An auto dealership’s service department is a busy place.
Technicians are moving through repair orders, vehicles are moving through workflows, and advisors are moving around the lot, staying on top of progress and keeping customers in the loop.
There’s no shortage of motion, and it looks productive from the outside. But being busy isn’t the same thing as being efficient.
Where does the time go?
With all of those moving parts, many fixed ops departments end up relying on disconnected pieces of information scattered across multiple places: the DMS, whiteboards, text messages or even word of mouth.
The result is that cars and keys go missing, advisors wait for updates, and managers have to step in to put out fires.
These problems eventually get solved, but each one takes precious time away from the job at hand, and they all add up over the course of a day. The result is slower throughout and lower customer satisfaction scores.
The correct diagnosis
This isn’t an effort problem. It’s a visibility problem.
Because you can’t pinpoint the exact location of the next RO or the keys that start the vehicle, your technicians spend time walking the lot instead of turning wrenches.
They’re busy, but they aren’t productive.
Operational visibility, made possible by real-time location intelligence, helps the team share the same view of locations and workflows. This means not only being able to find vehicles or keys in an instant, but also being able to identify bottlenecks or handoff issues.
It’s not just about finding the pieces. It’s about improving efficiency and delivering a better experience.
We recently put together a short white paper exploring the hidden drags on fixed ops productivity and how solutions like FixedOps 360 help dealerships work better and smarter.
As one dealership put it: “We’ve eliminated the long vehicle searches that once left customers waiting 15 to 45 minutes. … Instead of hunting for cars, our employees can focus on serving customers and keeping the service drive running efficiently.”
Our latest white paper goes deeper into building better operational visibility