Avoid the hot potato dispatching process that doesn’t work for anyone
During our dealer visits and our own experiences, we have seen many ways of dispatching work to the technicians and apprentices.
We want to reiterate what we mentioned during our previous columns regarding the appointment process. It is important at this stage to book the correct amount of work by hours, not by the number of appointments.
Over and over again we walk into dealerships and find service advisors booking by the number of appointments per day! This method guarantees that you waste time.
When do your technicians start working? When do your service advisors start working? When is the first appointment time? If they are all at 8:00 am how do you expect your flat rate technicians to get a work order and be working by 8:00 am?
Your techs will probably get their first job at 8:20 am. We just lost time and money on something so simple to fix. You wonder why techs don’t show up for work on time…it’s because we don’t respect their time by ensuring they have a vehicle to work on when they arrive.
Remember this formula: Wasted Time Per Day X Number Of Technicians X Working Days In The Month X Door Rate = a holy crap moment!
In today’s world of complex DMS systems we have seen many workshops use the DMS system to dispatch the work to the techs. This system on paper sounds very good. Work orders are dispatched to a technician based on the promised time and the amount of time it takes to complete the work as well as taking the technician’s skill level into account. The technician then locates their next job based on being matched to that job.
The problem with this method is that everyone has to be very diligent about changing promise times and adding the lines to the work order if there is extra work sold.
If the car is staying over the stated promise time, then the date must be changed as well. If any of this information is not updated correctly technicians will locate jobs that weren’t meant for them. Basically, like every other software system it’s garbage in and garbage out.
Other shops use a tower operator. The problem we have with tower operators is that hot potato jobs are just squeezed in to get them off their plate due to service advisors and service managers yelling at them to get the car into the shop ASAP.
If the car is staying over the stated promise time, then the date must be changed as well. If any of this information is not updated correctly technicians will locate jobs that weren’t meant for them.
This system is not good for the customer as we have seen inexperienced technicians assigned jobs with difficult diagnoses that then end up with lots of open time that no one knows how to bill. Others have the service advisor dispatching work.
We have seen many advisors who have buddies in the shop and make sure they get the good jobs and their adversaries get the lousy jobs. I hope that is not happening in your shop.
It’s time for a Wolfgang story. As a Fixed Operations Manager at a dealership, I walked out into the workshop and noticed my three best technicians having a good laugh.
Now these three gentlemen know the product inside and out. They were certified diagnostic technicians and I had a tremendous amount of respect for them.
I asked “What’s so funny?”
They replied to me: “See Mike over there he is working on a drivability problem and has no clue what he is doing.That car is going to be here for a week.”
I surmised that my tower operator had given this difficult job to a new tech. I asked the three if they knew what was wrong with the car and they said they did. Shame on us! We have created a system in our workshops called flat rate where we don’t have a way to transfer knowledge. It was time to change how we dispatch.
We believe in using the TEAM system. This system divides the workshop into TEAMS. Each TEAM consists of one team leader, usually someone that is a diagnostic or master technician, a senior technician with some experience, a general technician or newly licensed technician and lastly an apprentice.
TEAMS are designed to have technicians move up the ladder to the next level as they grow. Your shop size will determine the number of TEAMS needed — you may have one team or five teams.
The repair order is written by theservice advisor. The advisor does not belong to a TEAM. This is where we have found many dealers failing with TEAMS as the advisor had been assigned to a TEAM.
The problem is we have strong advisors and weak advisors and they have to write ROs for everyone. Once the RO is written and depending on your DMS system, arrange the TEAMS in separate buckets.
If your DMS system is not capable of doing this, then use the VIN number of the vehicle. VINs that end in an odd number go to Team 1 and VINs ending in even numbers go to Team 2.
We have had larger shops just break up the last digit of the VINs to go to a team: VINs that end in 1, 2 or 3 go to Team 1 and VINs that end in 4, 5 or 6 go to Team 2 and so on.
The TEAM leader then dispatches the work. No tower operator! Nobody is hot potatoing! The job goes to the right technician every time.
The TEAM leader will use their knowledge of TEAM members’ talents to decide who gets the job. The members of the TEAM will be able to go to the TEAM leader for advice and guidance rather than searching for the shop foreman.
Each TEAM consists of one team leader, usually someone that is a diagnostic or master technician, a senior technician with some experience, a general technician or newly licensed technician and lastly an apprentice.
This system has been proven to work and the advantages are increased throughput, and quicker turnaround of difficult repairs which all result in time savings and increased CSI.
The TEAM leader is still responsible for generating flat-rate hours; they could be compensated for the supervision portion of their role by an increased hourly rate and/or a monthly bonus based on hitting a sold-hours target.
Dispatch is so important in your customer journey and will determine how good the through-put of the shop is. Don’t let anyone Hot Potato your customers.
