In the present challenging industry circumstances, more dealers are looking to their aftersales operations to boost profits. Pinewood DMS helps dealers achieve this through more efficient management, using a part of the system called Workshop Planner.

It helps dealers improve productivity, by allowing them to optimise the way they manage their technicians’ time. Users can visualise and allocate work using a simple drag-and-drop interface. Bookings can be reviewed and amended as they arise and with a real-time view of the technicians’ and service team’s workloads, service advisors can allocate jobs to available technicians.

“Workshop Planner also allows dealers to ensure that specialist technicians aren’t being misallocated to generalist jobs – a common error which stifles the potential revenue they could be generating from more skilled work,” explains Neville Briggs, Managing Director at Pinewood.

“By segmenting technicians into service teams and splitting them by skill category, it makes it simpler for management to allocate work according to the proficiency of technicians.”

Specifically designed for technicians to focus on work that requires attention, jobs in the planner change colour according to their status.

“The colour-coded planner makes it really easy to see which jobs need attention. Technicians can see exactly when work needs to be finished – allowing them to ensure the job is completed within the allotted timescale, or communicate delays with the customer. As a consequence, dealers have found that customer satisfaction has increased.”

Workshop jobs can also be accessed in Pinewood’s mobile app for technicians, Tech+, where they can seamlessly move through operations, speeding up technician clocking processes.

Dealers’ using Pinewood DMS have found the Workshop Planner particularly beneficial. The ability to project a real-time display of activity in their workshop has provided clarity, and allowed them to react easily to changing customer requirements – improving flexibility and providing a superb aftersales experience.

As new vehicle sales decline, there is increasing urgency for dealers to find alternative revenue sources, with many looking to their aftersales departments. Despite the increasing prevalence of electric vehicles and the reliability of modern cars – reducing billable workshop hours – Pinewood Technologies believe there are still plenty of opportunities to profit.

“We are learning from markets that are more advanced in terms of their adoption of electric vehicles. From our experience in these markets, such as the Nordics, we’ve observed that dealers capture more of the work that a traditional UK dealership might not pursue as actively. For example – tyres, smart repairs and even glass repairs,” explains Managing Director, Neville Briggs.

To capture every opportunity, Pinewood DMS encourages dealers to strike while the iron is hot, when customers are more likely to authorise identified work. “The best time to upsell is when the car is in the workshop, not when the customer has gone home and has the opportunity to shop around, or faces the prospect of having to revisit the dealership, which isn’t efficient for anyone,” says Briggs. “Our most successful and profitable customers are already aware of this”.

Pinewood DMS offers a built-in vehicle checking process to build trust with customers, who are more likely to authorise further work and therefore generate more revenue. To provide transparency, dealers can send a booking confirmation to the customer, with a video link explaining the arrival and check-in process. Service advisors can be pre-allocated to an appointment, so they are ready to greet the customer and begin the VHC process.

Pinewood’s app for sales and service, Host+, allows the filming of an arrival video from the convenience of a mobile device. Doing this with the customer present provides more credibility than if the dealer were to contact the customer later in the day and gives them more time to consider proceeding with the additional work. However, when upselling, dealers must have clear pricing and the stock required. Features such as menu pricing, inbuilt tyre catalogues, recommended ordering (based on previous ­supply trends) and automatic re-ordering of parts, address these challenges.

VHC video is a major highlight of Pinewood’s technician app, Tech+. Technicians can capture and send clips of damage to customers straight from the ramp, with a link to instantly authorise or reject the work. This has proven to significantly impact conversion rates and aftersales profits.

The past year has seen the release of brand new versions of all three of Pinewood’s aftersales apps; Tech+, Parts+ and Host+, for technicians, parts advisors and service/salespeople respectively. These bring a range of new capabilities, such as digitally signing documents to reduce paperwork, issuing parts on the move and barcode scanning.

A growing business

Pinewood are constantly growing their team to drive their customers’ businesses forward, this year hiring 27 new graduates. Additionally, the introduction of Live-chat and an extensive knowledge-base have proven immensely popular, enhancing the customer support experience.

These advancements will help dealers to truly make the most of Pinewood DMS’ ever-expanding features, enabling them to boost profitability and overcome market challenges.

As the modern-day automotive sales journey evolves, dealers face the challenge of converting leads and enquiries into sales in an increasingly digital and competitive environment. Customers have often educated themselves online or made their purchase decision before engaging with a dealer, reducing the opportunities for dealers to influence decision making during the initial stages of the customer journey.

This means that when customers do finally make contact with a dealer, it’s even more crucial that the retail experience is a flawless one.

Dealers need to have a powerful Dealer Management System in place and make full use of its capabilities, to convert leads into sales. Many dealers still don’t make use of the tools available to them within their Dealer Management System, which is a huge missed opportunity.

“Dealers must focus on creating a positive customer experience, providing them with all the information they need in a simple and efficient manner,” says Neville Briggs, Managing Director at Pinewood Technologies PLC.

Improve website listings to increase leads

With a growing number of car buyers preferring to browse vehicle information online rather than in-store, it’s vital to make sure website listings include lots of high quality photos, accurate vehicle specification and are up to date. Dealers who provide more detailed and better quality website listings are more likely to gain leads.

Many dealers have the ability to update vehicle listings quickly from their DMS. Pinewood are focused on helping dealers achieve a seamless and customer-centric online experience, with their DMS offering the ability to capture up to forty vehicle images, which are immediately available to the dealers’ website. This provides the ideal tool to showcase vehicle stock, enhancing the online search phase and resulting in more enquiries.

“Our stock management app, Stock+, allows users to instantly enhance website listings with vehicle details and photos from their mobile device”, says Briggs.

Maximise lead conversion through effective enquiry management

Similarly, choosing a DMS with tools to improve your showroom management processes will positively impact on lead conversion. From managing new enquiries, to the first contact with a customer, to the vehicle handover. The modern dealership is no longer an environment where a ‘quick and hard sell’ works – therefore converting leads relies upon the customer experience. This is an opportunity for dealers to impress.

“Pinewood DMS users can send personalised videos and emails at key points throughout the customer journey,” Briggs explains. “These communications create a more personal experience for buyers, enhancing their likelihood of taking action.”

Likewise, dealers must ensure follow-ups are dealt with effectively. “Pinewood DMS can prompt sales users to schedule a future contact following every customer interaction – whether this is online, over the phone or in person. The DMS connects with Outlook, scheduling reminders for any future appointments or contacts, helping sales teams to never let a lead go cold. Every interaction is stored on the customer’s CRM record, so other salespeople can pick up where they left off as and when required. This ensures that every dealer using Pinewood DMS has the best tools to manage and convert enquiries into sales,” says Briggs.

Make it quick and easy to pursue leads from manufacturers      

Finally, dealers can boost inbound enquiries by having a DMS with manufacturer integrations for their represented brands. For the systems which offer these integrations, enquiries submitted to manufacturers websites can automatically be sent to the DMS and flagged as opportunities for the sales team to action. Pinewood have close working relationships with manufacturers to help facilitate this.

By using their DMS to its full potential, dealers can boost their conversion rate, significantly influencing sales revenue.

Nobody will forget the ‘Beast from the East’ bringing the UK to a standstill. With a likely repeat of the extreme weather we faced last winter, drivers will want to be prepared – providing dealers a prime opportunity to capitalise on the increased demand for winter tyres.

Dealers should be encouraging their customers to switch to winter tyres, having highlighted this revenue-generating opportunity for the upcoming season. Focused on boosting profits, Pinewood has developed a new ‘tyre hotel’ feature, promoting dealers to efficiently manage their tyre storage and servicing business, all within the DMS.

Introducing a ‘tyre hotel’ service generates revenue in three key ways; selling tyres, storing tyres and cross-selling to customers – who need to bring their vehicle to the dealership at least two more times than usual, in a twelve-month period. This creates an opportunity to uncover additional revenue more frequently.

“We’re constantly investing in new ways for dealers to capture revenue,” explains Neville Briggs, Managing Director at Pinewood Technologies PLC. “It’s a common misconception that UK drivers don’t need winter tyres. In reality, switching to winter tyres becomes useful when temperatures are 7 degrees and below, typical of the UK from October through to March. It’s an opportunity to generate additional revenue.”

Pinewood’s new ‘tyre hotel’ feature gives dealers the ability to capture tyre details using an integrated tyre catalogue. Dealers are able to generate and print contracts and invoices for the storage of tyres. Labels can be printed and stuck to each tyre, displaying the customer it belongs to, along with the details.

Customisable checklists can also be added to tyre inspections, highlighting key areas for technicians to check.

These features will help transform the typical small-scale tyre storage setup, into a scalable, revenue-generating business opportunity.

With the automotive landscape changing and smartphones and tablets becoming commonplace in dealerships, a new challenge emerges in trying to futureproof your business. It can be difficult to choose between the number of devices and operating systems on the market.

Retailers who invest in the latest devices and embrace new apps will gain a competitive advantage, making device choice a more important factor, as technology becomes ever-more pervasive throughout the dealership.

An older generation device and operating system may be cheaper, but will limit app performance, proving slower, less reliable and – crucially – unable to support the latest updates. This means dealers will miss out on new features, which will limit the efficiency and customer service levels the business can offer.

DMS vendor, Pinewood Technologies, has developed a cutting-edge app suite, focused on streamlining processes, driving productivity and enhancing profit opportunities for dealers. So far, this includes apps for capturing personalised video, conducting integrated vehicle health checks, processing card payments, managing vehicle stock and issuing parts whilst employees are on-the-go.

Pinewood recently updated their technician app ‘Tech+’, bringing a new look-and-feel, the ability to add flexible checklists to work and improved menu pricing. Users with newer generation devices could immediately update their apps to benefit from the new features.

Microsoft’s discontinuation of mainstream support for Windows 8 devices, earlier this year, was a prime example. Any dealers still using Windows 8.1 will no longer benefit from improvements to apps or be able to access new features. Those who invested in newer generation devices with up-to-date operating systems will continue to run their business using the latest tools and features, arguably giving them a competitive edge.

Pinewood recommends:
• Apple iOS devices on iOS11 or above
• Windows devices on Windows 10 or above
• Android devices on at least Version 7 (Nougat)

Before choosing a device, the role of the user must also be given some thought. Technicians may require a smaller, easy-to-carry device with a light, or camera flash – facilitating clearer VHC video recording from beneath vehicles. For these users, Apple’s latest iPod Touch is a suitable option to consider, as an alternative to the more costly iPhone.

Users of reception-based, meet and greet apps, may prefer a larger screen to enhance the customer experience. Here, there is a range of tablet devices to consider, from the premium Microsoft Surface Pro to a variety of reasonably priced Android tablets.