Dave Voaklander
Service Manager
Bloomington, Minnesota
I really couldn't wait to get started with Xtime, and since we started offering Xtime to our customers in the spring of 2004, it has exceeded all my expectations.
The primary reason I wanted Xtime was to offer real-time appointment scheduling to our customers over the Internet. Most of our customers use the Internet pretty regularly, so I thought they would appreciate the ability to schedule their own appointments, just the same way they make airline reservations or buy books. Now we use it to schedule all appointments, on the Web or over the phone. Because it's integrated with our DMS, the appointments go straight into the system and appear as a pre-written RO.
What has really impressed me about Xtime is how much you can do with it. I'm used to our old ADP system, and compared to that, Xtime gives you so many more possibilities for managing the flow of customers into the dealership. With the color-coded schedule, it's much easier to read information from Xtime than from the DMS, and it's easier to understand. But that's only part of the story. Xtime is much more precise and powerful. I can set the dealership's capacity with respect to hours, service categories and resources. For example, I can limit recall appointments to ten per day. I can set the interval for appointments to give my service advisors the right amount of time in the service drive with the customer. Compared to the old way, when we just had a big long trail of cars in the drive at 7:00 every morning, I can't imagine not using Xtime.
Our general manager really likes it too. I enjoy going to his office with another report and watching his eyes light up. For example, I was able to show him how many new first-time service customers were coming in because of Xtime. That's our bread and butter - bringing in new service customers. There's so much information in the system, at any time I can look at our schedule and know exactly how the dealership is doing as a whole. That's something I couldn't really do before, and it's really helped us to improve our service operations.
We get over 20% of our appointments on the Web now. That's double digits every day, and it's not just more convenient for us -- the customers love it too. I really enjoy showing it to our customers for the first time, because they get so excited about it. Our customers set up their owner and vehicle profiles in the system, so they can see what service is coming up, and I know they're going to be coming back to my dealership for their service and maintenance appointments.
If you're wondering whether to try Xtime, do what we did. A CustomerTrack survey reported that 65% of vehicle owners said they would schedule online. So we had our cashiers ask our customers if they would be interested in scheduling their next appointment online. When we asked, only one out of twenty said they wouldn't schedule online. Everybody else said they'd like to try it. If your customers are asking for Xtime that strongly, you'd better give it to them.