Finding Solutions to Challenges in Service and Parts

In a recent study more than 88% of dealers said that they need to save time and be more efficient in their service department. Around 61% of dealers said that saving time in parts and service was their big focus on 2022.

Why are dealers concerned about this now?

It seems like the perfect storm is brewing. On one hand, more units have been sold by dealers in the last two years than in any other period in history. That means a lot of new RVs are on the road.

Also, a uniquely high percentage of those were sold to new buyers. That means first-time owners who don’t know how to take care of their RV, boat, side-by-side, tractor. These new owners don’t have a clue about the expense, time and work required to take care of their machine.

This is the first part of the perfect storm.

The second part is the ongoing challenge that dealers are having with parts inventory. Simply getting parts on time has been a massive problem for the last 12 months. And while the inventory and supply chain challenges associated with new units has started to subside, the challenges around parts inventory have not subsided.

These factors are combining to create a unique situation where demand for your service department will be high AND parts availability will be low.

The Solution: Speeding Up Your Service Department

There are several ways to speed things up in your service department:

- Hiring – Most dealers say hiring qualified service technicians is nearly impossible right now. Sadly, there is not a silver bullet for this. The only advice we have is this: make sure your surgeons are in surgery. In other words, don’t have your highly paid technicians sweeping floors and setting out tools. Hire high school kids, or college students to do those jobs so your surgeons can stay in surgery.

- Be Transparent – Constantly and transparently communicate with your customers. Make sure you’re transparent about how long things will take, whether you can get the part the customer needs, and if there’s a delay. Even though being 100% transparent is sometimes painful, it’s the right thing to do and will help improve your relationship with your customers.

- Over-Communicate – This one is vital. If a customer reaches out to you to get an update about how long something will take, that probably means you aren’t communicating effectively or often enough. There is no scenario where a customer should be reaching out to you to get more information about a service item. You should be reaching out so frequently that they don’t feel the need to reach out to you.

- Text – Stop playing phone tag. Phone tag is the single biggest factor in slow service department. It bogs things down. Text instead. Rather than getting voicemails and hoping people respond to those voicemails (they won’t btw), you are texting them and getting an immediate response—immediate permission to fix something and immediate price approval. You have to text in order to speed up your service department

Conclusion

Given the factors conspiring to create this service department storm, it’s critical that you speed things up in your service department. You’ve got to be more efficient than ever—and texting can help you do that.

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