How To Dispatch Work To Techs Without Causing Chaos

Welcome everybody to Service Drive Revolution and your Friday drive by. This is where we answer your questions. I'm Chris Collins and this is Christian.

Hello, everyone.

Let me tell you right away how you get your question answered on the show is you call in and you ask your question on like a. It's an old. What do you call those? Voicemail machine.

Answering machine.

We love it when we come into the office and our answering machine a little red light flashing and then you, you rewind it and then you play it.

The first two messages are usually about our car's extended warranty or.

Yeah, do you want Viagra?

Yeah.

The call I get a lot is, this is no joke. Haven't you been with me when I get it?

No, I don't remember.

So I think Chris Collins is a common name because. And this is how it goes every time they go something about a lawsuit versus the Catholic church for that. I was like a molested ultra boy.

Yeah.

And then when I say no, and they're like, are you sure? And I'm like, yeah, I'm sure.

You're in denial.

Then they say, oh, then did you have a screen put in your heart or something? Like they jump right to open hearts. They got a list. Yeah, but somehow I'm on that list. But to call the magic answering machine, it's 8 3-3 3, ask SDR. So that's 8,000, 333 ask SDR. And if we play your question on the big show, we'll send you a swag bag. Now let's jump right into our first question of the day.

So the summary is, how do we effectively, with fairness and teamwork, inspired dispatch work from two service advisors without any involvement of the service manager to eight technicians without confusion or mistrust or chaos or lack of communication. And let me give you some context to this. We've always run our heavy duty truck locations with one service advisor in one of our locations. We're actually going to now have two service advisors that we're hiring at the same time with eight technicians. And we do have several layers. We do not have several layers of people such as car dealerships with dispatchers and foremans and whatnot. So our service advisors greet the customers, they write up the trucks, they schedule and dispatch the work assignments. Technicians, really. The service advisor orchestrates workflow input and assignment to the techs to follow up to completion. And like I said, now we're growing to two brand new service advisors at our location. We have a service manager, but we would rather have them be focused on other areas. And I'm concerned about how to manage priority workflow and what will get assigned to technicians. To add to the context, we manage our own fleet of trucks. We have five or six hundred trucks that we manage along with retail customers coming in. So not everything is ranked on a first in first worked on basis. And it has to do also whether parts are available, if it's our fleet, if it gets priority or what the technician is available to do or understands. And there's many other variables as well. But I guess what I'm wondering is if you have any experience in this situation and how you prioritize the jobs, is there a lead service advisor and how will all the customers get treated fairly, how to get the jobs dispatched in a team effort where we are one team and both of the service advisors are not fighting against each other. In the end, I want the service advisors to manage the whole process from the write up to dispatch follow up to completion. But what's the best way to go about it? Listen to all your podcasts. I've listened to your virtual training, read all your books and I don't think I've ever come across this scenario or this topic about dispatching work from service advisors. I'm afraid also that you have two service advisors. One's going to take a dominant role over the other and just really want to teamwork. I'm aware of the first in first repaired solution or maybe even teams where you have four technicians reporting to one service advisor, but just looking really for collaboration. So if you can help me, that'd be great. And I love it. Service drive revolution.

I always find this question sort of funny because he's kind of doing it when he's asking the question is this. So every time I say something I just want you to say we tried that, it didn't work.

Okay, go ahead.

Okay, so what you could do is.

We tried that, it didn't work.

Yeah, well you could, we tried that, it didn't work. Basically you can kind of make anything work. I mean we're here to serve the customer. And what I want is I want everybody to be passionate about serving the customer. Sometimes everybody might not get along, but the customer is the focus. Most of the time. If you go into an environment that everybody gets along, the results are really bad.

I do think that he said in that somewhere in the six minutes was that he did want it to be fair for the customer. So I think that there's a, there's a little guide here that I think he wants to do it for the right reasons.

But what is fair for the customer mean? Please go to the Chris Joan dictionary of terms. Does a customer drive in and say, God, I hope this experience is fair?

Yeah, I don't even think that the expectations are that high.

What would that even mean? Like what would a customer be thinking if they wanted it to be fair?

That they get the, the truck fixed. Right. And that they get it back in a reasonable amount of time that they can get back to working.

So in the grand scheme of things and what you mean is value. They want value for sure. So value in context to where, what they need. So how, how big of a role does the dispatching of the work play into the customer's perception? Do you think customers even know how the work is?

I think they have no clue. I think they actually believe that they bring their truck in, the work order gets written and it goes into the shop. I think that's what they probably believe.

We fix the customer experience by adding text, not by changing how the work is dispatched. Having more capacity is going to make the customer experience better. And whether you're dispatching, you have a dispatcher, you're throwing the repair orders in the alley, whatever, the mode of handing out the work is less relevant to your capacity in the shop because.

That'S more important to the customer experience. So dispatch plays a role in it, but I don't think that it's the predominant thing.

Yeah, I also think that maybe they've got to try a couple of different things and measure the results.

Okay, so this is what I would do in this scenario.

Is I would get a rack.

The one thing I don't know as a follow up is I don't know your skill level of text. So I'm going to assume in this scenario that your text pretty much.

Can do anything. Right. We don't have three different skill levels, which you don't see that often, but you do see it sometimes. Right. If I have different skill levels.

I would have two racks. So just keep that in mind. But let's, let's just go with one rack. So I'd have one rack, those like accordion file metal ones that you can put ros in. Right.

And I in the beginning would put it in or right outside the manager's office because I'd want them to perceive that you're seeing what's going on. The managers, you can move it later. But I also don't want people coming in and peeking.

Oh, trying to open book test.

I get it. Yeah. So then here's what what happens is the advisors come in and it's. There's kind of two rules of thumb here. One is.

First in, first out, kind of. But what, what priority do we need it? And so you're, you're going to have a rack of.

Just what priority do the advisors need it? And it's every other. So the advisors get every other. If one advisor is out of work, then the other one can kind of trumpet. You can label the, the different slots, the advisors, every other. Or you could say advisor. One advisor to what? You could do it that way too. But the advisors put them in order. No peaking. You come in, you grab the next job. If you're a tech and not a.

Really a lot of brain power in that.

I like that. No, but there's, there's, you know, there's going to be contingencies. So what if somebody.

Has a part that came in, does it go back in the rack or do you give it right to the tech? I give it to the tech. But now there's jobs in there. And the other advisor says, well, I need this one looked at. But you just gave that guy, that tech a job. So, you know, a little friction between the advisors doesn't scare me. They need to be professional and polite, but I don't know that I'm not looking for everybody to hold hands. I'm looking for everybody to care about the customer and to push productivity.

Yeah, yeah. If they're both pushing, that's the best.

That's what I would do. That's my answer. In most situations, that works. In some situations I would have two boards. Thank you for the question. We'll send you out some swag. Next question.

Hi, Chris, love the show. I've currently taken on a new role or new store as a service manager. I've always been in smaller stores. I'm now in a bit of a bigger store in a bigger city. And we have an internal service advisor that strictly writes internal work orders only. Just wondering if you have any pros or cons on having an internal advisor.

So I'm a big fan of internal advisors for a couple reasons. One is that it creates a better experience for the new and used car departments because if anybody that's written, well, anybody that's written service will understand. What I'm about to say is if you have a lot of customers, internal will always be secondary because you, you're okay with the used car manager yelling at you, but you don't want to disappoint Mrs. Jones. That came back for the third time, it's just how it is. So internal becomes a band aid or an afterthought most of the time.

Another thing that will happen is we'll use internal as a band aid because we're terrible at retaining customers or marketing or go and getting customers. So we'll use internal as a band aid there also. So separating them makes you really focus on the retail customer and focus on the internal customer. Understanding that, you know, not in today's market because it's very unique, but this won't last forever. So let's, let's pretend like it. It is a different environment with used cars.

What a used car is is a depreciating asset. So every day that used car isn't on the front line for sale, you're losing, you know, a percentage because it's going down in value, it's not going up.

So the sooner we can get them to the front line, the sooner we're going to sell it and the sooner we're going to get that customer in for service if it's the same make or, you know, if that's how your model works. So internal creates a better scenario for the retail customer, forces you to focus on retail customers. You can't use internal as a band aid and it gives the right experience for the internal customer, which is the new or used car departments. Now the other thing is an internal advisor can be somebody that's more clerical, they're more introverted. They're not. They're almost like, they can be like a warranty administrator in a sense. And you can pay less for that position. So it doesn't, you know, it doesn't have to be a commissioned position. Oftentimes the internal advisor, we will pay them on turn. So how quick the cars get to the front line. But they're more of a, of a party planner or an event coordinator than they are super organized. Yeah, A people person in that way because they're really only dealing with a couple people, your used car manager and the office, whatever.

And so you're going to save there. You also have an easier time finding used car techs. There's a lot of really good technicians out there that the technology's passed them by. But they can be great used car techs. And you can control your cost of labor too. So what happens a lot of times is in a shop that doesn't have an internal Advisor, you're giving PDIs to guys making $45 an hour, which makes no sense whatsoever. So you can control your cost by dedicating it also now in a scenario where you have a used car manager that goes and buys 50 cars at a time or whatever, sometimes you got to feed them to the shop and that's, that's just a part of doing business. But for the most part you can dedicate them. And I think the numbers for used cars, probably for every 60 used cars, you need, you need a dedicated tech.

Kind of the number 16amonth. Yeah. Retail, not wholesale. Right. So most of the time, not in the current environment, but in previous environments, if you were selling 60, you might have had 80 or 90 come through and you kick 20 plus that you're saying aren't for us. So that technician, you know, is pretty busy fixing and checking that sort of thing. So the other thing with internals, you can run them at night, you can run them off site. They don't, you know, they can do a used car inspection. Parts can pull all the parts, put it in the car and then it can go back. It doesn't have to take up a stall in the main building sometimes also. So it gives you a lot of flexibility there. So we're a big fan of internal for, for all those reasons. Did I leave anything out?

No, but I don't think I've ever seen it where you have a dedicated internal advisor, specifically an internal team is the best. I think that happens. But I've never seen a store set that up and not have a dramatic reduction in turnaround time. It is the right way.

Their CP sales will go up too.

Yeah. Because then advisors aren't chasing internals when they should be calling customers.

Techs do better inspections. They're just, you know, they're looking for more stuff. But if they know, you know, in a lot of shops the service manager like starts everybody out with an internal. So the techs come in and they start with an internal. If, you know you gotta have a bunch of internals waiting, how well are you gonna check the brakes or, you know, I don't know, it just, you see that the quality of inspections go up when they're just doing retail in the main shop.

So.

Great question.

I like it. Me too.

That was fun.

That was great. Not the best questions of all time, though.

I might have overshot a little bit, but good. Yeah.

Respectable.

Super respectable. Yeah. That's a great word. Not the best.

So thank you. We hope you have a great week and we will see you next time on Service Driver Revolution. Thanks for watching this week's drive By. I hope we gave you something to think about over the weekend. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the Bell icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 8333 asksDr and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333 ask SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.

Sam.