22nd June 2020

 

By Paul Muers

 

The Covid-19 crisis has hit the motor industry incredibly hard over the last month. In addition to disruption to vehicle manufacturing and supply chains, many dealers scaled down operations with the exception of emergency vehicles.

 

Carrying out the essential work needed to keep people on the road, especially key workers, is a credit to the franchised dealership sector’s capacity for commitment and innovation.

 

More important for dealers in the long run, however, will be the potential rise in business as lockdown restrictions lift.  Now that restrictions are lifting, dealers will hopefully be faced with an influx of people having work done to their vehicles. There will be several weeks and even months of missed work, services and differed MOTs.

 

While this release of built up work is welcome news, it will also have the potential to put added pressure on aftersales departments as they return to normal operations, testing efficiency and service processes to the limit.

 

This is where the use of an electronic vehicle health check (eVHC) system will come into its own.

 

Work Prioritisation

 

Using an eVHC system that categorises work into three separate categories red, amber and green will help workshop teams focus on the most pressing customer jobs. Issues highlighted as red represent work that needs to be done immediately and the customer should be alerted to this. Amber work refers to work that will need to be done in the near future and green represents sources of future work that won’t need to be done for some time. This system allows you to show the customer what urgently needs doing to their car more easily. But is also has the benefit of helping aftersales managers target work that is both more urgent and more likely to lead to an immediate sale.

 

Customer Reporting

 

An eVHC system allows you to report work quickly and easily to the customer. Long term the reports are a key tool for building trust between the dealership and the customer. Not only will this create more work in the short term by convincing the customer of the necessity of the work, it also aids customer retention. However, for dealerships looking to juggle busy workshops, the ability to send digital reports and for customers to remotely approval jobs while their vehicle is in the service bay greatly improves overall efficiency levels. The more streamlined customer reporting is the more vehicles can be serviced in a given period of time.

 

Picture and Video

 

The use of picture and video features on the eVHC system will allow you to show the customer what is needed to be done and why, and can help customers that want to transact remotely. This will help put their mind at ease about the work that has to be carried out and also means that they are more likely to approve the work quickly. This means that cars are not sat at the dealerships for an extended period of time. Mechanics can get to work quicker, and more customers can be served, resulting in happy customers and more revenue for the dealership.

 

A Return to Normal

 

Like all businesses, dealerships need to adapt to the rapidly changing economic landscape caused by the Coronavirus. Technology helps to give businesses the agility needed to make those adaptations and for dealers, this will include managing aftersales capacity as lockdown restrictions are lifted. An effective eVHC platform will be essential when it comes to returning to business as usual.

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