Warranty Clerk/booker pay

[irie]

How do you pay the person that does your warranty and book 2/3 of your customer pay tickets? We have the full R & R system in service. We have ERO so the techs fill in the cause and correction portion of the ticket. We do 1200 tickets per month for the total service area. 220 are warranty. Any thoughts? WE currently pay $2065 per month, every other weekend off, plus allow peple to go pickup their kids from school, have a half day off in the middle of the week if they work a Saturday morning, and pay the usual benefits. Am I in line with pay vs workload/responsibility?

[RickW]

You appear to be pretty much on target. $10.00 per hour here.

[robc]

Based a little on your location (metro, rural, etc.) I would think you are right on target. It's typical for just the duties you spoke of the range from $10 - $12 per hour. However, as more responsibilities are added and time becomes more demanding (like nights and saturdays) then I think higher pay is in order.



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** Rob, Editor WD&S **
Help is only a message post away!
robc@dealersedge.com

[jargonaut]

Warranty pay is very dependent upon so many factors such as location and employment in area and cost of living and expectations as well as attitude of person and excellence of work ethics and job performance not to mention job done by person and extent of which they control total warranty picture. If your person is happy and content at job and does the important thing of making sure you are claiming as much as legimately entitled to from warranty claims while ensuring maximum communication with staff in service to assure documentation is up to snuff to protect you a year from now when reviewed by factory then you cant complain. Some people generally do more of a better job than others and some markets and areas dictate paying higher wages for a job well done.
Are you happy paying your warranty person this wage and are you satisfied with their performance? And conversely are you sure they're happy as well?


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Alan The Warranty Guy

[irie]

We are in the midwest. I gave this person a $200.00/month raise last year. Since that time we went to the ERO and the techs are now filling out the warranty and this person no longer has to manually input the warranty claims. I am happy to pay what ever any job is worth but there is a limit to what each job in a store can justify. At $25,000 per year, this administrative position is a pretty highly paid non-productive support person for service.

[MBailey]

Irie,

In all due respect, entering warranty claims is the least important job of a warranty administrator. (I feel "clerk" is demeaning), as you could train just about anyone to enter warranty claims. The function and value of a good warranty administrator is to oversee the content and quality of the documentation on warranty repair orders to assure factory guidelines are being followed, to make sure all of the dollars that can be claimed for are being claimed, and to make sure the warranty receivables schedules are kept clean (meaning the dollars claimed are actually being received). Some warranty administrators also handle the work-in-process schedule for the service dept.

Although technically this is a non-productive position, a truly talented WA will pay for themselves many times over by helping to keep the store safe in the case of an audit and (most important) making sure no dollars are left on the table during the claims process, both on the submission side and the collection side.

It is great to have much of the 3C's function handled by the computer, but your computer system is only as good as the people doing the data entry. Someone still has to be accountable for content,accuracy and making sure the claim gets paid for the proper amount and on time. Unless you have the time to do all of this yourself, I would think long and hard about eliminating or modifying this vital position, providing of course that your current person is providing you with all of the functions and corresponding benefits mentioned above.

[jargonaut]

I would also ask has this person been given the duty of reconciling the warranty schedule for dealer as well as taking all rejected claims and claims needing authorization and preparing them for resubmission ( we assume they enter all these claims into system on resubmit) as well as handles the parts returns initial prep by making copies of those claims for parts to ship back (and then submission of the allowances for parts returns) and also perhaps preparing the credit memo for the part department to pull all parts for scrapping later? Does this person contantly review your claims for missed dollars and correct documentation? Warranty administration is often mistaken for simply making claims and sending them in and computers cant ever take the place of a thought process that requires due diligence and constant striving to improve and learn more and more since the one axiom of warranty administration at any GM store is the rules and procedures change constantly.
Maybe some of the "burdens" of warranty claims at your store have been lifted by the new ERO system's being implemented but to allow technicians the liberty to "prepare" the 3C's and claim documentation and not have an experienced and knowing warranty administrator review and adjust to "ensure" all claim documentation will stand on its own merits a year from now AS WELL as to claim every little penny due for all work performed under warranty leaves you open to so many potential debits and missed dollars that perhaps in the long run this position is even worth MORE than you pay and thought worth!!!
One last thought is how helpful a person the warranty claim administrator is as to teaching all the "string attachers" whats needed for warranty documentation so in the end all the "knots" they tie up are shipshape and hold in long run.

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Alan The Warranty Guy

[This message has been edited by jargonaut (edited 11-04-2000).]

[Rob Kealey]

I agree with MBAILY,a true warranty administrator is worth their weight in gold if they protect the dealership from audit exposure.
Rob