How to Maintain Your Calendar

When you are reviewing your calendar in the morning, start by looking at each vehicle designation one at a time. Below is Rome’s recommendation on how to maintain your calendar.

Assignment – Must never be behind today. Assignments coming from Direct Repair Programs should be added to the calendar, so we can manage all scheduling in Rome. This also allows for the tracking of sales retention from an assignment to an estimate appointment.

Appointment – Must never be behind today. If this appointment is behind today, the customer needs to be called and a new appointment date set. If there is no response, there should be 3-4 follow-up calls before removing it from the calendar.

Scheduled In – – Must never be behind today. It is also important to note that if a scheduled in car is behind today and the parts have been ordered and received (there shouldn’t be a scheduled in RO unless we have cost already on the job or the vehicle is already in our possession), the clock is ticking on the amount of time that a part will be accepted as a return. The last thing you want is having to “eat” parts on a job that we preorder because the customer cancels.

Auth Cust/Auth ins – No more than one day behind. If there are RO’s waiting on authorization behind today, you may want to suggest that the shop get the customer involved to help speed up the insurance process.

Blueprint – No more than one day behind. Every car needs to be completely disassembled until no more damage is found and written within 3 hours of drop-off. There may be a time when the customer drops off late in the afternoon and the blueprint is not completed until the following morning.

Dispatch – No more than one day behind. A vehicle would be in dispatching for one of two reasons; The first is that the car is on hold for mission-critical parts. The second is that there is no technician available to start the labor.

In Shop/Schedule Due – Never behind today. If the date due is not up to date, there is no way of knowing if/ when the car is going to be completed. Utilize the Forecasting system and big board to maintain continuity of your data.

Completed – No more than one day behind today. If the shop is mirror matching and test fitting parts before the car goes to paint, they should have the confidence to call the customer before reassembly to schedule a delivery of the vehicle.

Delivered– Never behind today. Once a car is delivered, it should be “booked” to the DMS immediately. This is necessary to maintain an accurately aged receivable.

A vehicle will stay on the “Date In” until the car is designated “In Shop”. Once the car is In Shop, the car will jump to the Scheduled Due date.