Jim Bell’s 5 “must-have” worksheets
Our best practices worksheets are a hot item. Here’s a recap of five of them you can download from the Canadian auto dealer website and why you need them.
Both James and I started our careers in the automotive industry pulling wrenches. We both developed a strong dislike for long meetings, make work projects and useless pieces of paper. Our five worksheets are designed to be easy to use, reduce operating expenses and increase your bottom line. We should say at this point that computers are great working tools, but putting pen to paper using these forms creates more accountability by making you really look and understand the numbers.
Service Adviser Route Sheet
If your service advisor is writing 25 work orders a day keeping track of commitments made to the customer is vital, especially when trying to avoid missed promised times. This information is on the computer screen, but having a visual route sheet on the desk is very effective. When the work is finished and the customer is called, use a highlighter and mark it off. There are other advantages to using this form that will take too long to explain here.
Priority Return Sheet
Spending money on policy is just the cost of doing business and if you are spending less than two per cent of monthly gross profit then maybe you don’t feel you need to use this sheet — but two per cent is often a hell of a lot of money! Remember you’re spending 100 cent dollars in this account. Use the three C’s: Complaint, Cause and Correction, to identify why you spent the money. If a high percentage of the dollars spent is being tracked back to a particular service advisor or technician, then it is easier to plug the holes!
Quick Service Control Sheet
We often get told by service managers: “We don’t have time to measure incremental sales from the lubrication rack.” This is just one example of where we use this sheet, to create staff accountability. We give it to the lubrication technician and tell them to record every day how many oil changes they performed and what they sold, then give it to the service manager. This worksheet is a very effective working tool and requires almost zero effort from the service manager, provided it is used as designed. We are looking to increase sales in air filters, bulbs, alignments, belts and a whole lot more!
Walk and Pop Report Card
We looked at least a dozen “Walk and Pop” forms before designing this one. Some were far too detailed and would never get completed properly. Then others listed items impossible to visually inspect and obviously designed by people who had never been a service advisor. We don’t buy it when service advisors tell us they don’t have the time to do a good walk and pop. We figure it slows down the transaction, identifies any vehicle damage and creates at least an additional .2 hours per work order. If your advisor writes 20 orders per day X 21 working days, that is 420 work orders X .2 = 84 additional hours per month
X a door rate of $98= an additional $8,232 dollars per month or $98,784 per year. So
they had better make time!
Crunch the Numbers
Filling out this sheet every now and then can be a real eye opener, as it is often rare for most service managers to have a good handle on these numbers. As the big jobs diminish, it is in the stores’ best interest to pick up the crumbs that will keep a healthy bottom line. Several years ago we surveyed tire shops to find that their penetration of tire sales to alignments ran as high as 80 per cent. Then we checked with some dealerships to find they were running at around four per cent, despite owning the very best and very expensive wheel alignment equipment. This form will help you reduce legitimate dollars we often leave on the table and increase the bottom line dollars.
There is a catch
Every one of these forms can work more effectively than anything you will find on a computer screen. The challenge is in developing an easy process to ensure they are used every day on every return visit.
A classic example is where we work with the staff and get a complete buy in on using the priority return sheet. After a week you can see the policy dollars start to decline. Yet a month later we often return to find the policy dollars climbing back up and the sheet is only being used sporadically if at all. We ask the service manager:
“Did the control sheet work?” And his reply generally is “yes!” So we ask: “Then why did you stop using them?” And the answer was: “No idea!”
The classic excuse is we were busy and did not have the time to fill out the sheets. So we check and find that the previous month the hours per work order were down, the policy ran high, the parts to labour ratio dropped and on top of that, they only produced 5.5 hour per day per bay.
Often if you have a problem and you measure it, then you no longer have a problem. Remember in the service department you either sell hours or eat them. Success is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. Try these best practice forms and tell us what you think. If all else fails we would love to come do a project in your store.
