Digital Dealer - December 2019 - 19

purveyed in prevalent and
ignorant service marketing
exposing how fast and easy
everything is, especially the
no-appointment-needed
message often applied to
every transaction, no matter
the varied situations.
Another area of considerable weakness is the
administration of an actual
appointment program. A
shop's ability to accept and
process a work volume
begins with the abilities and
size of the tech staff, which
can and does vary, many
times week-to-week and
even day-to-day. Vacations,
schooling, sickness, accidents, current shop output,
carryovers of all sorts,
needed skill requirements,
and even shop attitude must
continuously get measured
and infused into the appointment planning process -
adjustments required.
Utilizing appointment standards set last winter, when
the system was installed,
likely has absolutely nothing
to do with the current production environment, which
sometimes varied from just
last week. I see over and
over again, no real on-going
daily management of the
appointment blueprint, which
gets blamed all-too-often
for being a crappy system
when that organism isn't the
problem at all.
IN-SHOP JOB
MANAGEMENT

This brings me to the
tangible job manager, the
so-called dispatcher. Not
too long ago, I visited an
attractive dealership with
an upstairs reception area
and a downstairs shop (in

the "whine" cellar). While
this was certainly not the
best setup, it was necessary due to the very limited
postage-stamp lot size the
team was provided. Some
15 (give or take) hidden
techs, fed by only two
assistant service managers,
along with an upstairs-located-completely-inexperienced, young non-technical
grouchy dispatcher, did
manage to produce at a fair
rate. Obviously, this situation
created a great number
of predictable challenges,
beginning with poor employee attitudes, below average

significant part to shop hours
produced.
BOTTLE FEEDING

Tech babysitting was minimized ("Waaaa, help me Mr.
Foreman, but give me all the
hours"), so that the focus for
both the dispatcher, now the
official "job manager," and
the first-class foreman was
producing quality work from
each tech, including getting
the work disbursed based
on measured skill levels
and related set timeframes.
Every job handed out contained an expected "target
return time" written in large
numbers on the RO, and

SETTING START TIMES
FOR ALL OR MOST OF
THE TECHS ABOUT THE
SAME TIME THE SHOP IS
OPENING CREATES THE
PERFECT WASTE-TIME
SCENARIO - THE WORST
KIND OF PERFECTION."
CSI, a worn and torn ASM
staff, and a sweaty service
manager who generally
worked with his hair on fire.
The good news was
that the current employee
team was acceptable. The
group just needed directional formatting and some
repositioning, as well as a
few employee additions. The
number one issue, however,
was placing the dispatcher
into the shop, located beside
the highly experienced shop
foreman, one of the stars
of the management team.
Detailed job functions were
developed, as well as new
payplans for the dispatcher
and foreman duo, tied in

jobs were pre-loaded into
racks with the tech's name
on individual RO slots ("I've
got something better for you
coming up.").
The goal was to have
an appropriate "production
plan" for each producer, as
well as the motivation to
meet objectives every day.
That meant that if one of our
live-at-home millennials figured they produced enough
by Thursday morning, the
former Friday cruise-day
was eliminated. Riding
the guarantees became
unacceptable without good
reason, and no more games
were played with assigned
partial self-flagging on the

D I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M

big jobs.
The focus now was to
have ready jobs in the
stalls at now-varied tech
start times (and the parts
if possible as well as parts
delivery), along with a
specific plan for accomplishment, not related to the
customer's pickup time. If
the foreman was needed,
the flat rate was deducted
so the shop wasn't paying
twice, especially considering the tech cost of sale
was already on the high
side versus the labor rate.
The basic WIFM message was that we needed
the techs to make more
money! Well, I am happy to
say that after a few sweet
paychecks, the idea took
nicely. The shop production
hours have been record-setting, even with our
green but focused dispatcher, who is learning, interested, and now suddenly
aggressive. I also heard
he was caught smiling on
occasion, but that was just
a rumor.
ED KOVALCHICK has
traveled the world training and
consulting in fixed operations
for manufacturers and dealers.
His extensive background
includes master technician
status, independent shop owner,
dealer with all Chrysler & Nissan
franchises, and founder of Net
Profit Inc., fixed operations
consulting and training. He is
a graduate of the University
of Louisiana and has served
as state president of the
Automotive Service Councils,
and the advisory boards of Wyo
Tech and Virginia College. He
has been a regular columnist
and conference presenter with
Dealer Magazine since 1995.
EMAIL: Ed@NetProfitGroup.
com.

DECEMEBER 2019

19
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Digital Dealer - December 2019

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