Course Outcomes

This specialized customer service and documentation-writing course will:

  • Demonstrate how well-written repair orders can improve customer satisfaction and save time.
  • Offer a proven process for eliciting accurate and complete information from customers.
  • Suggest eight standards to which first-rate repair orders adhere.

Course Overview

This interactive program is designed for customer-facing employees working in an automotive dealership’s fixed operations department. It focuses on repair-order writing and is designed to positively affect technician productivity.  During this workshop, participants will learn how to skillfully interview customers in order to accurately determine and document a vehicle’s condition.  In turn, these well-written repair orders will lead to more and faster fixed-right-the-first-time results.

Note: For maximum effectiveness, we request a random sampling of 20 repair orders (non-maintenance) be sent to us from each facility 10 days prior to the session. While we will use these during class, we will not single out individual employees.

Program Objectives

At this program’s conclusion, participants should be able to:

  • Ask three fundamental questions to understand their customers’ concerns.
  • Practice reframing and summarizing skills to avoid including diagnostic language.
  • Document those concerns in such a way that a technician can duplicate a problem.
  • Write in such a way that repair orders can be understood in a single reading.
  • Use listening skills so customers know they’ve been heard correctly and their vehicle is on a path to “fixed-right-the-first-time” repair.
  • Perform an evaluation on any repair order.

The following outline highlights some of the course’s key learning points. As part of your training program, we will modify content as needed to meet your business objectives. Upon request, we will provide you with a copy of the participant materials prior to the session(s).

Show Me the Money: The Opportunity Calculator

This session opens with a discussion around the value of a well-written repair order. During this part of the program, participants will use an “Opportunity Calculator” to discover the time savings and income potential associated with clear, concise, and comprehensive documentation.

Pinpointing Opportunities: Order Review

The program continues with a review of the repair orders submitted in advance of the course and samples from our library. In this segment, the facilitator will demonstrate deficiencies and explain how those shortcomings impact workflow, accuracy, and customer satisfaction levels.

Eight Standards: Understanding What Matters and Why

Armed with a knowledge of how deficient repair orders impact operations, in this next part of the course, participants will learn the eight standards to which strong repair orders adhere. Then, through a series of interactive exercises, they will discover how to be objective, specific, and concise when creating documentation.

Interviewing Skills: Asking the Right Questions the Right Way

Once they understand the basics of what “A+” documentation looks like, we will shift focus and talk about techniques for acquiring the data needed to create a first-class repair order. Participants will learn an interviewing process and practice it until they are comfortable they can elicit the information required to capture a customer’s concerns. This extensive part of the workshop involves role-playing activities and several practice cases.

Practicing Peer Review: Encouraging Feedback

Feedback and evaluation are part of an essential step in learning to craft strong repair orders. This final session segment looks at peer review and how to objectively and constructively evaluate a colleague’s work.

By the conclusion of this hands-on workshop, participants should have the skills they need to write strong repair orders that lead to more and faster fixed-right-the-first-time results.

Upon request and at no additional charge, we will spend one hour with managers to gain their commitment to a specific follow-up and implementation program. This meeting can happen live if conducted on the same day and at the same facility as the training workshop or via web meeting.