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Managing the “extras”
Just looking for what you do when you are booked for two weeks out, and the tow trucks start showing up. How do you manage this on your job board, etc?
We have been simply running first come first serve when it comes to extras; and I would like to see how we can be more efficient with this in our shop.
Let me know your process!
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5 Replies
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I would be determining why I am two weeks behind and working on a plan to fix that.
I would be making sure we always ask every customer when is the latest they need their car back.
I would be underpromising what we can do realistically.
I would prioritize cars according to profitability from their service history.
I would make sure we are giving fantastic customer service and keeping them informed.
HTH! 🙂
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Thanks!
Yes, during the ebbs and flows of our business chaos ensues the moment it snows for the winter tire “rush” (I am thinking ahead); and again when it is time for the summer tire changeover. Working on pre-scheduling the vehicles that we store their tires, etc.
In the endeavor to reduce how far we are booking during those months; I am also planning on opening a contract position for the time we need additional manpower (which will require additional space, so it gets a bit complicated). This would be the attempt to capture the opportunity when they are looking for our services, instead of them choosing somewhere else to go due to it being too long of a wait for them.
I like the idea of prioritizing them based on their invoice history with us, I will use that. The others we do our best with an a day to day basis.
Thanks again!
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Good question, we are booking the second week of September right now. We used to schedule 15-18 cars a day. We now schedule 6-8 cars a day. We have such a backlog of work, we just had to cut down what we were taking in to survive and have enough parking, we were running out of parking with over 150 cars on site. Cutting way back on scheduling leaves us room for tow ins that are our customers. We have been turning down many tow ins that have never been to our shop before or telling them we won’t get to their cars until September, that usually sends them away. I bet we have turned down a million dollars in work in the last year. Basically schedule all non emergency and maintenance farther out, as far as you can. This will leave you more available time for the tow ins that you want to be able to service.
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And oh yeah, I forgot to say that we also only schedule oil change and tire work on Fridays now. So all of our other techs don’t have any added cars to their work on Fridays, they just work on what’s already dispatched to them. This gives us a chance to get caught up.
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Can you explain this a bit more? I’m not sure I understand your system. Thanks!
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