Q. |
Many of our customers log into the Honda Owners Site to view updated information about their vehicle, their lease, purchase financial information, etc. Can a customer schedule an appointment when in the Honda Owners’ Site?
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A. |
Yes, the customer can click to Schedule an Appointment and they will be automatically taken to the dealership’s Honda Service Connect site to schedule an appointment.
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Q. |
Many of my customers don’t want to have to “register” …that’s why I am using the email request form. Do they have to register to use TimeHighway?
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A. |
No – customers have three other ways to schedule: They can enter their phone number and if they are in your database, we will identify them and offer up their vehicle(s); they can log in with their Social Media login, or they may choose to use “” Quick Appointment”. We do the registration for them and send them an email with their username and password that can be used when scheduling subsequent appointments.
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Q. |
I have a BDC Department for taking incoming calls for appointments, but many times we find ourselves short-staffed and there are also times due to the high volume of calls, we can’t answer every call. I don’t want these calls going to the Service Advisors. Do you have a solution?
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A. |
Yes, we have a fully-staffed call center that can assist. You can set up your telephone system so that if the call rings a set amount of times (example: 4 times) and no one answers, the call will automatically be switched over to our call center.
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Q. |
Does TimeHighway.com pass the appointment to my DMS system?
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A. |
Yes, there is a seamless and immediate data transfer into ADP, Reynolds & Reynolds, DealerTrack, Lightyear and Automate.
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Q. |
What if my DMS system is down?
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A. |
You will always be able to review your appointments on the TimeHighway.com system and, when your DMS system is back up, the appointments will transfer.
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Q. |
One of my other concerns is that no one “sees” the appointment since it is sent directly to the DMS. What if my customer has questions prior to the appointment and needs to be contacted?
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A. |
We have solved that – if the customer adds any comments to their appointment, we send a “customer comment email” to the dealership with all customer and appointment information, along with customer comments. This notification includes customer telephone number and email address, making it easy for dealership personnel in case customer contact is required prior to the appointment.
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Q. |
Do my customers have a choice of contact method?
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Yes, they can choose email, text or both.
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Q. |
How do my customers know they actually have an appointment?
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They receive a confirmation email or text message immediately after the appointment is made and a courtesy reminder email or text the day prior to the appointment.
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Q. |
How do I make my customers aware of the availability of online service scheduling?
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Some will find it on your website. We also send an Announcement email to all your customers for whom you have an email address, plus if there is an email address in the customer record, we generate a Welcome email when we import new customers into TimeHighway. Utilizing an “on hold” message making customers aware of the availability of confirmed, online service appointments is very effective. We recommend that the salespeople review the ease of online scheduling with the customer at time of delivery. We also provide a template for a customer information card with a QR code that provides the steps for online scheduling that can be placed in the customer lounge, by the cashier and on the sales floor, as well as given to the customer with their invoice.
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Q. |
Everywhere I am today people are on their mobile phones. Can customers schedule appointments from their mobile device?
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Yes – we will provide you our mobile URLs for placement on your mobile website, or our site is responsive, so if the customer accesses your website on their mobile device, it will automatically convert to the mobile scheduler.
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Q. |
How easy is it for my customers to schedule from their phone?
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A. |
You have the ability to activate specific services for mobile, so the customer isn’t scrolling through 60-70 services on their phone, allowing the customer to create a “Quick Appointment”.
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Q. |
How does the customer change or cancel an appointment?
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There is a link in their confirmation email, as well as in their courtesy reminder email that will take them directly to the appointment book and they can cancel or change the services, date or time. They can also go to your website, log in and access their customer profile and make the change from there.
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Q. |
What percentage of my customers can I expect to schedule online?
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A. |
Very quickly you will find 15-20% of your customers will book online. And, as more and more become aware of this convenience, this will increase dramatically. We have dealerships that are experiencing over 35% of their appointments being created by customers from their website.
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Q. |
What about customers that don’t show up for their appointment?
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A. |
Due to the reminder notification, you will find that no shows are decreased considerably. However, there will be times when a customer does forget or has an emergency and isn’t able to keep the appointment. It’s simple for you to view which customers didn’t keep their appointment and an Edit button can be clicked to send a request to the customer to reschedule.
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Q. |
Are the emails generic or can I provide the verbiage I want to use for my dealership?
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We provide default messaging, however every email is totally customizable and can include HTML as well as text.
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Q. |
How is my customer notified when the services on the vehicle are completed?
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A. |
If you choose, we can automatically generate an email or text message to customers when the RO is closed advising the services are complete and they can pick up the vehicle at their convenience. If you prefer that these not be sent automatically, the advisor can click the Edit bottom and choose “Ready for Pick Up”. You also have the option of placing a link “Today’s Service Appointment Status” on your website and the customer can access to view the current status.
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Q. |
If I have a customer call in and want to know if they can come in that day, how quick can I see if I have availability?
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We can show all available time slots on the daily log; however, you should keep in mind that depending on the services they need to schedule, that could change availability due to some of the parameters set up for those particular services.
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Q. |
The customer receives a confirmation email, a courtesy reminder email and a completion notification email or text message. Is there any other communication generated by TimeHighway.com?
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A. |
I’ve been trying to get the Sales Department to make the first service appointment at time of delivery, but am just not having any success. Do you have any recommendations?
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Q. |
The customer receives a confirmation email, a courtesy reminder email and a completion notification email or text message. Is there any other communication generated by TimeHighway.com?
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A. |
We can actually schedule the customer’s first service appointment and, for any customers for whom you have an email address, generate an email to the customer letting them know for their convenience, you have scheduled their first service visit. You can elect to set these up at 3 months, 4 months, etc. We generate an initial courtesy reminder email to these customers 10 days prior to the appointment, so if the date/time doesn’t work for them, they can click a link that is included to reschedule. They will still receive the courtesy reminder the day before unless they have rescheduled or cancelled the appointment.
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Q. |
Do you have anything we can use to easily schedule Next Appointment?
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A. |
Yes – there is a “Next Appointment” link right on the Daily Log, allowing the advisor or cashier to click to schedule. This will hold the customer and vehicle information, the op code for next appointment and advance the calendar the number of months you have specified, so the date/time can be selected, the user can verify contact information and confirm the appointment.
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Q. |
If my advisor uses the DMS to schedule appointments, do those customers get the email/text communication from TimeHighway?
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Yes, we can generate a confirmation email even if the appointment was created in the DMS. They will also receive all the other email/text communications.
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Q. |
What about a customer who walks in and we just open an RO?
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These RO’s are imported into TimeHighway and those customers will receive the vehicle completion notification and CSI email, etc.
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Q. |
Can my customer see their service history?
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Yes, customers can view service history.
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Q. |
I have been thinking about putting something in my customer lounge so customers know when their services are completed. What do you have that can assist with that?
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TimeHighway provides the ability for you to customize the information that you can display either on an LED Display Board or on a flat screen TV in your customer waiting area which can include the status of the customer’s repair. You can also include advertising banners if you wish.
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Q. |
If I want to show service pricing to my customers, will the system allow me to do this?
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Yes, you can elect to show pricing of all services to your customers.
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Q. |
I have a printed service menu – can my customer access this?
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Yes, we can display a PDF of your actual service menu to the customer.
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Q. |
I have a real issue keeping the service menu updated, as parts pricing continues to change. Can you help me in this regard?
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A. |
Yes, TimeHighway offers an eMenu product. This program provides dynamic service menus for the dealership for all factory mileage packages, as well as any dealer recommended services (if you wish to also include these). The appropriate menu is displayed to the customer based on year, make, model and mileage of vehicle. These menus are also used by the service advisors when reviewing needed services at time of write-up and their screen provides talk tracks explaining the benefits of specific services included in the maintenance package. We maintain all pricing of the menus, so if you have a labor or parts pricing change, you notify us, we make the change and all packages that include that part or are affected by the labor change will dynamically display new pricing.
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Q. |
I’m concerned that customers who schedule online will just schedule oil changes and minor maintenance. How can we prevent that?
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A. |
We may not be able to “prevent” that, but we can prompt the customer for mileage and recommend services. We also find that customers who schedule online “up sell” themselves when reviewing the list of offered services.
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Q. |
Can my customers schedule from my mobile website?
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A. |
Yes – we provide the mobile URL for you to place on your mobile site and customers can schedule from their mobile device. We also track mobile appointments separately from web appointments.
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Q. |
My service department books by service advisor and teams. Can the system handle that?
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A. |
We provide total flexibility for booking the shop. We can accommodate shop loading for Lateral Support (each advisor has own team of techs); Global Time Bucket Hours (book by advisor, central dispatch); Resource Time Bucket Hours (multiple advisors share team of techs); Time Bucket Hours by Skill Level (services are assigned a skill level and tech hours are set up by skill level). We also offer the ability to book separately for Express or Quick Service. You can also see at any time the total numbers of hours booked and hours left to book for any particular day, by team and by shop.
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Q. |
Who determines the services that are set up for appointments?
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All services are totally customizable by each dealership.
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Q. |
What if I want to continue to use my DMS to schedule those customers who call in?
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You may do that. However, most dealerships elect to utilize TimeHighway internally as well as they want the service drive management and shop loading capability provided by TimeHighway. We set up a back-end matrix with all parameters. This allows anyone who answers the phone to take the call and schedule the appointment, as they don’t have to know op codes, how, what or when to schedule, etc.
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Q. |
How do you access my customer database?
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We import your customers into TimeHighway.com at time of setup and then poll your system on a nightly basis to maintain the database in TimeHighway.com.
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Q. |
How does the system prevent customers from booking times that are unavailable?
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We set up a back-end matrix with all services, service duration, service depth and appointment time increments, so when services are selected – either by the customer or your internal personnel (if you elect to utilize internally) – the system will only show dates and times that are available for those particular services.
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Q. |
We are going to have numerous vehicles with Telematics capability that will alert the customer when there is a Recall, a DTC or other performance issue. What options do these customers have?
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When they are alerted on their dashboard screen that there is an issue or they are due for maintenance, your customer will have the option to “Click to Schedule an Appointment.” This information is sent to TimeHighway and we return two available appointment dates and times. Your customer can choose one and confirm the appointment. The appointment transfers seamlessly into the DMS.
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Q. |
My dealership, like most today, is flooded with Recalls and we are having issues getting these properly scheduled, plus many times the customer comes in and we don’t have the needed parts. Can you help with that?
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A. |
You have a lot of flexibility with setting up Recalls – you can set a limit per recall per day, as well as add a service notice (number of days before the appointment can be scheduled). As soon as the appointment is scheduled, we can notify the parts manager or whomever you want notified, providing customer information, recall information and appointment date/time, so they can check to see if they have the part in stock. If not, order it or if they find it will not be available in time, have someone call the customer and reschedule the appointment to prevent the customer coming on the drive and being told the car cannot be repaired because you do not have the part.
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Q. |
My waiting area becomes extremely crowded on some days. Can I limit the number of appointments scheduled by customers who want to wait for service?
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Yes, you can set up a depth of waiters per time slot. For example: I want each advisor to have an appointment every 15 minutes, but I only want 1 of every 30 minutes to be a waiter, plus I don’t want any waiters during the lunch hour.
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Q. |
I have reduced service hours on Saturday. Is it possible to limit the services for which I accept appointments on Saturday?
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Yes, you can elect to flag services for which, when selected, Saturday just will not show as an available day for an appointment.
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Q. |
Am I able to limit the hours an appointment can be scheduled for specific services?
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Yes, you can set both a start time and end time; for instance, I don’t want SOP appointments scheduled before 8:30 a.m.; I don’t want Engine Concern appointments scheduled after 3:00 p.m.; or I can do 3 Details a day, but I need them in no later than 10:00 a.m.
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Q. |
How do I know if an appointment is a Drop Off, Night Drop or Waiter or whether the customer needs a rental car or shuttle service?
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A. |
Unlike some scheduling tools, we can manage Night Drop separately from Drop Off. Each appointment will reflect a Type – D (Drop Off), DR (Drop Off w/Rental), DL (Drop Off w/Loaner), DS (Drop Off w/Shuttle), ND (Night Drop), W (Waiter), etc.
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Q. |
Do you have anything like the Apple Store that shows customers that have appointments?
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A. |
Yes, we can provide a URL for an “Arrival” Board that you can display on your service drive which will display all customers who have appointments for that day.
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Q. |
My manufacturer has different scheduled maintenance intervals for different years and models. Can the system accommodate that?
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A. |
Yes, we can attach specific scheduled maintenance with descriptions to any year, make and model of vehicle.
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Q. |
I provide loaner cars to my customers. How do you handle those?
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A. |
We set up the loaner inventory and track them as they are scheduled. We also have integration with TSD and Bluebird Rental/Loaner Car Software. Also if you have specific parameters for an appointment to qualify for a loaner vehicle – such as 2 hours to quality, we can handle that as well.
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Q. |
There are times that when we schedule an appointment, we know that we are going to need customer’s car for multiple days – this always creates a problem with our loaner car inventory – can you assist with that?
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We offer you the ability to have “Extended Loaner Scheduling”. You can book the car for 2, 3 or 4 days and the vehicle will be taken out of loaner car inventory for that period.
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Q. |
We offer Shuttle Service to our customers; however, we have one shuttle at 7:30 a.m. that runs North and one at 7:45 a.m. that runs South. How can you accommodate that?
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We can set up two separate shuttle service options with those specific times. We can also limit the number of appointments for each time. Example: My shuttle will only accommodate 5 people – we can limit the number of shuttle appointments to 5.
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Q. |
We also offer Pick Up and Delivery, as well as Valet Service, but have a limit as to how many we can schedule per day. How do you manage that?
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We have the ability to set a “depth” for each day so that this service doesn’t get overbooked. We also can set a “Service Notice” – number of days before a Pick Up and Delivery or Valet appointment can be scheduled. In addition, we can automatically notify anyone internally if you wish when a Pick Up and Delivery or Valet appointment is scheduled.
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Q. |
We also offer Pick Up and Delivery, as well as Valet Service, but have a limit as to how many we can schedule per day. How do you manage that?
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We have the ability to set a “depth” for each day so that this service doesn’t get overbooked. We also can set a “Service Notice” – number of days before a Pick Up and Delivery or Valet appointment can be scheduled. In addition, we can automatically notify anyone internally if you wish when a Pick Up and Delivery or Valet appointment is scheduled.
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Q. |
How do I know what appointments are scheduled for a particular day?
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A. |
You can view the Daily Log in TimeHighway.com which provides all information regarding each appointment. Or you can view on your ADP, Reynolds & Reynolds, Lightyear, DealerTrack or Automate appointment screen.
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Q. |
What if I’m limited as to the number of particular services my shop can perform on a certain day?
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We set up the depth for those services so that number can’t be exceeded and, if one of those services is selected and is fully booked for that day, the system will show only available dates.
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Q. |
How do I handle it if I have a technician out of the dealership for training or on vacation?
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You advise our Help Desk and we adjust the time bucket hours for the days the technician is gone.
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Q. |
We are really focusing on our Express Service and we get frustrated when customers go online and schedule an oil change and tire rotation with one of our Main Shop advisors. Is there any way this can be controlled?
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A. |
Yes – we offer two options:
1. If a customer selects a Main Shop advisor - or, if you are not booking by advisor - just selects the Service link, rather than the Express Service link, and selects only Express services, we can automatically schedule that appointment in Express.
2. Or, if you prefer, we can provide a “pop-up” message to the customer that states, “We recommend you switch to Express Service. Would you like to switch to Express?” and the customer has the option to select Yes or No.
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Q. |
Even though we want appointments for express services scheduled in Express, I do want my Main Shop technicians to see vehicles with higher mileages. How do we accomplish that?
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A. |
You can set up mileage limits for any resource. Example: In Express I only want vehicles with mileage from 0-60,000 miles. If Express is
scheduled and 65,000 miles are entered, a message will pop up indicating that option is not available and offering the options that are.
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Q. |
I have my monthly service specials on my website – is there any way to incorporate these within the scheduler?
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A. |
Yes, we can actually prompt your customers for any current service promotions if you wish and can also include any coupons or graphics. The prompts to the customer can be based on year/model of vehicle, mileage, both or we can show to every customer who schedules online.
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Q. |
We get a little frustrated with our current scheduler when the customer schedules a diagnostic service – the customer generally will just type in an “X” to get through the detail part of the service. What can you do to help us get more information about the customer’s concern?
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A. |
We have what we call “Diagnostic Sub-items” that are specific to each concern. All the customer has to do is click the checkbox by each sub-item that reflects their current issue. An example for Brake Concern might be: Brakes Noisy, Brakes Grinding, Brakes Vibrating, etc. These then will print in the line-item comments prefaced by Customer States. These diagnostic sub-items also display for your internal personnel when they are scheduling through TimeHighway, making it easy for them to get more detailed information from the customer.
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Q. |
What if my customer selects their preferred advisor, but that advisor doesn’t have the date/time available that the customer prefers?
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A. |
Customer can click on First Available Appointment and choose the day of the week they want to come in and the schedule will reflect the advisor that has that date/time available.
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Q. |
I know I need to get better control of my shop as far as dispatching the work and monitoring that – can TimeHighway assist with that?
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A. |
Customer can click on First Available Appointment and choose the day of the week they want to come in and the schedule will reflect the advisor that has that date/time available.We provide a color-coded Route Sheet that allows you to dispatch the job to a specific tech, mark the RO “Dispatched” and adjust promise time and tech time, if needed. We also offer a “Shop View” URL that can be set up to display all open RO’s and their status against promise time. This display can be customized and also set to blink 10 or 15 minutes before promise time if the RO hasn’t been closed. It’s a great visual that each advisor, the dispatcher or shop foreman can quickly view to be certain there is not an issue meeting a customer’s promise time.
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Q. |
It seems my advisors and techs spend a lot of time going back and forth from the shop to the drive and to my parts counter, which wastes a lot of time. Is there any answer for this?
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A. |
We offer an Internal Chat feature which allows them to chat regarding a customer’s issue without leaving their workstations.
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Q. |
Is there any ability to follow up the customer who has declined a recommended service?
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A. |
Yes, the service advisor can select the declined service – “declined brakes”, at which time a calendar comes up – the advisor selects a future date, perhaps two weeks hence, and the customer will automatically receive a customized email on that date indicating they were recently in for service, recommendation was made to have brake repair…. etc. Dealership can also include a coupon or a discount as part of the email if desired.
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Q. |
I want my service department to perform a multipoint inspection on every RO, but many times this gets missed. Can you prompt for this?
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A. |
We can do better than that – we can automatically push any op code with every appointment so it prints on every RO.
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Q. |
As we are currently performing a multi-point inspection on every vehicle. Do you have anything within your program that we could use?
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A. |
Yes, we have an eMPI which can be completed that automatically creates a customer quote. Both the inspection and the customer quote can be emailed to the customer. Also, if the customer elects to defer one of the recommended services, we will automatically send that customer an email in 7-10 days regarding that specific deferred service, requesting that they schedule an appointment to have the service performed. Plus, next time the customer is in, you have access to that previous inspection and quote. The customer also has access to these in their customer profile.
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Q. |
I am trying to get my advisors to do a better job of greeting the customer on the drive, but am not having a lot of success. Do you have any suggestions?
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A. |
We do offer our TH Tablet which is an app that can be downloaded on a tablet. The advisor can use this to do the damage walk-around on the drive and get customer signatures. They can also take photos of any damage, if necessary.
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Q. |
I have a real problem during the busy times of the day – so many calls come in and we just can’t get to them. How can TimeHighway assist with this issue?
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A. |
We can help in several ways – as more customers begin creating confirmed appointments from your website, this will reduce inbound calls to service. We also offer a live call center that can take incoming calls for appointments or just provide “backstop” for these calls.
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Q. |
We like to have a pre-work order which expedites the early morning “rush”. Can you assist with that?
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A. |
Yes, we can customize your pre-work order that can be printed from TimeHighway and you can use that to do the vehicle damage walk-around, review services, up-sell the customer and obtain the customer signature for the work to be performed.
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Q. |
We are always looking for ways to follow up to be certain our customers had a positive service experience. Can TimeHighway help with that?
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A. |
You can elect to include a customized survey in your pre-CSI Thank You email that the customer can complete and, when clicking on “Submit”, the survey will be immediately returned to you.
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Q. |
Can the system assist me in notifying my customers for whom their special ordered parts are in?
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A. |
You can elect to generate an email or text message to these customers.
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Q. |
I’m attempting to eliminate the backlog in the afternoon when people are coming in to pay for their service and pick up their vehicle. Can TimeHighway assist with that?
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A. |
You can elect to use PayonLine. When the customer receives notification the services on their vehicle are completed, they can elect to use Express Pay.
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Q. |
I may elect to utilize the PayonLine for Express Checkout – do you have anything for my customers that might want to check in online?
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A. |
Yes – we also offer the customer the ability to use Express Check in. We can customize the form (perhaps using the verbiage on your Night Drop envelope) and the customer can elect to check in online. This prevents the customer from having to stand out in the weather to complete the Night Drop envelope – they can print the form at home, complete it and drop it in the envelope with their keys – or, if they are in a hurry in the morning, they have a signed, pre-work order they can hand to their service advisor.
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Q. |
Am I limited as to the number of personnel who have access to the system?
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A. |
No, your license fee provides unlimited access to the program. You can also log in even when you are out of town or out of the dealership as long as you have Internet access.
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Q. |
I have a rotating advisor schedule, but if an advisor is off the customer won’t see availability and may choose to service elsewhere. How can I manage that?
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A. |
We have the ability to “show all available times”, so if a particular advisor is off, the customer will still see shop availability.
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Q. |
With my current service scheduling provider, when I have an issue, I have to “create a ticket”. How do you handle support?
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A. |
We have live HelpDesk from 7A-11P ET Monday through Friday; 7A-9P Saturday and email support on Sunday.
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