 hours.These two things can prevent a lot of management fires. -
Thank you Tom I appreciate the feedback!
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Good afternoon Karl.
I am going to suggest a different approach.
Develop a process from point A (when the customer is written up) to point Z (when the vehicle is delivered). Cover all bases on service write-up, dispatch, parts requests (use a form for the tech to list parts he needs for the job.) That will help with accuracy in estimates. Also include the selling process and scheduling. Every shop is different so processes will be different. Something that we do after the job is sold is to reprint the repair order and keep the original attached. Then we put a note to tell the tech when the vehicle should be completed. (That does not mean when the job is ready to deliver, it is when the S/A needs the paperwork back so that it can be ready when the customer picks it up.) We also mark which jobs are already done and a quick note about where the parts are coming from and ETA of said parts.
This is an off the cuff answer, but you get the idea. If these types of things are covered in a process it can help reduce some of the communication issues. Work with the techs and service writers to develop a plan and then use it.
I hope this helps.
Andy
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I agree with Andy about working together to get the process down. We have monthly meetings (although I do like the 5-10 minute morning discussion idea) where I bring up what we are trying to accomplish and why. We developed the courtesy check process as a team. I had a flip board, passed out several different versions before the meeting, then we all decided what we wanted. It was tweaked at the following meeting but we have “buy-in” and that’s what you need! Then FOLLOW-UP. When I go over the previous day’s invoices, there better be a copy of the courtesy check attached — if not, I find out why. No changes are going to stick if you don’t check and measure it.
Rich
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