Body Shop returns

[Gary J. Naples]

Hi Jake,

As with the service department, you don't want to create any barriers between your department and the body shop. Working together toward a common goal is a lot more productive and far less aggrivating than working against one another. Before charging your body shop a restocking fee sit down with the body shop manager and discuss the situation. Try to find out why they are returning so many parts. Working together, perhaps you can eliminate or drastically reduce the problem. A solution worked out this way will go a lot farther and have a lot more value than what is gained by charging the restocking fee.

Of course, the aforementioned method is only possible if the manager of the other department can be reasoned with. If he or she cannot be, then a restocking fee might be in order. If you do decide to charge one make sure its consistent with company policy and with similar action taken toward other departments. Also, you might explain to the body shop manager that you are charging it only to offset the additional expense incurred from the returns.

[Richard]

Ohhhhh, if we are talking Internal Body Shop, that is a different tale ENTIRELY.
1st thing you gotta get straight is that all of you are on the same team. The Owner, Gen Mgr, or Fixed Ops manager needs to be involved in this 'problem' from the beginning. 2nd, if your body shop price matches (meets another shops estimate) they have to write their OWN estimate, don't work off anyone elses! Setup a seperate source code for your internal body shop returns, and track it, it should be no more than 3-5% of your sales to your internal body shop. Watch your returns carefully! Any part that gets painted needs to go in your inventory with a tag, and IF & WHEN the part is sold, then you can give your BS credit, but until then, it is theirs! It might sound a little overboard, but we have done it for a few monthes now, and our return rate from our internal body shop is steadily dropping. Oh, one more item to watch, damage, especially concealed; make darn sure your BS Mgr knows to inspect EVERY piece on delivery to the shop, and allow NO credit on damage after 48 hours. We had a very high damage ratio until we started this, and later found out that most of the damage occured in the body shop itself, by either mishandling, or intentional damage.