Express Service at dealerships often fails. Follow our advice for greater results
We have, in previous columns, discussed appointments, being prepared for the customer’s arrival, and service reception.
We thought this would be a good spot to introduce Express Service.
Now Express Service has been around for a long time and is not a new concept. There are quick lube independents everywhere and there is even one ad campaign out there we have all heard about “skipping the dealership.”
Many of you have tried Express Service in your dealerships and for whatever reason it has failed.
The merits of Express Service are many. First and foremost we respect the customer’s time. This might surprise you but most of our customers don’t want to “hang out” with us.
Think about the following scenario. Your customer is booked in for a one-hour service at the dealership and given a loaner vehicle. By the time the customer fills out the loaner agreement, does a walk-around on the loaner vehicle and transfers all their personal belongings to the loaner vehicle, the service could have been completed and the customer could have been back on the road.
The other thing that Express Service does is split your workshop in two. One section is for large jobs such as engines, brakes, transmissions and large services. The other section is for small services, tires, bulbs, etc. This allows your technicians to concentrate on working from start to finish on the job they were assigned and never get pulled off for those “quick” or emergency jobs.
We think this doesn’t happen, but often a tech will be working on a cylinder head job only to be approached by the service manager or advisor asking them to get off this job and repair a flat tire on a VIP customer’s car. Really?
Now the tech has to get off this major repair and find a place to repair the flat tire — afterwards returning to the cylinder head job and trying to figure out where they left off.
If a seven-year-old child goes to the Emergency Department of your local hospital with a cut finger, the nurses don’t run up to the 5th floor interrupting the heart surgeon in the middle of surgery to come stitch a finger! So why do we do it in the car business?
If your dealership could advertise and list all the services that they can get completed in under one hour, you would definitely have an edge over your competition.
The hard question to answer is, “how do you set up a successful Express Service?”
In our opinion, you should have a dedicated team for Express Service. Whether you start off with one express service bay or five, we think you need to have two employees per bay. Wait! What? Two employees per bay? Absolutely!
One person should be a licensed technician and the second person could be a first year apprentice. When you have two techs working per bay the efficiency can be as much as 185 per cent.
With the increased efficiency your list of possible jobs that can be completed in the Express Bay goes up dramatically.
We are often asked what type of tech would work in the Express Bay. We have had success when the tech is older and doesn’t enjoy working on the heavy jobs such as engines and transmissions.
These techs also like to mentor the younger apprentices. Another candidate we have had success with in setting up Express Bays is a newly-licensed tech that wants to ease into the position before going into the main workshop.
Once the team for Express is chosen, don’t switch them up. We have found that when the tech and apprentice start working together they really start to understand and develop a routine. It’s like a dance; they get to know each other’s moves before they happen and that’s how we keep increasing the efficiency.
We have our techs and our dedicated work bay, now we need to get the bookings correct.
Give your compiled Express Bay list of jobs which can be done in under an hour to your appointment coordinator or BDC so that they know what type of work can go to the Express Bay.
Then when a customer calls to book an appointment on the Express Service list, the person making the appointment would ask the customer if they would like to wait and take advantage of our Express Service Bay.
Failure of Express Service can usually be linked back to the way the appointments are booked. Book appointments every hour on the hour for each bay you have. The rule needs to be: If it is not waiting it is not Express Service!
Now, dedicate a service advisor to Express Service. Their job will be to work with that customer from start to finish. Writing up the RO, presenting the multi-point inspection, completing the job they were booked in for and billing out the customer.
Every car coming into the Express bay MUST get a multi-point inspection. The advisor will go through the inspection with the waiting customer. Any additional work that is found that cannot be completed within the hour in Express Service will be rebooked for the main workshop.
Develop a bonus plan and pay a commission for work they find in Express and booked for the main workshop. That way the technicians in the main workshop will see work coming to them and the “gravy” work wasn’t just for Express. The work on the vehicle is completed, the client is on their way and most likely delighted their vehicle was completed so efficiently.
Our customer journey is always focused on TIME, both the customer’s and ours. A customer who drops off a vehicle or takes a loaner for a service that can be completed in under an hour is wasting their time and lowering customer satisfaction.
A well run Express Service Department that is booking time correctly and functioning efficiently is maximizing our time inventory, making money and increasing customer satisfaction. Wait! Isn’t that our goal? Make money and maximize customer satisfaction!
