John Dowling’s Post

Transcript

Happy Friday, everybody. Have you ever wondered why? In the in the Bible, we're instructed to go to go to church every Sunday and that you know, it's the same message, the gospel message, like the whole Bible has this one message and for 2000 years now this one message has been delivered to us every Sunday for 2000 years, yet we're instructed to go to church every Sunday. Well, the reason is, is because we are forgetful, forgetful people. And if you don't believe me and you're married, ask your spouse and they will confirm that. That we are very forgetful people. So here John Dowling, author of Service by the Boxes. And I bring that up because you may be wondering like why would a professional. Need to have a. A personal coach, a business coach. And why should I pay somebody? To work with my service manager or my parts manager. Um. Because they're good and they they know what to do. Well, this this is. It's the same issue. Because we are forgetful people, we need somebody to constantly remind us what we should do. Even though we already know what we should do, we still need to be reminded of that fact. So. This gets me to my point in my book. We're in the, the, the chapter, uh, the parts tech box. And I wanna just skip over in a couple couple of pages and I have it, I have it highlighted here. I don't know if you can see this or not, but I have it highlighted. And even in my book, I have it in all caps. For those who don't understand all caps, it means I'm screaming and yelling at you to listen to this and take this to heart. Pull all parts that are in stock. Pull all parts that are in stock. This has sabotaged so many repairs, so many life, work order, life cycles has been sabotaged. Because somebody in the parts department did not pull the parts. So let me explain. The customer has brought in their piece of equipment. The technician has diagnosed the failure on that piece of equipment and determine what is the most efficient way to repair it. The parts department and the service manager has worked together, put together an estimate. That estimate has been submitted to the customer. The customer has approved the estimate. The Service Department instructs the parts department that this estimate has been approved. Please order the parts. The parts back parts personnel searches their system. They see that they have majority of those parts in stock, but they have to order one or two of them. They informed the service manager, hey, well, we have majority of the parts in stock. There's two of them that we have to order, but they're in a very close depot. We'll have them in three days. Great. Good job, great communication. The service manager contacts the customer. Hey, Mr. Customer. We've got all the parts in stock except for two of them. They're in our regional depot. We'll have them in three days. I'll get my my technician on it. We'll have this job completed by weeks end. So far so good. Now some of y'all know where I'm going with this, and you've experienced this yourself not once, not twice, but probably 100 times. And that's not an overstatement. In three days. The parts show up on time. The back parts guy or gal brings the parts out. And still does great communication. It informs the service manager or the service technician. Hey all your parts are here except one and we had to order it. And you're like, what part? Did we have to order? These are the two parts that we had to order. The rest of the parts were in stock. Well, it's not in stock. We have to order it. But you confirmed that it was in stock. Why didn't you order that part? Well, the reason was. Is that when they looked in the system it showed all the parts there? And so they just ordered the two parts that were required for the repair and they didn't worry about those other parts because they were in stock. What they weren't counting on is there was another customer. Who needed that same part? And within those three days? A customer came into the front counter. And says hey I need this part. And the counter guys this this happens every day in a dealership. The counter person looks up the part and says ohh. Mr. Customer, we don't have that part. And the customer is visibly upset. I drove an hour. I need this part. I've got to get my machine up and running today. And so the parts counter person says, you know what, let me go take a look. I was just there at that bin location where where we were this part is, is, is stock. And I think I, I may have saw one, you know, sometimes our, our inventory system gets off a little bit. So hey, hang tight. Let me walk back in the warehouse. Let me just put my eyes on it and make sure. They walked back and behold, they come back with that part that that the system said was not in stock. And yet. They have the part. The customer is elated. The parts counter person thinks he's done a wonderful job and glad he went the extra mile to. Deliver best in class customer service. What he failed to do. Was not asked the question why? Was the inventory off? The parts gods, as I talk in my book, the parts gods were not looking down on that customer or that dealership at that moment in time. That part, the reason it was showing it wasn't in stock is because it was allocated to a service work order. But what happened? The back parts counter person knew that he should or he or she should have pulled those parts. But was being lazy and he skipped a step. They skipped when you skip a step. There will always haunt you. So they didn't pull the parts. And it was sold to another customer. So #1 if you are a parts counter person and you go through this scenario where a customer needs a part, your inventory saying you do not have the part, it's not in stock, but yet you go back there and it is in stock. You need to double check and make sure. You need to double check and make sure that that part is not on on another parts ticket or is not on a service work order because usually it's on a work order, it's already been billed out to that to another work order. So we do have one happy customer, but when the parts come in three days later. The back parts person gets these parts, he goes to pull the other car parts and he goes back there and there's no part. It's not on the shelf. So then he goes back to his computer and he looks it up and lo and behold. It's not showing 0 on hand but -1. So let me ask you this, how can you sell a -1 part? So once again, parts guys. If your inventory is off, you must ask the question Why is my inventory off? And you must address it. That's how you get aged parts. That's how you you show parts on hand that you don't have. That's how it gets messed up. If something is wrong, you need to investigate and find out why, or at least to the parts manager says, hey, our inventories off on this particular part. I don't I don't know what's going on. Could you look into it? At the end of the day. It's a lose for the dealership. And the service department, they did everything right, but yet they still get dinged. They have to the service manager, service writer. Has to call that customer, says Mr. Customer. We told you we would have the machine in. But the parts. We don't have the parts in stock and we have to order it. Try to explain that to a customer who has been planning his whole week around. Around you. And trusting you with his livelihood. So the way that you saw this issue is you pull all parts that are in stock without delay without exception. I do not care how many parts. Are in stock or or the number of a particular part in stock and say, well, this won't happen to me, it will, it will happen to you. It's Murphy's Law. Back parts. Pull every part in stock for service work order the same day ordered. Parts counter sales people. If the inventory is off, say something. It's these little bitty things that were always bite us in the ****. Even when we go above and beyond. We still we still sabotage ourselves. I hope this helps. I hope this makes sense. I hope you get the message of pull all parts in stock for service work orders. Have a great weekend, go to church. Remember that we are forgetful people, so I'll say it every every week. Take your family to church. Have a great weekend, see you next week.