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Use Declined Jobs to Prepare the Visit

All POS systems allow to mark jobs as declined by the motorist during the Estimate Authorization so that reminders can be sent out later, including these declined jobs.

  • Reminders to the motorist include vehicle specific recommendations, which have been brought to the Motorist’s attention before the reminder is sent
    • during the last visit at estimate authorization
    • at vehicle pick-up
    • during a follow up call
  • Motorists are more likely to be engaged in opening the reminder email and making an appointment
  • Service Advisors can go full circle in the engagement with the motorist during and after the previous visit and prepare the next visit
  • Declined Jobs are by far the best way of educating the Motorist with personalized and vehicle specific recommendations and be able to answer the two single most asked questions
    • “Why should I do this now?”
    • “What happens if I don’t do it?”
  • Combined with additional educational videos and inspection images of the vehicle at the last visit, the service advisor can use a highly effective tool for guiding the motorist to make the best decision

  • Depending on the POS used, declined jobs have to be manually added/removed, which is minimal effort.
  • At the time of vehicle Drop-Off Motorists might or might not have received reminders by email, which would have included vehicle specific recommendations and during the Appointment phone call
  • Thus during vehicle drop-off the service advisor should engage the motorist by reminding them about the pending declined jobs normally located
    • On an Estimate in RO Writer
    • On one or more sub-estimates  in NAPA TRACS, Mitchell1, ShopKey
    • similar features in all other Point of Sales systems
  • The more concrete the better the chance for an appointment to take care of the declined jobs
  • If the phone call to make the appointment was the last event of a series of reinforcement of the same message, the motorist is more open to make a decision.
  • Service Advisors have the opportunity to reinforce the message already received during the appointment phone call and should point out the declined jobs on the Estimate or Sub-Estimate
  • Service Advisors will build more trust in their ability to educate the motorist at the counter
  • Service Advisors can rely on images from the digital inspections in the thank you email and educational videos on the website to help educating the motorist at the counter

oil change video

The critical success factors for an effective retention process are:

  • Educate the motorist about the need for the proposed service recommendation
  • Personalize the motorist’s experience to increase the trust in the recommendations
  • Reinforced at the right time (it has been a while since the last touchpoint) the necessity to take care of the declined jobs might just be the last nudge to score an appointment

Our Recommendation:

There is no better way to engage the motorist than with vehicle specific and personalized recommendations. Since a significant majority of PoS software systems support declined jobs, the use of Declined Jobs is highly recommended.