I'm not really sure this column is for you. That doesn't mean you shouldn't read it. It just means that after you read it you should probably laminate it or slide it into one of those clear plastic 81/2-by-11-inch, three-hole binder inserts, and then place it on your counter so your customers can read it, too. You see, I'm hoping it turns out to be as much for their benefit as it is for yours. With any kind of luck, it just may help them understand the "nature of the beast," the realities of the world we share and why it is sometimes so difficult to offer them a realistic completion time for the automotive service work they may need or may have just authorized. With any kind of luck, it may help you understand how and why things become so stressful at the shop every afternoon as time compresses and the day winds down for just about everyone else but you.
You see the problems associated with "Ready When Promised" almost always revolve around workflow, systems, process and procedures - issues most of us deal with every day with varying degrees of success. If I am up to the task, what follows will be a clear and comprehensive explanation of how service work moves through a professional automotive service environment. If nothing else, it may just explain why realistic scheduling isn't always very realistic.
If you were to blueprint all the steps involved in bringing a car or truck in for service, most people would be astounded at the number of touch-points and decision trees there are. To the majority of our customers and far too many service dealers, these touch-points and decision trees remain invisible, and therein may lie the biggest part of the problem. Perhaps, if we had to diagram these service interactions, indicating where and how things could possibly move in different directions, we would have a better idea of when and how things can go wrong. If nothing else, we might be able to develop a more coherent explanation of the "why" involved in why things fall apart. Because when they do fall apart, it too often results in a disappointing and exasperating experience for everyone involved.
In a perfect service interaction, the customer would call, make an appointment and then drop the vehicle off at the appointed time. The parts would either be on the shelf or they would have been ordered just prior to the vehicle's arrival and delivered either just before or just after the technician was ready to install them. In either case, the parts, the technician and the vehicle would all come together at very close to the same moment in time. And, of course, the parts we are talking about would be the "right" parts.
The technician most qualified to perform the service would be on-site and ready to go to work on the vehicle. A 3.5-hour job would take 3.5 hours, give or take a few minutes. When that job was completed, it could be invoiced and the technician assigned to another vehicle. We could schedule the appropriate amount of work for each technician in the shop based upon his or her skill, experience and the ability to complete the work in the appointed time. And, the number of vehicles to be worked on and the work to be accomplished would match the number of hours the technician was onsite and available.
But, our world is anything but perfect, and few service interactions really work the way they are supposed to. In fact, more often than not, they look more like this: Average Automotive Inc. has three technicians. There is no work-in-progress to be completed Monday morning, but there are 24 hours of service and mechanical work scheduled: eight hours for each of the three technicians.
While most appointments at Average Automotive are made for the day with no specific completion time given other than "that evening," one of the appointments is scheduled to arrive Monday morning at eight o'clock and must be ready by twelve noon. Fortunately, the technician assigned to the vehicle - the technician best-suited to do that particular job - is there and ready to go to work. There is only one problem: The motorist is not there. The kids were sick … the alarm didn't go off … the new puppy had to go to the vet … or, the vehicle wouldn't start and they won't arrive until nine.
The technician assigned to the phantom vehicle is anxious. He or she sees the other two techs already working and understands that reaching their production goals will be difficult, if not impossible, without a car in the service bay. The owner/manager/shop foreman understands that you can't have a technician standing around for very long, let alone a full hour, especially when there is a full eight hours of work scheduled for each of the three technicians employed at Average Auto. Consequently, the technician is cycled onto a different vehicle 20 minutes after the original vehicle was scheduled to arrive and goes to work on that vehicle almost immediately.
Unfortunately, the vehicle's owner is still committed to a twelve o'clock pick-up whether that expectation is realistic or not. They have a one o'clock business lunch scheduled and their client isn't going to want to know what went wrong or why if rescheduling is necessary.
It is now nine o'clock in the morning and all three technicians are working. The technician originally assigned to the vehicle that arrived late is now working on some regularly scheduled maintenance left over from a previously scheduled 60,000 mile service: a transmission flush and fluid exchange and a cooling system service. Each of these services should take just under an hour - 1.6 hours for both. The technician can actually set both services up to run simultaneously and can have the 1.6 hours worth of work completed in under an hour if everything goes well. More importantly, that technician does not have to be there while the two machines are working and can cycle back on to the job originally assigned.
As the owner/manager/shop-foreman of Average Automotive, you take a deep breath. There is hope; a light at the end of the tunnel. Just about the time things are beginning to move back on-track, however, you realize the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train! The technician working on both services and now back on the vehicle originally assigned that morning has just discovered three other service needs - two of them serious, one of them critical and all of them requiring more time than originally scheduled. One of these service needs will be much less expensive if performed in conjunction with the work already begun. You estimate these additional service needs, which includes checking on the price and availability of the necessary parts and takes an additional 10 to 15 minutes, and then call the customer ... first, at home, then at the office, then on their cell phone … all without success. You follow these failed attempts with a page and then, finally an e-mail, all to no avail.
The alarms go off on the two flushing machines, and the technician finishes off the service work. In the meantime, you find out that the parts ordered for your Number Two technician have arrived, and they are wrong. This occurs just as your Number Three tech walks over with what's left of a broken quick-disconnect heater hose fitting in his hand; a fitting that snapped off and will require removal of the vehicle's intake manifold to properly repair.
The job originally scheduled for completion at 12 o'clock started a half-hour to 40 minutes late and can't be completed on time despite what the owner wants to believe. Your Number Two tech will have to move on to the next job as he or she waits for the right parts to be delivered. Meanwhile, you are desperately in the process of trying to reach the owner of your Number Three tech's vehicle for authorization to remove the intake manifold, a process that will add at least another three or four hours of work to your already crumbling schedule. Just as you think things under control (a dangerous illusion), you find out that one of your three technicians forgot to order, or forgot to tell you to order, a critical part buried deep in the repair process. Naturally, it's a part that will have to be ordered and for which you will have to wait before going on with the job.
You pick up the phone to see what you can do to expedite things just as your "12 o'clock" calls to find out how you are doing. They let you know just how frustrated and angry they are with you and your performance despite their complicity in taking the vehicle out-of-the-loop. At the same time you are desperately trying to manage this client's expectations, you are concurrently dealing with two, or three, or four, or five other vehicles and their related crises, all of which have the effect of dropping vehicles in and out of your schedule.
By five o'clock that evening, you feel like a Chinese acrobat spinning six or seven plates on those tall, willowy poles. You are working diligently to keep them all spinning, knowing all the time that regardless of how hard you try, sooner or later at least one of them will come crashing to the ground.
Realistically, there is no answer. Unless you are doing light service work only - formula work, taking a fixed and known amount of time - vehicles will fall in and out of your schedule. That schedule must remain fluid because life is fluid, and you and I will have to convey that message to our clients and customers. Parts will sometimes come in late, wrong and sometimes not at all. Technicians will get stuck in traffic or call in sick, dogs will hide your customer's car keys and unscheduled events will suddenly appear on your schedule.
Times associated with most repairs are estimated times. That means they are not cast in concrete or carved in granite, and they certainly do not reflect the universe of things that can and do go wrong day-by-day, hour-by-hour.
It is our responsibility to help manage our customer's expectations; it is our responsibility to help insure they are realistic, reasonable. The only way to do that is to be aware of the countless number of things that can go wrong, and then to eliminate as many of those dangers as possible. I know only one way to do that effectively, and that is to keep the customer in the loop whether or not they want to be there.
Can you tame the beast? It doesn't matter. You're going to have to get in the ring anyway. Either that, or leave the circus. But, you can anticipate what can go wrong if you let it. You can know the beast, confront the beast, and maybe even subdue the beast every once in a while. And, know what? Some days that's almost enough!
