Maintaining Your Calendar

Maintaining Your Calendar

Body shops typically have a mindset to bring all the cars scheduled on a Monday to get through the shop and out the door by Friday. This is a recipe for disaster! Based on Rome Technologies’ best practices, we recommend setting a limit per writer each day for work to be scheduled. Another option is to establish a maximum of estimated body hours per day to be added to the work in process.

Remember these key elements when scheduling a drop off:

1. Give the estimator time to meet with the customer, typically 15-30 minutes. Estimators should spend this time going over prior damage and using the Easy Check-in app to walk the car with the customer. Spending time with the customer during drop off allows up-sell additional work since the car is already at the shop.
2. Blueprinting must be complete within 1 to 3 hours of the vehicle being on the property. Blueprinting immediately after drop off allows for at least 2-3 cars to be brought in per estimator each day to meet these expectations adequately. Based on an average hit of $2,500, an estimator should manage 60-65 repairs within a month based on 150,000 in sales per writer.
3. Schedule drop off throughout the week. Utilize Tuesday -Thursday to make sure you maintain a manageable workload for the writers and your body technicians. We can only do so much from preliminary photo estimates. If there is a chance the car will be at the shop longer than five business days, bringing it in later in the week will help maintain proper workload levels for your technicians.

Meeting Benchmarks

If your body shop is experiencing work in process higher than 25% of your monthly average revenue, let Rome Technologies help you by discussing our scheduling best practices for your shop. Having issues making these benchmarks a reality? Call into Rome Technologies and see how we can help your body shop make the necessary changes to improve your revenue every month. Rome Technologies offers daily support and online and over the phone training to help your team improve their skills. Contact us by calling our Technical Support team or reach out to your Advocate to schedule a shop review – you can pick a time by going to https://go.oncehub.com/rometechnologies.

Regards,

Sarah Hill, MS MBA
Director of Consulting and Education

For further details, visit our Documentation page. Need support? Visit our tech support page.