I understand that there are some service department solutions where your customer can "opt-in" to be alerted via text messaging when their car is ready for pickup, or to get their approval on any repairs after the customer has left. Is anyone using this?
Is anyone using cell phone texting with their service departments?
- Thread starter kevinfrye
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- May 1, 2006
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This has been driving my boss and me nuts. We want XTime to be the one delivering these messages. We were contracted with OneCommand and they could handle it, but we just couldn't trust OneCommand to keep things clean. We had too many customers complaining about various messages going out, so we decided it best to save the money and stop the complaints.....doesn't seemed to have hurt business either.
The way I figure it, is you need to have whichever system your people are actually working out of delivering any type of messaging. There are 2 reasons for this:
1. Database consistency - your people can make quick changes on the fly instead of relying on someone to change the DMS and pray that the change makes it to the next vendor
2. Contact History - there is nothing worse than a customer getting something automatic and they come in saying "you told me my car was ready" and the employee is a deer in the headlights....that's when technology really fails
In a perfect service world I would:
Screw the DMS - contract with some sort of CRM company and make sure my data is mine in that contract - if I ever leave that CRM company for any reason I am taking my data with me. Then I'd have my people living inside the CRM. The CRM would prompt the service writer to ask the customer whether that customer wanted to be notified by email, cell phone, text message, or by some other method (be really cool if you could drop them a line on faceBook or Twitter too). Then it would prompt for the second best way to contact today. Then, as various things are posted to the ticket the service CRM would have a 'translate to English' feature that would take "RO#45879 PO# 8945667 5/6/2009" and translate that into a text / email / tweet of "We ordered a part for your car and it should be here on May 6th - will keep you updated as things progress".
And that's just a small taste of what I'm thinking.
who is going to build it?
The way I figure it, is you need to have whichever system your people are actually working out of delivering any type of messaging. There are 2 reasons for this:
1. Database consistency - your people can make quick changes on the fly instead of relying on someone to change the DMS and pray that the change makes it to the next vendor
2. Contact History - there is nothing worse than a customer getting something automatic and they come in saying "you told me my car was ready" and the employee is a deer in the headlights....that's when technology really fails
In a perfect service world I would:
Screw the DMS - contract with some sort of CRM company and make sure my data is mine in that contract - if I ever leave that CRM company for any reason I am taking my data with me. Then I'd have my people living inside the CRM. The CRM would prompt the service writer to ask the customer whether that customer wanted to be notified by email, cell phone, text message, or by some other method (be really cool if you could drop them a line on faceBook or Twitter too). Then it would prompt for the second best way to contact today. Then, as various things are posted to the ticket the service CRM would have a 'translate to English' feature that would take "RO#45879 PO# 8945667 5/6/2009" and translate that into a text / email / tweet of "We ordered a part for your car and it should be here on May 6th - will keep you updated as things progress".
And that's just a small taste of what I'm thinking.
who is going to build it?
- Apr 10, 2009
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And that's just a small taste of what I'm thinking.
Working on it
It's also possible to identify if a phone number is a cell phone and just send them texts offering for them to opt-in to receive the alerts.
Alex,
Check the bulletins section of Xtime tha text application was released over the weekend, requires customer opt in but it's there along with some additional info including reporting at logon very useful
Check the bulletins section of Xtime tha text application was released over the weekend, requires customer opt in but it's there along with some additional info including reporting at logon very useful
- May 1, 2006
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It is a new feature of XTime's 5.3 release. It's supposed to be an opt-in but, we've already generated some txt msgs automatically without "verifying" the txt address. I am in the process of testing this feature in XTime and hope that it works as I think it could be very helpful. However, my wish would be to txt a customer when their vehicle is ready. We have issues with XTime's status pull from LRO in ADP taking, in some cases, longer than 2 hours. By then, the service advisor would have already called the customer. More later (hopefully today).
Steve,
Your bias is showing, your constant shots at Xtime aren't constructive, it reminds me of customers who take shots at dealers on dealerrater or set up complaint sites without merit. Last month I spoke to your VW service manager at VW's after-sales convention and like our dealership he was thrilled with Xtime's application. Maybe that's why VW announced a co-op program exclusive with Xtime.
Your bias is showing, your constant shots at Xtime aren't constructive, it reminds me of customers who take shots at dealers on dealerrater or set up complaint sites without merit. Last month I spoke to your VW service manager at VW's after-sales convention and like our dealership he was thrilled with Xtime's application. Maybe that's why VW announced a co-op program exclusive with Xtime.
Steve,
You may also want to contact Xtime to update your LRO status pull, our pull updates statuses every 15 minutes you can do the same as long as the ADP hardware / software can support it.
You may also want to contact Xtime to update your LRO status pull, our pull updates statuses every 15 minutes you can do the same as long as the ADP hardware / software can support it.
- May 1, 2006
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Megan - I can vouch for Steve. He is my counterpart on the Fixed Ops side of Checkered Flag. His bias is legit due to some major issues XTime has been going through of late. Over lunch yesterday, Steve told me XTime is starting to show signs of getting their acts together, but it is still too early to make any definitive claims.
In the last 30 days we've had more downtime, with XTime, than all service providers we've ever used (for any venture) combined.
Steve is not someone who develops an "attitude" carelessly. He is in XTime at least 8 hours per day. Not only are our service writers using it as a CRM across every one of our 12 franchises, but our centralized service BDC (11 people) is using it for thousands of daily calls and appointments. We are HEAVY users with HEAVY demands who are feeling the pain of unattained promises from XTime right now and serious issues with their simple core elements.
I am confident that XTime will get these sorted out with MUCH haste, or we will be forced to find another solution. No bias - straight facts.
Steve,
Thanks for your reply, our 30+ locations, call center and body shops are also HEAVY users and are more than satisfied with the application, it maybe when we have concerns we contact Xtime's staff and get results IE status updates every 15 minutes, active profit building campaigns, with minimal down time or problems, I recognize online scheduling is not perfect but Xtime continues to update their processes and is responsive to our concerns.
Thanks for your reply, our 30+ locations, call center and body shops are also HEAVY users and are more than satisfied with the application, it maybe when we have concerns we contact Xtime's staff and get results IE status updates every 15 minutes, active profit building campaigns, with minimal down time or problems, I recognize online scheduling is not perfect but Xtime continues to update their processes and is responsive to our concerns.
