Reporting is essential for understanding what your ROI is, right? So why then are we wasting several hours of your managers time creating reports (using Excel) in the service lane?

More often than not the reason managers are creating their reports mainly due to their not knowing how to pull the correct report. Albeit, there are multiple vendors the dealer works with on a daily basis. However, there is a way of collectively aggregating all of the data using the vendor's platform.

Many if not all vendors have substantial reporting options available within their platforms. And I understand that there is such a thing called analysis paralysis. But, it is best to review your essential vendors - i.e. marketing, appointments, email collection and compile all of the “performance” reports into one cohesive report.

In doing so, it allows you to understand better how the vendors and services interrelate in so far as how they work together. For example, in the service lane, a dealer wants to understand better how many appointments are being booked online.

Who keeps track of appointments on an Excel sheet manually entering them? If you are using a manual report - often having human errors - then you are not getting the whole picture.

Whereas, if you are using the vendor's reports to analyze web traffic, conversion, appointments, and show rate vs. the average dollar per RO for both warranty and customer pay, you can make a much more sound decision. A decision that can have a profound impact on overall sales in the lane.

So while you might already keep track of this using Excel. I do recommend working with your vendors! In fact, when is the last time you called your vendor's account manager asking them to come in or give an update?

Do you still use Excel? How do you manage the monthly reporting?