Declined Jobs at Vehicle Pick Up

by | Jan 5, 2015 | Best Practices, Pick Up, Retention Best Practices |

Prepare the Next Appointment using Declined Jobs

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.
  • As motorists are picking up their vehicle,  Service Advisors go through the performed jobs at his visit.
  • In addition, going through the declined jobs is planting the seed for the the follow-up call and the service reminder. Accompanied by re-presenting and emailing the inspections, and making sure customers know where to find their service history online will increase the confidence on the motorist’s part that the recommended/declined jobs are real.
  • The more concrete the better the chance for an appointment to take care of the declined jobs
  • If the reminder is the last event of a series of reinforcement of the same message, the motorist is more open to make a decision.
  • Motorists might be in a hurry and don’t want to stay long at the counter. The Follow up call is the next opportunity to take care of the reinforcement of the message.
  • Service Advisors have the opportunity to prepare the next visit by explaining the declined jobs and where more information about the need for them can be found.
  • Service Advisors will build more trust in their ability to educate the motorist
  • Service Advisors should request form the techs to take images during the digital inspections, so they show up in the thank you email (see below) and the service advisor can use educational videos on the website to help educating the motorist

vehicle health summary

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
  • Reinforcing Declined Jobs at Vehicle Pick Up prepares the next appointment and follow up call as well as increases the opening rate of the service reminder.

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.