Dealers: Online scheduling helps customers and shops

Westside Lexus in Houston sees 275 service customers during a typical day. One Thursday, nearly one-third of customers booked their appointments through the dealership's website.

"A couple or three years ago, it was probably 10 percent," says Robert Parnell, the dealership's parts and service director. He hopes that in five years, 70 to 80 percent of service customers will schedule appointments online.

Vendors that sell scheduling tools such as the one Westside Lexus uses predict that more consumers will want to make service appointments online as part of the widespread transformation to e-commerce.

Dealerships, though, are seeing mixed reaction to their online scheduling systems. Most consumers still make appointments by phone.

Parnell told Fixed Ops Journal that online scheduling "reduces the number of phone calls you have to handle, and it lets the customer do it at midnight or whenever they want to. It takes that burden off us and allows us to focus on taking care of the traffic during the day."

Westside Lexus is ahead of the curve. A Cox Automotive study of 4,500 U.S. consumers in 2015 found that 14 percent of dealership customers scheduled service online, while 69 percent did so by phone and another 14 percent in person. (The Cox subsidiary Xtime markets an online scheduling tool.)

To increase his online bookings, Parnell plans next month to offer a 15 percent discount on service bills to customers who make appointments online.

"If I can get them to use it one time, then I think there is a great likelihood that I'm going to have a better bond with that customer, and they're going to use it again and again in the future," he says.

In contrast, at #1 Cochran, which operates 18 dealerships in western Pennsylvania, just 12 percent of customers schedule service through the websites at three dealerships that track how appointments originate.

David Bernardini, #1 Cochran's regional operations director, says he isn't trying to push more customers to make appointments online. When people book online, fewer actually show up, he notes.

"Appointments scheduled by our [business development center] over the phone or via email have a 90 to 93 percent show rate, and we've been able to maintain that level over a four- to five-year period," Bernardini says. "Our online show rate is anywhere from 60 to 70 percent."

Moreover, he adds, just 41 percent of service customers who start the appointment process online finish it there. Many have questions and end up calling the dealership, he says.

Still, Bernardini acknowledges that customer preferences are changing, especially among younger vehicle owners.

The Cox study concluded that 45 percent of service customers who didn't schedule appointments online didn't know that option was available.

To change that, Kim Saylor, fixed operations product marketer for CDK Global, which sells dealer management systems, scheduling tools and other software products, says dealerships should start promoting online scheduling when they sell a car or truck.

"That's an excellent time to introduce the customer to the online appointment tool," Saylor says. "Hopefully, in the future, that customer will feel comfortable and go straight to the tool."

Two years ago, Tom Gill Chevrolet in Florence, Ky., started using a scheduling system that is integrated with its DMS. It lets anyone with internal access to the scheduler see who is coming in, when and for what reason.

Customers who schedule online choose from available time slots. The system recognizes previous customers, so they don't have to fill out a form with vehicle and personal information.

"The customer sees a live appointment scheduler," says Mark Farney, the dealership's parts and service director. "It's going to show you what's available, even down to whether you can wait for the car."

The system also allows customers to request a particular service adviser, Farney says.

Westside Lexus and #1 Cochran group dealerships also use online scheduling systems that are integrated with the DMS. The Lexus dealership's vendor is Reynolds and Reynolds.

The #1 Cochran group uses a CDK system at 15 of its dealerships. It runs an Xtime scheduling system at two Mazda dealerships and a Nissan dealership because of automaker requirements.

These systems all rely on electronic scheduling to manage workflow in the service department, but the dealerships maintain enough flexibility to handle customers who need emergency service.

"We don't need the schedule to dictate when a customer can come in," says #1 Cochran's Bernardini. "We just open up the doors and say, when you get here, we're going to take care of you. We can handle the volume internally. We're built for that."

Parnell, of Westside Lexus, said that of the 275 customers the service department typically sees each day, 50 to 75 don't have an appointment. Many of those customers use the dealership's express service lane, which allows walk-ins.

Parnell says he limits the number of service appointments on the daily master schedule to 200 to accommodate walk-in customers and ensure he has enough loaner vehicles on hand.

Whether customers make appointments online or by phone, integrated scheduling systems that identify them and their vehicles and share that information throughout the service department have other benefits.

Some stand-alone scheduling systems may not be linked to the DMS or may not allow customers to make an online appointment. Such systems may only allow a customer to submit an appointment request that the dealership must process, and it may not be for a specific time.

Farney says his dealership's integrated system gives service advisers enough time to check in each customer and answer questions. Managers can schedule technicians' time more efficiently when they know how many major and minor service jobs to prepare for each hour, he adds.

Bernardini says a master schedule also gives the parts department an early heads-up to assign parts for specific jobs.

Vendors such as Xtime, CDK and Reynolds and Reynolds say that integrated scheduling and management systems eliminate problems that arise from trying to get stand-alone scheduling software to communicate with the DMS and other tools.

"You improve profitability by cutting out errors that will occur when you've got two systems that are trying to sync with each other and just don't do it very well," says Jon Strawsburg, vice president of product planning for Reynolds and Reynolds.

Strawsburg says he expects the percentage of service appointments scheduled online to increase dramatically.

"Dealers need to be prepared to make it convenient for that segment that wants to control their own schedule," he says. "That's the way a growing segment of people want to do business, period."