An appointment that does not fit your planning is no help.
Most booking systems put a customer in a one-hour box, whether it is a tyre change or a timing belt. Then your workshop manager gets to put it right. This agent knows how long a job takes before it promises anything.
Online booking only works once the duration is right.
An inspection is an hour and a half. A major service is half a day. A clutch is a day and a half and you need a ramp that is not needed for something else in the meantime. A calendar of one-hour boxes does not know that difference.
The result is familiar. The customer books something online, the workshop sees it, and someone has to call back to move it. You might as well have done it by phone straight away, and on top of that you have a customer who got his hopes up for nothing.
An appointment is only worth something if your mechanic can count on it that morning.
- Calling back to reschedule takes more time than booking the appointment itself.
- A job that overruns pushes the rest of the day ahead of it.
- Your workshop manager starts distrusting the system and goes back to planning by hand.
What the system does.
First work out what it is, only then name a moment.
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01
First establish the job
What the car is coming in for. Inspection, service, repair, tyres, damage or something that has to be looked at first. As long as that is unclear, no slot is named.
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02
The right duration with it
You define yourself how long each type of job takes at your place. The agent uses that duration, not a standard hour that happens to fit a calendar.
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03
Check what is genuinely free
A slot is only offered if there is room for the whole job and the required bay is free. Booking half a ramp is not booking.
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04
Wait or drop off
Anyone waiting needs a morning slot and a job of no more than two hours. Anyone dropping off can come all day. That question comes up front, not at the counter.
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05
Book and confirm
The appointment goes into the planning, the customer gets a confirmation with what to bring and how long it takes.
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06
What does not fit goes to a person
An unknown fault, a classic car, something that has to be looked at first. That goes through to your workshop manager, with the conversation attached.
A conversation that comes out of this.
An example, not a recording of a customer. You set the tone yourself, this one is ours.
A planning your mechanic can build on.
Less rescheduling
Because the duration is right up front, there is far less calling afterwards to move things.
Waiters in the right place
Anyone waiting gets a morning slot and a short job. That prevents a waiting room full of people sitting there until three o'clock.
Booking outside opening hours too
A customer who wants to arrange something at ten in the evening can. The planning that is ready the next morning is correct.
Your front desk no longer does it
Scheduling is the work that always gets interrupted. It is also the work that lends itself best to being captured in rules.
Not a loose little helper.
This agent is where nearly all the other workflows come out. An MOT reminder, a missed call and a quote that turns into a yes all end in an appointment.
- UnderstandWhich job it is, and how long it takes at your place.
- ActPropose a moment, book it and confirm it.
- ConnectThe appointment writes into the planning your team works in.
- MOT reminderSupplies the inspections that get a slot here.
- Missed callsBrings back callers who would otherwise be gone.
- Courtesy carArranges the courtesy car that goes with a longer job.
What this agent does not do.
- He does not diagnose. With an unknown fault he books time to look, not a repair.
- He does not move existing appointments to make room.
- He books nothing outside the limits you have set yourself, even if the customer insists.
- Without an integration with your planning he works on the calendar you give him, and not on a package that is not connected yet.
The job first. Only then a slot.
Twenty minutes on your own numbers. We show what this workflow would do at your place, or why you are better off starting with another one.
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