If you’re the service department of a car dealership, you hire mechanics because they are great at what they do. The better and more efficient they are, the more profitable you are. But during routine inspections, what happens when the technicians’ handwriting on their inspection unit set forms is so sloppy that the office staff keeps making mistakes inputting the information into the system? This creates inefficiency and error that drain your productivity—and profits.
If this were your client, what would you do? Your first thought might be to suggest a basic penmanship class, but even the best penmanship in the world wouldn’t completely resolve the issue. Multi-point inspection sheets require automotive technicians to do a lot of writing, which, no matter how neat the technician’s handwriting might be, is a slow and manual process.
The dealership turned to its print distributor for a solution, and the distributor turned to Wise.
A Better Unit Set Form Design
When we reviewed the end user’s inspection sheets, we understood the challenge. The way the unit-set forms were designed, the technicians had to write out detailed descriptions of each condition individually, everything from the engine filter to the drive belts and cooling system hoses. Plus, they were continually removing and then putting their gloves back on in order to write in those details as they moved throughout the inspection. This was clearly a cumbersome, time-consuming process. Then the office staff had interpret the technician’s handwriting, and if they got it wrong, go back and fix it.
We had an idea. We couldn’t fix the technicians’ penmanship, but we could work with the distributor to provide a different style of inspection sheet. We suggested transitioning to a different design with each element of the inspection printed in one column, alongside check boxes in red, yellow, and green columns : green = OK; yellow = needs service; red = immediate attention. This allows the technician to simply check the correct boxes to indicate the level of service required for each element.
The dealership loved the idea, and implemented it right away. Because Wise custom-designed these forms, we were also able to add the dealer’s logo, address, and phone number to improve the branding and professionalism over the off-the-shelf forms the dealership was previously using.
Simple Redesign Gets Big Results
The results?
- The productivity of both the technician and service writer increased.
- The accuracy of data input and communication to the customer increased significantly.
- The distributor became the hero.
The annual order size is $2,000+, but more importantly, the customer was thrilled, and dealership is now providing referrals to that distributor for other car dealerships in the area. Plus, in the future, the dealership can easily add cross-sell messaging (“Don’t let maintenance surprises sneak up on you! Schedule your regular service check now!”) to increase sales.
This is a great example of how great partnerships can result in great things all the way around.
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