Most dealership service personal do not have a good handle on how to achieve great repair order counts. They believe that customers that show up get waited on and if things are slow oh well tomorrow is another day. The truth is that management of repair order counts is a critical part of proper customer care. If a manager is asked how many service technician hours are scheduled for tomorrow he should know the answer. The time to deal with a slow schedule is before the day is here. Let's look first at the proper way to schedule. The customer's appointments should be staggered every 15 minutes to allow time for advisors to perform walk around and popping hoods. If a customer needs a special time of day like 8:00 it might be more days before that slot is open. Waiters should be separated with all advisors using a special number to be sure staff is able to process them promptly. Many times advisors over schedule waiters at 8:00 AM just because they do not know what the other appointments are. If a shop has 15 people show up at 8 as a waiter repair appointment what are the chances of providing proper customer care? All you need to do is watch your customer lounge at 8:30 for a while and look again at 10:00 AM. You might find some of the same people still waiting! Then the Customer lounge becomes quite most of the day with only a few people. This is sloppy management and will cause poor customer satisfaction and retention. Many advisors I train do not believe customers will use appointments. When I challenge them explaining it works for doctors and dentists they state they are not automotive. Then again I explain it works for oil changes correct? Let's face it folks it works only when the appointment schedule is done properly. Management needs to look ahead at the schedule and inform advisors of open technician hours available for the next day. They should estimate the hours needed for each appointment and have a goal of booking at least 85% of technician hours available. If appointments are short they should be proactive and begin calling open recall customers, tow truck companies, fleets, and used car dealerships doing free inventory checks for open recalls. On a slow day advisors should call tow truck companies stating we have a quick turn around for tow in vehicles today. They love to know where to take the cars let's tell them! The focus on technician hours averages per repair order combined with repair order counts will generate the maximum gross profit improvement. Proper scheduling and planning is the only way to provide customer care and isn't that why we are here? To gain great repair order counts and retain customers understand the need for management to gain control of the scheduling policies.