Planning ahead means service on YOUR schedule
Susan R. posted a review of our services on AngiesList this month. On behalf of everyone here at the shop, we’d like to thank the clients who share their opinions on review or social media sites across the Intertubes. Your reviews matter and they help keep our doors open! Susan was mostly positive about us, but she thought it took too long to schedule an appointment; pretty disheartening considering we have not been booked to capacity recently!
We rarely have to schedule more than one or two business days in advance and we always take in tow-ins or emergency situations immediately. We do our best to keep all our client’s needs met; those who have scheduled in advance and those with surprise needs. Our workload and client’s needs change unpredictably and the roller coaster of demand creates special problems for us. We want to maintain the very best professionals here, and at a staffing level that works year-round. We need enough seasoned staff to provide impeccable service when it’s busy, but not so many that we need to let them go when it’s slow. Aside from the fact that we just don’t like treating people like pawns, our staff is the best there is and they can’t easily be replaced.
Many shops pay Service Advisors on pure commission or Technicians on flat rate; but we’re serious about not letting that happen here. Things run differently in that environment…. and not in way that you as a client would appreciate. When people are paid solely for sales or production, having excess bodies standing around is free to the business. When work is available there will be sales and production, and when there is no work it gets pretty lean for the staff and attrition sets in. The best of the staff will either be given special division of available work or move on.
We can’t deliver our quality service with a revolving door of workers, so instead we try to maintain a sustainable staffing level. As result we may not be as able to keep up with the peaks, but we aren’t cutting people lose in the valleys either. Sometimes it’s busy but often it’s slow, and we hope our clients can be understanding on the occasions when lack of planning or an emergency strikes.
Those peaks and valleys in work flow are very real, but there are ways to reduce even the possibility of inconvenience. Scheduling well in advance for routine things like planned maintenance or your pre-vacation once-over will insure timely service. We do try to keep some excess capacity for those inevitable surprise needs, but we can unexpectedly have no-shows or cancellations that turn “excess capacity” into “not enough work to keep busy”. Scheduling is one of the most challenging aspects of our business and we do the best we can to strike the right balance, but there is always unpredictability that defies prediction or perfection.
Our free Courtesy Shuttle or our access to rental cars can help change a scheduling conflict into an easier experience.
We hope our special offer this month will make it easy for you to think about servicing your vehicles now rather than waiting until our busier summer months. We’re offering our Comprehensive Inspection (normally $150) at half price, or free with a minimum purchase of $150. Not only that, but we will also take 20% off labor (up to $200). Find out the exact mechanical condition of your vehicles and save money on needed service! Schedule your vehicle for service before May 15, 2015.
We do appreciate the flexibility and patience of our clients and while we can’t promise next day appointments, we do promise this… we will produce the best possible outcomes in the shortest possible time frame!
