Allowing the Service Advisor the chance to audit the inspections and create a great looking presentation for the customer before they get texted out to a customer is one of the most important steps you can take.
This means that you have the chance to correct bad spelling, fix capitalization, change a finding and recommendation and set the priorities of each of the recommendations. But first, you are texting the inspection, right? Texting a well laid out inspection about 5 minutes BEFORE you call the customer will almost guarantee they'll answer the phone now. I know if I call my customer unannounced, they only answer about 40% of the time. If I call them within 5 minutes of texting the inspection, that jumps to around 80%.
Here's an example of one we texted to a customer
When I say audit an inspection, I'm talking about taking a few minutes to prepare it so the customer can read and understand it better. Think of the inspection as a presentation letting the customer know what is needed, show them photos of each item you are recommending, and make sure the photos tell a story. Just doing a digital inspection is not enough, you need to prepare it and use it as a tool to help your customer understand what is needed.
First, let's understand the "Status" column on your screen:
There are several statuses that we use.
- New - This indicates an inspection in queue, waiting to be performed
- Working - This lets you know the technician is working on it (you can open the checklist and watch them check items off in real time)
- Completed - You get a popup message when the tech finishes the inspection and it now shows as completed with indicator numbers
- Audited - The green checkmark lets you know the Advisor has reviewed the inspection, set priorities, checked spelling and capitalization, and reviewed the images. The yellow caution sign indicates it was sent without being audited
- Sent - The inspection has been sent either by text or email to the customer. The icons to the right indicate which and you can mouse over the icon to see when it was sent
- Read - The eyeballs indicate the inspection has been texted and viewed by your customer. You can mouse over the icon to see when it was read. You should also be seeing a popup on your screen when the customer looks at it on their phone. This is controlled in your personal settings and browser settings
The indicator numbers indicate the health of the vehicle and the completeness of the inspection. So, the 4/22 would indicate 4 things marked off on a 22 point inspection.
Clicking the "Audit" button links to the "Recommendations and Notes" of the inspection. Think of this as the advisors shortcut that will show you only the items you need to see and give you the ability to edit/fix/prioritize before sending it to your customer. The Recommendations & Notes looks like this:
This now gives you quick access to ONLY what was marked as bad during the inspection. It is listed in order of the items checked. You can see whether they checked yellow or red, you can edit any of the text boxes, you can select a different finding and recommendation as needed, and you can also edit the existing finding and recommendation to fix spelling or verbiage. In the upper right corner of your screen is also a "Fix Capitalization" button that will replace all text with proper sentence case. Misspelled words appear with a red line under them, simply right click for the spell-check feature built in to the browser.
The ability to set priorities is one of the biggest things you can do to help your customer understand what's needed. You can see how they turn out by looking at one of my texted inspections. Safety items that could cause breakdowns or bad driving conditions (think belts, wipers, batteries, tires, brakes) come right up to the top of the list for your customer and help them understand what is imperative that the get done today. The next grouping in my list is cost. Those are things that if not done soon, could cost more if not taken care of soon. This is followed by maintenance, and the Monitor. Setting the priorities is quick and makes a huge difference. You can also mark items as "Sold" which puts the word "Resolved" next to any items in the texted view.
Once you have audited the inspection, we recommend reviewing any images or video that the Tech may have added and make sure it tells a story. If the Tech is doing the inspection on a tablet and taking photos as they go, the images are already assigned to individual tasks. You have the choice of how the customer will see them.
As always, feel free to reach out with any questions!