Prepaid Special Orders

brink · Post by **brink** » Tue Feb 11, 2003 10:25 pm

We have been talking about prepaid special orders for years. Since the manufacturers are giving us less and less in return allowance, I feel we have no choice now. How are some of you handling special orders in your service department? How do you handle special order warranty parts?

Rangerob · Post by **Rangerob** » Wed Feb 19, 2003 8:35 am

we have tried having the customers prepay for the parts. It didn't work out. I am on the Rey & Rey system. It was alittle hard for us to track what parts were prepaid and what parts weren't. We are now REALLY looking into the process again. My service writers can't use the SOP feature in the computer. So we are going back to hand written logs and forms. I get told from my service department this is what works and if we don't do it this way its not his problem. SOP's from the service department should be prepaid just like over the retail counter. or atleast a deposit. But i just couldn't really tell which ones were prepaid and which ones weren't. Then you have the problem of deleting the special order in the system. It became a big mess. But if someone is doing it right. I would like to see it..

petepuma01 · Post by **petepuma01** » Wed Feb 19, 2003 12:15 pm

Why cant the service writers use the SOP system?

Or is the issue really 'they won't/refuse use the SOP system'?

HJ58 · Post by **HJ58** » Wed Feb 19, 2003 5:22 pm

SPECIAL ORDER PROCESS DOESN'T WORK AS MOST S/O PARTS ARE WARRANTY AND PAY LESS. OUR TECHS AND WRITERS SEEM TO TO DO THEIR WORK IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER (C I W) AS PER PAY RATES
I JUST SEND S/O WARRANTY PARTS PACK AFTER 20 DAYS RATHERER THAT DEPLETE MY RETURN RESERVE ON UNWANTED/UNWANTED PARTS

dodgeboy · Post by **dodgeboy** » Thu Feb 20, 2003 4:13 pm

I don't know what all the fuss is about on pre-paid SOP's. We are using R&R and have no problem doing pre-paid SOP's. Our advisors keep track of their customers SOP's. They are very much aware of the parts dept process for service customers and PP parts. They also get paid a small % on their gross parts sales so the keep very good track of SOP's. If your parts dept has a good Special order parts process then there should be no problem. We have been on R&R for 4 years and don't seem to have the problems you are talking about.

tom_davis · Post by **tom_davis** » Mon Feb 24, 2003 3:05 pm

If you are using the Reynolds system, i would suggest that you use the DEPOSIT process. That way you eliminate the negative on hand and other issues that arise when you use the PRE-PAID process.

With the DEPOSIT, you can get the full 100%.

Over the years, I have found that the only way to get the customer's attention on Special Orders is to get into his pocket. I have heard - I'll get the part the next time in" and they never come back or, I thought it was fixed!

Over the last few years, I have re-introduced several Parts Managers to the R&R Special Order feature.