Service Pre-Planning

[Carman45]

Does any one has suscuss in parts preplanning from the Service appointment. I
define "Pre-planning" uring a Customers contact to a Service Dept. for an appointment Service Dept. shall, determine the needs of the Customer. Which includes and but not limited to setting the appointment with an accurate estimate, time required for repair, and reviewing parts requirements. All parts shall be available at the time of the customers appointment, to address the initial issues.

[scotstrong]

Service drive diagnosis is a recipe for disaster for both the parts department and the service department. Number one, service advisors are not qualified to give accurate diagnoses in the service drive. What do you tell the customer when the diagnosis is incorrect and you have to keep the vehicle anyway? Number two, this is a large source of obsolesence for the parts department. Service department employees all seem to live under the misconception that the parts department has "carte blanche" to return any unneeded parts to the manufacturer --- WRONG! Sound inventory control processes including proper phase-in and phase-out criteria; and a willingness to procure parts not in stock locally to facilitate same-day repairs will go a lot further towards satisfying customers and getting vehicles through the shop than the minefield you would be navigating on a daily basis with service drive "guessignosis".

[PARTS-OH]

I have visited some dealerships where the parts department actually had numbered bins for maintenance customers that were coming in. The tech walkerd up and said -"let me have the parts for the jones job bin23 -boom he was on his way. Since the customer called in beforehand and scheduled, any parts not in stock were ordered before his schdeuled appointment - none of this sorry we need your car another day cause we ran out of your fuel filter type thing. This was a Japanese franchise -It is a shame that American dealers do not do the same thing; I'm sure there are some here that do, but I believe they would be the exception to the rule. Dealers here who have menu pricing that goes hand in hand with this do not seem to maximize the potential benefits by taking advantage of a regimented service schedule for their customers.

[Doug]

The "pre-planning" idea sounds great for routine service parts that you normally stock anyway....or perhaps even some special order parts, if it's something you wouldn't mind having if the customer never came in.

This type of stuff requires no diagnosis. It's one thing for an advisor to "pre-plan" for a 60K service. It's quite another for him to order *repair* parts based on an over the phone diagnosis when the appointment is booked.

Carman, when you orginally brought up the subject, were you thinking of *all* parts or just routine maintenance parts?

Cheers
Doug