Accurate technician punching improves productivity tracking, warranty recovery, profitability and repair-order accountability
A service manager should make reviewing completed work orders before they are filed part of their daily routine. The information managers can uncover by doing this is invaluable, whether the work is warranty or customer pay.
Before we get into that, let’s step back for a second and ask a simple question: do your technicians punch properly?
Many service managers will immediately say yes. But let’s look at it more closely.
If you have a technician with 45 per cent productivity and 195 per cent efficiency, you have a problem.
“Well Wolfgang, this tech has 195 per cent efficiency — he’s a rock star!”
Is he really?
That is a major red flag for me. It tells me the technician was only punched onto repair orders 45 per cent of the time they were physically in the shop, and when they did get a job, they supposedly completed it at nearly double the allotted time. Bullshit. Either the technician is cutting corners or not punching properly. Period.
Improper technician punching is a problem at many dealerships I work with.
Once assigned a job, the technician should punch onto the specific line they are beginning work on. If diagnostic time is required, that should be a separate punch.
What we have to understand is that a work order is a contract between the dealership and the customer. Punching properly is the technician’s responsibility. I don’t care whether the work is warranty or customer pay — the punches have to be accurate.
A technician should arrive at the dealership and immediately punch in on the DMS. The system now recognizes that technician as available for work. This is especially important for shops using automatic dispatch.
Once assigned a job, the technician should punch onto the specific line they are beginning work on. If diagnostic time is required, that should be a separate punch.
To illustrate the point, let’s say a customer comes in with a low coolant warning message on the instrument cluster. The technician discovers the water pump is leaking.
Replacing the water pump on that vehicle pays 2.5 hours. The technician punches onto the “replace leaking water pump” operation, gets paid 2.5 hours, and the dealership bills warranty for 2.5 hours.
Now let’s look at the same repair with proper punching procedures.
The technician first checks for fault codes because the water pump is electronic and the coolant warning light is illuminated. That requires a separate diagnostic punch. The manufacturer allows 0.5 hours for the fault-code check.
Next, the technician performs a pressure test under another separate punch. The manufacturer allows another 0.5 hours.
Then the technician punches again for the actual water pump replacement, which pays 2.5 hours.
Now the technician earns 3.5 hours instead of only 2.5.
The same principle applies to customer-pay repairs. Too often, service advisors fail to charge for diagnostic time. As a dealership, we have every right to charge for diagnostics. We spend significant money on equipment and technician training, and we need to recover those costs.
Service advisors should be coached on how to explain diagnostic charges to customers. A best practice is to initially charge one hour of diagnostic time. If the technician requires additional time, the advisor can contact the customer for authorization.
In my shop, service advisors had to calculate their billing efficiency on the back of every repair order. They took the labour sold on the job and divided it by the actual technician time invested.
If the result was below 100 per cent, the advisor had to come to me, as the service manager, and explain why before the customer picked up the vehicle.
If you want to improve diagnostic time recovery, implement this process.
I have also heard technicians say they need to “run time” because otherwise their efficiency numbers will exceed warranty allowances.
Technicians cannot be punched onto and actively working on two vehicles at the same time.
When reviewing work orders, I have seen punches showing front brake pads and rotors completed in 0.1 hours. That is impossible. And heaven forbid a customer is involved in an accident and tells a judge the brakes were just serviced at your dealership. If your documentation shows a 0.1-hour punch, good luck.
A technician also cannot physically be in the workshop more hours than they were actually present, so productivity cannot exceed 100 per cent. If your reports show technician productivity above 100 per cent, you have a serious punching problem.
The first thing I would do is place a whiteboard in the shop and instruct technicians to record every job where they believe they need to “run time.” Then I would review the warranty manual to determine whether their concern is legitimate.
Punching properly is the technician’s responsibility. Making sure it happens is yours.
I would also have technicians calculate their own productivity and efficiency every morning using the previous day’s punches. Look for gaps in punching activity.
If there is an unexplained one-hour gap, ask the technician: “Where were you from 9:15 a.m. to 10:05 a.m.?”
They will say they were working.
You can respond that, according to their punches, they were not.
Even though you know they were working, the point gets made quickly.
Technicians will correct the behaviour because they do not want to sit down every day reviewing missed punches.
Fix productivity and efficiency, and your other KPIs will improve as well. Trust me.
