Selling vehicles is only one part of your car dealership’s profit source. For long-term success and income stability, you need to turn car buyers into maintenance and repair customers. If your customers trust you to take care of their repairs, you will develop a long-term relationship with the customers and increase their lifetime value. For many owners, bringing their vehicle in for repairs and maintenance is not a problem. However, this is not always possible on some customers’ schedules. This is when having mobile mechanics becomes beneficial. Mobile mechanics were already becoming popular, but in a post-Covid world where delivery to your home is readily available, it’s only natural that consumers might also expect their mechanics to make a trip to them.
With the right software, you can effectively manage your mobile mechanics' jobs and start increasing profits at your dealership.
1. Allow customers to schedule repair appointments in advance.
Not only does allowing customers to schedule appointments in advance give flexibility to the customer, but it also allows you to track job volume to ensure you employ a sufficient number of mechanics on any given day. This way, you don’t overbook your mechanics or pay for mechanics to be on duty without having appointments for them to work. And when shortages of technicians happen, you can ensure your mechanics have a manageable and calculated schedule.
Appointment scheduling goes beyond volume. Detailed tracking also includes tracking mobile destinations, estimated required time to complete appointments, and future stops. This allows you to coordinate your appointments so that you minimize a mechanic’s travel time. Arrange each mechanic’s appointment schedule based on the time required and location to optimize their routes.
2. Inform your customers of the repair status.
Give your customers transparency by informing them of their appointment status at each step of the process. Schedule automated messages that update the customers on the mechanics' expected arrival time and when the job is completed.
When you give transparency throughout the process, customers are less likely to be agitated and know when to expect their job to be completed and can have a positive impact on your CSI score. When you make it easy for your customers to utilize your services, you make it more likely that they will return to your dealership for future vehicle servicing needs.
3. Alert your dealership when a job is completed.
With real-time job completion alerts, you can know exactly when each mechanic finishes their current job. This lets you make real-time appointment adjustments and, as a result, you increase productivity and reduce operating costs by reducing mechanics’ idle and downtime.
You can also accommodate last-minute requests by receiving job completion alerts. This ensures customers with vehicle emergencies receive prompt attention. This level of service might make your dealership’s service team the first call a car owner makes when they break down or cannot drive their vehicle to your service center.
Deploy Your Mobile Mechanics With Quickride
When you can effectively manage your mobile mechanics, you can create a steady profit stream for your fixed ops department . By scheduling mobile mechanics to perform maintenance and repair services, you can potentially increase your customer base and, as a result, your dealership profits. Using the right appointment management software for your mobile service repairs, you can coordinate between your customers and mechanics to ensure your customers receive prompt and reliable service.
Take the Quickride 30-Day Challenge today and experience how easy it can be to manage and deploy your mobile mechanics.