How Digital Vehicle Inspections Boost Customer Contacts
How Digital Vehicle Inspections Boost Customer Contacts
Digital vehicle inspections offer a great way to thoroughly assess a vehicle in your shop so nothing gets overlooked. A digital vehicle inspection ( DVI) takes the standard paper checklist and makes it part of your automotive shop software.
This tool has served repair shops well for generations. In recent years, it has evolved to a whole new level thanks to companies like Autoflow and Shop-Ware. These days, you can share a digital vehicle inspection’s electronic file easily with customers and staff.
That is just one way it saves time and increases productivity. However, Lucas Underwood, president of L&N Performance in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, does so much more with his DVIs.
You may know Lucas as the outspoken and charismatic co-host of the ASOG Podcast, alongside David Roman. Or you may have seen him as a speaker at the Automotive Service and Training Expo or other trade shows. Regardless, the success of his shop speaks for itself.
How a Digital Vehicle Inspection Informs Customers
Lucas doesn’t use the term ‘service advisor’ in his shop. Instead, he considers his front-line staff as true advocates rather than sales people. His beliefs reflect his admiration for the founders of Autoflow and Shop-Ware – Chris Cloutier and Carolyn Coquillette.
For starters, he points out that both of them run and operate the two most organically grown and sincere software companies in the automotive aftermarket. He absolutely loves and tries to copy their honesty and transparency.
The way the Autoflow digital vehicle inspection is formatted and organized ties into his approach. It makes it very easy for customers to see the most accurate information about their vehicles. That way, they can truly learn about the safety choices they need to make for their vehicles’ repairs and maintenance. As a result, they work with shop staff to ensure their vehicle remains running smoothly for the longest time possible.
Without using the Autoflow DVI in his workflow, Lucas feels he would lose that ability. After all, if customers cannot see inspection images and information in a format they understand, they cannot make informed decisions.
What Is the Best Way to Run a Digital Vehicle Inspection?
When it comes to digital vehicle inspections, Lucas and his staff follow what he calls “the 300% rule”:
- evaluate 100% of the vehicle
- estimate 100% of the yellow, orange and red items
- present 100% of your findings
In light of this 300% rule, nothing gets overlooked or held back from the customer.
Once customers dive into an Autoflow DVI, they get extra details from staff who send the right visuals and notes along too. All this happens before even building an estimate with prices.
In essence, his shop’s workflow accelerates because, on every inspection, his staff can send the Autoflow digital vehicle inspection first. This saves his staff 20 to 30 minutes before contacting the customer for the next step of the estimate-approval process.
Here’s the bottom line. His advocates help educate customers about the digital vehicle inspection process to align with his 300% rule. Then, they have a candid conversation with their customer, then they present the findings with a price. Finally, they get a work order started quickly and seamlessly so the shop hums along without delays.
The Next Generation of Digital Vehicle Inspection
As customers embrace eCommerce, shops can show how professional they can be by adopting habits offered by large retailers. Shop-Ware’s exclusive Digital Vehicle Experience (DVX™) takes the traditional DVI and adds a Messenger platform that offers a live-chat option. It also shares all notes and visuals at point of sale so customers have all that information at their fingertips.With DVX™, customers say “yes” 89% of the time, while shops average increases of 20% in revenue, gross profit, and shop efficiency. As a result, this streamlined solution makes everyone’s day more productive and hassle-free.
Whichever version of digital vehicle inspection your shop embraces, they all make customers more aware and informed. And that reflects well on our industry as a whole.
How Autoflow and Shop-Ware Share a Digital Vehicle Inspection
Next, when his techs start work orders in Shop-Ware, they don’t need to start from scratch. In fact, they can pull a make, model and year from canned jobs and save inputting that information right away. They can also look at a past service in case a customer was alerted earlier to a problem in a previous inspection.
Together, Shop-Ware and Autoflow make a perfect pair:
- Through integration, tickets assigned in Shop-Ware appear on the techs’ active tickets in Autoflow.
- Parts and labor from Shop-Ware generate within Autoflow work orders.
- Autoflow DVI findings transfer as published notes to Shop-Ware, allowing advisors to easily share recommendations.
- Autoflow and Shop-Ware workflow statuses are 100% customizable as key automations from Autoflow ensure staff and clients properly update.
The client remains engaged with their vehicle’s progress, whether they wait in the lobby or elsewhere.
Through the unique presentation in Autoflow, to the ease of approving recommendations in Shop-Ware, shops and their clients win. That way, clients make buying decisions with a clear awareness of the true state of health of their vehicle. As a result, you can easily leverage the value of your shop’s service.
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