Mr Smiths’ booking.

On the day of the Booking Mr Smith duly arrives. John confirms the details of the work to be carried out and enters the ‘Job Number’ from the Job Card that was created the day before from the Dealer System. In addition he confirms that the time Mr Smith is expecting to collect his car is acceptable - in this case 17:30 hrs, and says goodbye to the Customer.

The fact that a Job Number has been added confirms that the car is on-site, and triggers the system into adding the Job to the Workshop Controllers list of Jobs awaiting allocation to a Technician. In this way any ‘no-shows’ are excluded from the Controllers screen.

Workshop control now have Mr Smiths car in the Unallocated list in which each Job is colour-coded by priority. The colour-coding is based on the time now, the time the customer is expecting the work to be completed, and the Labour time of the work being carried out.
In order to keep Mr Smith satisfied, his service must be started by 16:00 hours at the very latest - this being 17:30 hrs less 1.5 hrs for the work. As the day goes by the system monitors the time and changes the colour of Mr Smiths Job accordingly. When there is only half an hour left until the allocation deadline, the job will be coloured Red, warning the Controller that he needs to allocate the Job as soon as possible. If it gets to 16:00 hrs and the Job has still not been allocated it will start flashing on the screen, warning of a potential customer complaint scenario.

However, the Workshop Controller is on the ball, and allocates the Job to a Technician at 14:00 Hours.
Allocating the Job removes it from the Unallocated list and places it in the Work-In-Progress screen where it is coloured Green to signify everything is moving along O.K.

At 14:30 hrs, the Technician informs the Controller that a new set of front Brake Pads are required.
The Controller double-clicks the Job on the screen which brings up all the details, where he chooses ‘Additional Work’ from the options and Adds details of the extra work, Labour Time, and parts required.

Because Parts are required, the details of the parts appear on the Parts Departments’ screen in their ‘Pre-Order’ list.
The Parts personell add the price and availability information to the details.

All the information needed to quote Mr Smith on the additional work is now available, so the system triggers the Job to start flashing in the Work-In-Progress list, signifying that the Service Advisors attention is required.
John - who would normally check the status of his Jobs from time-to-time, has been busy with another customer and so has not looked at the Work-In-Progress screen, this however does not pose a problem as the system adds a message to the bottom of Johns screen telling him that he has a Work-In-Progress alert. When John finishes dealing with the customer he checks the Work-In-Progress and sees that Mr Smiths Job is flashing.
John now double-clicks the Job which opens and states in the notes that additional work has been found and the customer needs contacting. When John opens the Additional Work details he can see exactly what needs doing together with the Parts and Labour prices. He can also see that the parts are in-stock and rings Mr Smith to obtain permission to carry out the work and confirm that there is plenty of time to fit the Pads for the car to be ready by 17:30 hrs. Mr Smith agrees and John markes the work as Authorised, triggering the Job to stop flashing and letting the Controller know, via the on screen notes, that he can instruct the technician to fit the Pads.

When all work has been finished, the controller marks the Job as completed which moves it to the ‘Completed Jobs’ list. He also passes the Job Card to the Costing Clerk for Invoicing.

The Costing Clerk raises the invoice, double-clicks the Job on the Completed Jobs screen, and marks the Job as ‘Invoiced’.

When Mr Smith arrives at 17:30 hrs, John checks the status of the Job, he can see that It’s completed and that the Invoice has been raised. He knows he can go straight to the invoice tray and deal with Mr Smith without delay.

Mr Smith is a happy man!

This all seems rather idyllic, and we all know things often don’t go this smoothly, so how does the system deal with potential problems?

Lets assume several things go wrong with the above scenario.
First, lets say the car requires 2 new Tyres as well as Brake Pads, and that neither are in stock and cannot be obtained untill the following day. We’ll also say that Mr Smith is unavailable at the time John tried to contact him. What will happen then?

Well the first thing that will happen is that when John checks the details of the additional work he would see that the parts are not available until tomorrow as the Parts Personell will have provided that information.

That gives John 2 options to present to Mr Smith. Either Mr Smith can leave the car with them until tomorrow, or he may want to re-book the vehicle in on another day.

When he telephones Mr Smith there is no answer so he clicks ‘Customer Unavailable’, which leaves the Job flashing, but time-stamps the notes indicating when he tried to contact Mr Smith.

Now lets assume that before John has the chance to call Mr Smith again, Johns coleague Bill takes a call from Mr Smith who just rang to check if everything’s OK as he’d popped out for a while. John is currently unavailable, but this is no problem as Bill can easily check the status of Mr Smiths Job. He informs Mr Smith of the additional work found, and also tells him that John tried to ring him at exactly 14:40 hrs.

Mr Smith agrees to the fitting of the Brake Pads, but declines the Tyres. Bill confirms the new completion date, time, and cost with the Customer and marks the Pads as authorised and tyres as declined.

Two things now happen. First the Job stops flashing as the customer has been contacted, and the Controller is made aware of the situation. Secondly the Brake Pads which were ‘Authorised’ appear in the Parts Departments ‘Order Placement’ list. This means that they must order the parts which will be expected tomorrow.

Once ordered, the parts move to the ‘Ordered Parts Status’ list where everyone can see them.
The following day these parts will be colour-coded to signify that they are either still outstanding, or that they have been received.

The Controller can easily see if the parts are available and can therefore put a Technician back on the Job to complete the work.

If in the event that the parts are not going to arrive due to some problem, then the Parts Personell will be aware of that fact and can send an alert to John letting him know that he needs to contact Mr Smith to explain the situation.

There are of course numerous scenarios which can result in customer dissatisfaction and inefficient operation of the department, but EaziTrack-SC caters for many of them, and at the end of the day helps ensure that Mr Smith is contacted proactively and efficiently giving him the confidence that he, and his car are being looked after. John is also happier because he has fewer complaints to deal with, and can work more efficiently.