Recently I was sitting in an office with a service manager and a few advisors. Someone walked in and said, "The balancer's not working again." The service manager's shoulders kind of sagged as he responded, "OK. I'll call someone."

He then told me the balancing machine was 25 years old and on its last legs. It had been repaired numerous times but the dealer wouldn't approve the purchase of a new one. "You're kidding," I said. He wasn't.

At another dealership I visited, the alignment machine wasn't working. Their options were to spend $1,000 to fix it for the umpteenth time, or to invest $3,000 for some better parts to fix it. But they really needed a new machine, which granted, could cost up to $60,000. However, you guessed it, the dealer wouldn't approve a new machine.

Now, most dealers I know enjoy the fruits of their success and there's nothing wrong with that. They have big houses, wear expensive suits, several cars, some have boats and some even have a plane (or at least they travel first class)! But I can't help thinking that the money to buy all these fun toys should be money that's left over after investing in critical equipment repairs and/or new equipment for your business.

Yes, investing in a new balancing or alignment machine is expensive; however, it would allow your employees to do their jobs faster, more efficiently and with better results. Not to mention that nice, new equipment is a boost to employee morale and helps to improve customer satisfaction.

In another dealership, the printer in the F&I office was so old the employees had to smack the heck out of it in order to get it to print. Is that a good image for your customers, while they're eagerly waiting for the deal to be done so they can drive off in their new car?

There's an old proverb, you have to use the right tool for the job. You want your employees to dig a ditch, but you expect them to do it with their hands, not a shovel.

When you own a car, at some point the cost of the repairs passes a tipping point. You realize that it's cheaper to buy a new car, or even if it's not cheaper, the risk of breaking down by the side of the road isn't worth it to you. The time, effort and aggravation of having to maintain an old car isn't worth it to you, so you decide to invest in a new car. 

Are you using these same calculations with outdated equipment in your dealership? What's the time, effort and aggravation of your employees who have to deal with this old equipment? Anything?

Oh, and the computers. My goodness. You want to talk about pain and hurt. How many times have I been working with someone to help them maximize their DMS software, and I say click on that button.

Then we wait. Spinning circles go around and around, as a six-year-old computer tries to process software designed for a computer processor that's probably 50X or 100X faster.

Now, I realize that throwing money at problems isn't always the answer. When it comes to equipment, you have to be able to define the difference between a complaint and a real problem.

A complaint should not always be treated the same as a problem, unless you first verify it is a problem. This requires coming down to the ground level and either figuring it out yourself, or having an expert figure it out for you. Are the balancing machine and alignment machine really beyond repair? How much have you spent repairing them in the last two years, and does it make more sense to buy new?

Is the printer really too old? What is the cost of lost productivity and a negative customer image, versus having to spend $400 for a new printer? Same with computers. A nice, new computer costs less than $1,000 these days and would probably literally double or triple your employees' productivity. But even if it doesn't, wouldn't the cost be worth it just to ease the aggravation experienced by your employees, having to deal with old and outdated equipment on a daily basis?

Sometimes I hear people say things that get me pretty riled up. One of the phrases that bothers me most is "That's not my job." Whenever I hear this, I immediately know that person is not a team player, bad for morale and a poor representative of their company.

I was boarding a plane not too long ago, and saw an older fellow who was having trouble closing the overhead compartment bin. There was no flight attendant nearby, but a gate agent happened to be on the plane. When the man asked the gate agent for help, the gate agent said that wasn't his gig, or something like that.

Really? How hard is to go out of your way for five seconds and help an airline customer who is, by the way, the reason that you have a job in the first place?

Recently I was at a dealership and a customer wanted to return a part, but he had lost the receipt. The parts guy basically told the customer that he didn't know how to find the receipt and didn't know how to return a part without a receipt, so he couldn't help him.

Really? Here's a tip. If you don't whether something is allowed, if you don't know how to do something or if you don't know the answer to a customer's questions, go find someone that does know. Your ignorance should never be the customer's problem, and it won't kill you to learn something new.

Here's another tip. If you work at a dealership, your job is always, always to take care of the customer. It doesn't matter how mean that customer is being to you; chances are they're only being nasty because they didn't get the proper customer care in the first place.

Just because a particular task isn't written in your job description doesn't mean that it's not your job. Your job is to always chip in and help your teammates if they need it. This doesn't mean you're being taken advantage of or that you're a doormat, or that you're overworking because you're doing other peoples' jobs.

Another version of this phrase is "That's above my pay grade." If you're not authorized to make a decision, find someone who is. You might not be an expert in everything, but you probably know who is, so go ask them.

The definition of teamwork is to work together as a team in order to achieve a goal. At a dealership, you have many tasks and responsibilities, but your only real goal is to keep the customer happy. Your second most important goal is to help your teammates.

It might not be in your job description to pick up trash, but if there's trash lying around in in your dealership, pick it up. It might not be in your job description to help solve a problem in your department, but it's your job to help the dealership you work for to be successful. That's why you were hired. It's also good for job security.

I recently had a dealer ask me to help him solve a problem. He was losing about 10 sets of car keys every month. Apparently, his employees couldn't keep track of them. Now, I worked in dealerships for 25 years and I never once lost a car key. How does this happen? Pure laziness and lack of a process.

Coming up with a process to fix the problem is easy. Create a sign-out sheet for employees to sign the keys out and sign them back in. Hold the employees accountable for following the process. Sometimes you have to create negative consequences in order for a process to stick. If you find out there's a particular employee who flaunts the process, it's probably time to part ways with that employee.

All this advice comes with a caveat: it's not always the employees' fault. As dealers and managers, you have to continually mentor people. We can't expect employees to give us the results we want if we don't properly train them. Sometimes employees genuinely don't know what they're supposed to be doing, because nobody bothered to tell them.

You might think it's just common sense to know how to take care of a customer. But sadly, not all people were taught or were born with common sense, so they genuinely don't know. Never assume that an employee should know how to do something.

The lesson here is that when you hear an employee utter that most annoying of phrases, "That's not my job," don't automatically place all the blame on the employee. Ask yourself, have you done a good enough job of training this person to understand what their job really is? If not, you have some work to do. If the employee knows better but just has a bad attitude, it might be time to look for a new employee.

Some dealership employees forget they work in the service business.

Recently, while I was talking to a service manager, one of his employees sent a message that a customer needed to talk to him. The manager shrugged and said something like, "I'm on my time. I don't care." He then proceeded to complain about customers who dropped their cars off early, before the service lane was open, and had the audacity to want to be let into the service department. Not a chance! This service manager made the customers wait until 7:00 am exactly.

Wow. I wonder if the owner of that store knows that decisions are being made daily based on what's convenient for his service manager, as opposed to what's convenient for the customer.

The scary thing about this kind of attitude is that it's probably trickling down from the manager to all of his service employees. If this is the example that the manager sets on how to treat customers, how do you think his employees treat customers?

Dealership employees, this is a fact of life. You volunteered to work in a service industry. Meaning, your entire business model revolves around making and keeping customers happy.

Is it really that big a deal to make sure that coffee is ready by 6:45 am instead of 7:00 am? Is it a huge hardship to unlock the door, greet the customers and explain to them that although you're not quite ready for them yet, they are welcome to sit in the lounge and have some coffee while they wait?

If you invited friends over for dinner, would you make them wait outside until you had dinner ready? Of course you wouldn't. You should treat your customers the same way that you treat friends and family (assuming that you like your family).

I traveled to another dealership with a small parking lot and no parking spaces around the dealership. As I drove onto the lot, I saw an empty parking space with a huge sign stating "NO PARKING. Dealership Vehicles Only."

Really? Having a space for your customers is not as important as having a space for your shuttle van or parts truck? Those vehicles do not need to be that close to the building. Your premium parking spaces should be reserved for your customers, not your employees.

If you work at a dealership, the only reason you have a job is because of the customers—even the mean and nasty ones. So, it's time to start re-thinking priorities. Every single thing you do every day should be for the benefit and convenience of your customers, not for your own convenience or benefit.

Oh, and that includes not dropping f-bombs in front of customers. You are in a professional workplace with colleagues, not hanging out at a bar with your buddies.

Mr. Dealer, if you're wondering why you don't have more loyal customers, start with observing how your employees treat customers. That includes looking in the mirror and examining your own attitude and treatment towards customers. Do you treat them like family and friends, or like a major inconvenience? If it's the latter, an attitude adjustment is in short order.

It's 7:00 a.m. and your dealership's service lane is filled with customers and their vehicles. As a service advisor, your job is to greet these customers, check in their vehicles and get them on their way as fast as possible.

What happens when your phone rings? When you're in the service lane and the phone rings, you have two choices. You can choose to answer it and ignore the customer in front of you or the customers who are waiting to see you. You can choose not to answer the phone and ignore the customer who is calling to ask for a price quote or set an appointment.

Neither of these options are ideal. In fact, both are horrible.

The only way to fix this problem is to have someone else answer the service phones. I know many advisors won't like this suggestion. But trust me, you are losing more money by trying to retain control of the phones than if you relinquish control to someone else who is properly trained for this important job.

In case you're wondering, the service manager is not the right person to answer the phones. He or she should also be in the service drive at 7:00 a.m. to ensure everything is going smoothly.

That means someone else has to be trained how to answer service phones. I don't care if you outsource to a BDC, train a receptionist or hire a part-time person for this. It's too important and needs to be done.

Here's what I recommend. For the first two and a half hours of the day, service advisors should not have access to the phones. Same with end of day. From 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., or as long as there are customers in the service lane, don't let advisors answer phones or return calls. Their job during this time is to take care of the customers returning to pick their vehicles up, which includes reviewing the bill and ensuring the vehicle is returned promptly.

In order for this to happen, you need to train someone how to schedule service appointments. This is not rocket science.

If your labor ops are set up properly, the amount of time it takes to complete a repair will be in the system. When a customer calls to ask about a brake job, whoever answers the phone will be able to see that it takes two hours to complete the brake job and schedule accordingly.

If you're booking appointments properly, color-coded time blocks on the schedule make it easy to prevent double booking or overbooking.

Giving price quotes for repair work is also not a concern if you are using Service Pricing Guides (SPG) and have your labor op codes set up properly. If you're not sure how to do this, your DMS vendor can help you through setup.

I know many dealers will claim it's not practical to add someone to the payroll just to answer phones for a few hours per day. I disagree. When service advisors are responsible for answering phones, money is being blown out the door from these lost opportunities:

1) Review and discuss additional repair work that a customer in the service lane might need

2) Review and discuss additional repair work that a customer on the phone might need

When you try to take care of two people at the same time, you lose opportunities with both.

It's the service manager's job to take the right people, put them in the right place and create the right processes. In the service department, phones are a huge priority. When this process is handled correctly, you can schedule more appointments, generate more revenue and increase your customer satisfaction index (CSI) score, which qualifies you for more incentives from your manufacturer. It's a win-win for everyone.

In my job I travel and work with many dealerships, and when I say many, I mean a lot. So I get to see firsthand what really happens in dealerships, as opposed to what dealers think is happening.

My specialty is fixed ops, and lately, I’ve noticed an oversight at several dealerships that’s driving me crazy. For whatever reason, some service advisors are not getting customers’ signatures on repair orders (ROs) when the vehicle is dropped off.

This is a big no-no!

ROs are legal contracts between your dealership and your customers. If a customer verbally authorizes a $300 repair bill but doesn’t sign the RO, they could easily come back and say they never approved that amount. If they decide to dispute their bill, your dealership loses in a court of law.

Years ago, when I was a service director, a customer disputed a $3,000 repair bill. We actually had the customer’s signature, but as you know, the RO legally must include the words “customer states” or “customer requests.” On the RO in question, the service advisor had abbreviated the words into “Cust sts.” The judge said there was no reasonable way to know that “Cust sts” means “Customer states” and so, therefore we lost the claim. No kidding.

That’s how meticulous you have to be with paperwork. A missing signature is as glaring as a neon sign. Sorry, you lose!

When I ask service advisors why they fail to get customer signatures, I get more excuses than you’d hear at a group meeting of Procrastinators Anonymous. It was busy, the customer was in a hurry and took off, what’s the big deal, we have their credit card on file, they paid their bill, I get the warranty ones signed, etc.

Everyone repeat after me, “Excuses are lies we tell ourselves so that it doesn’t have to be our fault.”

ROs must be signed when the customer drops their vehicle off. It’s unacceptable to wait until the customer picks their vehicle up to have them sign off on the RO.

Letting this rule slide sometimes sends you down a slippery slope to lost profits.

If you don’t create a habit by doing it every time, there’s a good chance that one day you’ll forget to have it done on a high-dollar warranty RO and it will come back to bite you in the butt. Say the customer needs a new engine before the warranty is up, and the engine costs you $3,000.

Then, two months later the manufacturer does a warranty audit and discovers that the customer never signed the RO. Oops. You think they’re going to let that slide? Not a chance. They’re going to charge the entire claim back. This happens more than you might think.

The only acceptable signatures are as follows:

-Ink signature on a paper RO

-Electronic signature on a mobile tablet

-Early bird drop envelope with a signed pre-authorization form

There are no other acceptable methods for a RO to be signed.

If this oversight is happening in your dealership, you’re in legal jeopardy.

If you believe this would never happen in your dealership, think again. Go on, just for kicks, go through all of your ROs daily for a week to see if all of them are signed.

If you find that some of them aren’t signed, you’ve got a problem. Address it with the service advisors. Let them know you’ll be checking on a daily basis to ensure all ROs are signed. Be sure to follow through on your promise.

When you get to a point where you feel confident the customer signatures will always be there, you can stop checking daily. But I still recommend doing random spot checks. Don’t fool yourself into believing that you’ll never have to check any more. You should always check on occasion.

This is another reason why I recommend a mobile check-in and MPI process. With a mobile tablet, the last step of the check-in process is the customer signature. You can’t start the job without the signature, so it’s virtually guaranteed that your dealership will be protected.

When dealership management system (DMS) vendors introduced auto dispatch years ago, many service managers tried it and quickly gave it up. The first auto dispatch systems were buggy and complicated, so avoidance by service personnel was understandable.

As programming and features improved, auto dispatch became more user friendly. Many service managers tried it again. Perhaps slightly less quickly than before, most gave it up. In my experience, the three main reasons why the majority of service managers still aren't using auto dispatch today include:

• Service managers are afraid that if fully utilized, auto dispatch will replace a human being (meaning they'll have to fire a dispatcher, foreman or technician).  

• Some service technicians try to game the system and cherry-pick jobs, causing problems that require human intervention. The thinking goes, it's just easier to assign jobs manually in the first place.

• Setting up the system takes time. It can take weeks to set up initial parameters and months to transition from a manual system to a fully automated dispatch system.

So why bother at all? Auto dispatch assigns the right tech with the right skill to the right job at the right time. Service departments that successfully transition to auto dispatch see a 15-50 percent increase in labor hours sold. With auto dispatch, everyone in the service department makes more money. Once the transition to auto dispatch has been made, service personnel love auto dispatch.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Here are three reasons why your greatest fears about auto dispatching are unfounded.

1) Auto Dispatch Will Never Replace Humans

Auto dispatch is not designed to replace anyone; it’s designed to increase the productivity of current employees. Conditions in service departments are always changing, so auto dispatch will always require human intervention.

For example, say that your shop foreman currently spends 70 percent of his time manually dispatching jobs, 15 percent of his time training technicians and 15 percent doing high-paying diagnostics work. With auto dispatch, his dispatching time is reduced from 70 to 10 percent, his training time increases to 40 percent, and now he can spend 50 percent of his time doing high-paying diagnostics work.

2) Auto Dispatch Stops Cherry-Picking

Because auto dispatch systems are designed to be flexible, they allow manual overrides in certain circumstances. Most auto dispatch systems allow technicians to place a job on hold and view the next job assigned to them. They can choose to work on that one instead, or if they don't like the next job, they can place that one on hold and view the next job.

This behavior causes obvious problems, including jobs not getting done on time and the “less desirable” jobs always being assigned to the techs who are honest and gamely accepting the next job in line.

In order for auto dispatch to be successful, the service manager must enforce the process. One reason why service managers don't enforce the process is because they might have “favorite” techs that are used to getting plum jobs assigned to them. Another reason the process might not be enforced is because the managers get tired of hearing techs complain about the system.

Whatever the reason, it's critical to stop technicians from cherry-picking the best jobs. Believe it or not, the computer knows when the service manager, foreman, tech or advisor should be working on which jobs 90 percent of the time.

Today most auto dispatch systems have features designed to stop cherry-picking. In Auto/Mate's Auto Dispatch Module, service managers have the ability to control how many active ROs a technician can have open at one time. You can also disable the technicians' ability to place jobs on hold, or require a manager's approval in order to do so. If there are some technicians that can be trusted more than others, permissions can be adjusted accordingly.

3) Time Up Front Will be Realized on the Back End

Depending on the size of the shop, it can take anywhere from two days to two weeks to set up all the parameters for auto dispatch. It will take several months to a year to transition from a manual system to fully automated. Once established, regular maintenance is required.

Ideally, the service manager or dispatcher should allocate 15-20 minutes every day for ongoing maintenance. Finding the time to do this shouldn’t be a problem because auto dispatch frees up more time.

Some managers are reluctant to let a computer take over such an important responsibility. What if a bottleneck occurs? What if the system “screws up,” causing chaos?

As with any technology, remember this saying: garbage in, garbage out. Auto dispatch is not something you can “set and forget.” During the transition, parameters need to be constantly tweaked until you find what works with your processes.

It takes commitment to switch to auto dispatch. But once it's humming smoothly, the time you spent (plus, a whole lot more) will be realized on the back end. Service departments will be more profitable, personnel will be making more income and customer satisfaction will increase due to quicker turnaround with fewer technician errors.