What Can Garages And Workshops Do To Make Progress In 2023?

Dealer management system and website provider Dragon2000 are focusing on how garages and workshops can continue to adapt and digitalise their daily processes in order to increase their profits and improve efficiencies in 2023.

Having the facility to allow your customers to pay their parts and service invoices online this year will speed up transactions for your workshop, so they can pay securely from any location before they come to collect their vehicle, or before the vehicle is returned to them if you operate a collection and delivery service. Not only will this be a much faster and simpler process for both you and your customers, but this will also result in less admin work and improve your cashflow.

Selling vehicle parts and accessories on your garage’s website is also an easy way to create an extra source of income in 2023. By taking advantage of ecommerce, you’ll be able to reach even more customers this year and target drivers nationwide, instead of relying solely on selling your items in-store, and also benefit from the ease of online payments.

In the workshop, digital job cards can provide an alternative to technicians queuing up at clocking machines and enable your business to move away from the traditional method of having paperwork being passed around throughout the day. Clocking on and off tasks from a mobile device and having your technician’s job schedule at their fingertips can save a lot of non-productive time and help your workshop achieve a much higher labour efficiency and increased profits.

Digital job cards also allow your service advisors to monitor the progress of jobs and assign tasks to technicians from a mobile device, whether out in the workshop or at their desk, which is perfect for keeping control of the garage and staying on top of the day’s workload. Managing individual technicians’ workloads and identifying if allocated hours are about to be exceeded is essential for maximising efficiency.

Performing vehicle health checks on vehicles to let customers know about any issues they might not be aware of that need addressing is an essential tool to use in your workshop. Checking vehicles whilst they are with you for service work can reveal issues in a transparent and easy way for your customers, which they will definitely appreciate, whilst also meeting a duty of care should you discover serious safety problems. Additionally, attaching any images and videos to highlighted areas of concern from the VHC will not only build trust and understanding with your customers, but it will also lead to increased upselling opportunities in carrying out any extra work authorised by the customer.

Digitally recording the condition of any vehicle that enters the workshop so that it can easily be referred to at a later date if required, is another useful tool to have. Storing any vehicle defects, including the size and type of any issues, within digital condition reports can help to avoid potential customer disputes upon collection of their vehicle, while the customer will also trust your workshop more because of your careful approach.

However, it is worth considering that if separate systems are used to introduce all of these features into your workshop then it can lead to data entry issues from mistakes made whilst re-keying the same information, and time can definitely be saved by using an integrated system.

The DragonDMS dealer management system allows your workshop customers to pay their service and parts invoices quickly and easily from anywhere at any time, using payment links generated in our software. The links can be emailed or text to customers, who can then safely pay the invoiced amount in their internet browser, whether that’s via their computer, tablet or mobile device, before collecting their vehicle.

Workshops and garages with a website powered by Dragon2000 are now able to sell products online and expand their target audience, thanks to the ecommerce feature within the DragonDMS. Any vehicle parts you sell online will also be taken out of stock in the DragonDMS with the sales invoice prepared automatically, which means once an item is sold online, you simply need to send out the product.

The ecommerce feature enables the upselling and cross-selling of your website products in the DragonDMS, which means additional products can be automatically promoted to online customers depending on their selection. This could be through suggesting a more premium item to the one they’re currently viewing or displaying products which complement the one on their screen, leading to increased purchases.

Dragon2000’s Workshop App allows technicians to clock on and off jobs digitally from the mobile app and is fully integrated with the DragonDMS so that jobs are updated in real time. Service advisors can also assign jobs through the app and review the department from the dashboard, checking the progress of jobs throughout the day with instant access to the workload.

Vehicle health checks can also be created from the Workshop App, using clear traffic light reports to guarantee your customer can quickly understand the severity of any issues with their car. The app also allows technicians to attach any images or videos to identified problems, giving you the chance to further explain the issue and potentially increase upsold work.

Interactive condition reports are also available in the Workshop App, which enables technicians to pinpoint any existing vehicle defects and store them digitally before starting work on a customer’s car. With a variety of vehicle type templates to select from, technicians can accurately label the size and position of any issues to produce a report which could help avoid potential customer disputes when they arrive to collect the car.

Garages and workshops can expect to benefit from embracing digital tools that help to improve their aftersales customers’ experience in 2023, ultimately leading their business to increased efficiencies and profits.

Car dealers and garages have been driving their businesses forward since 1995 with the help of Dragon2000. If you would like to find out more about how our dealer management system, car dealer websites and mobile apps can help your business increase profits and reduce costs in 2023, then talk to our team today on 01327 222 333 or email us at sales@dragon2000.co.uk.