Time Management for Warranty Inspections

Since the commercial advent of digital cameras in the middle to late 1990's, warranty inspections have gone through their own renaissance. The advent of the availability of photos over the Internet has in many cases, stimulated the demand for and the volume of professional warranty inspections. The inspector who was used to performing two or three inspections a day was, in short order, swamped with five, eight, or ten daily inspection requests.

I should not need to stress, but I will anyway, that the quality of all the inspections performed need to be top notch. Inspectors who don’t consistently perform top notch inspections find out quickly that their services are expendable. How then, does an inspector balance quality work with the volume of inspections required to earn a living? The answer to that question, in this inspector's opinion, is by utilizing effective time management techniques.

During the course of a busy inspection day, we run into a daunting number of serious constraints that steal time from us and can rob our livelihoods. Let's analyze the typical inspection performed on a weekday. Most inspections occur in car dealership service departments. Their hours are from 8:00 a.m. through 6:00 p.m.. That's ten hours to do inspections, right? WRONG! Sometimes, your first appointment can be scheduled at 8:00 a.m. but most of the time, for a myriad of reasons, this doesn’t work out. Then there is the lunch hour... the repair shop’s lunch hour. That’s another hour lost in the middle of the day. And sometimes the technician you need has a different lunch hour than the service advisor. Often, if you call the service advisor fifteen minutes or so before he or she goes to lunch, they will send your call to voice mail and not even check the messages until returning from lunch – or they may not check voice messages at all. Then there is the end of the day. It is rare that a repair facility will take an inspector past 4:30 p.m.. Many technicians are going home by 5:00 p.m. and they are washing up to leave at 4:30 p.m.. Our 8 to 6 day just turned into a 9 to 4:30 day, with a two-hour lunch. That sounds a lot like five and one-half hours. How can we combat this?

Chart Your Course

Planning ahead is the answer. Keep a log notebook in your pocket and record your assignments as you get them. As your list grows, determine your potential first stop and call them the day before to see if the service advisor will commit to an 8:00 a.m. appointment the following day. This eliminates calling them first thing in the morning and losing an hour drive time getting to the appointment. Put your smart phone to use and jot down the particulars of the 8:00 a.m. assignment. Ask the advisor to inform the technician of your 8:00 a.m. arrival the following day so they can be prepared. Make sure you leave early enough to arrive on time. Don't keep anyone waiting for you.

If you can arrange to gap a large distance of windshield time during the typical afternoon lunch hour, this is an excellent use of your time. Plan to get in touch with the service advisor for your afternoon inspection before they go to lunch and ask for the name of their technician. Try to arrive at the next repair facility before 1:00 p.m.. If this is not possible, at least you already know the name of the technician, which will aid you in getting the inspection done.

Use a GPS! I know that, in most cases you “know how to get there.” Great! But your GPS will also tell you when you will get there. This is important. It will allow you to communicate the specific time of your arrival to the service advisor. While the travel time given by the GPS is very accurate, allow a ten minute grace period, just in case. That service advisor will get to know that he can set his watch by your ETA declaration and many times if you do this, he will have the vehicle on a lift, with a tech waiting on you. Don't be late! I cannot stress enough the importance of requesting that the service advisor notify the technician of your arrival time. Many service advisors won't inform their tech anyway - but some will. That tech will respect you more for not wasting his valuable time.

Preparation

Preparation is very important. You should be prepared with the needed inspection forms. Personally, I have a small plastic file box in my car. I try to keep approximately fifty of every inspection form - even forms for the companies whose forms print out on their web page. Keeping those blank forms will allow you to pick up an extra inspection from time to time. Let's say you are in a city one-hundred miles from home and you have an hour left to do an inspection that just came in. Use your smart phone. Collect the particulars for that inspection and use a generic facsimile of the normally printed out inspection form. Make sure you have a signature page if it is needed. Then call that dealership! They will probably be glad to hear from you so quickly. Get there in ten minutes. Even the warranty company will be happy with your efficiency and the vehicle owner may get their repairs done more quickly. Think of the gasoline and windshield time you will have saved. Everybody wins.

Writing the Report

How you write a report could be a time saver or a time thief. First of all, exploit your digital camera. Take good close-up macro photos of the VIN and odometer, tire size, tire placard, engine decal (EPA decal), etc. When you are sure you have ALL the photos you need for your client, find a corner to write the report. Use the camera's display to get the VIN, odometer, etc. In other words, don't write down the specifics during the inspection. Instead, write them down when the inspection is complete, using the record from your digital camera. Oftentimes, your camera will let you crop the VIN number from the whole VIN tag by zooming on the image after the photo is taken. Many dealerships will permit you to use the employee lounge to write up your report. A secluded area is conducive to writing concise, well-composed inspection reports. Attempting to compose an inspection report with many people around you will invariably waste time and compromise the overall report quality. Also make sure that you have an explanation of each photo inside the text of the report.

We're all getting them: inspection requests with multiple failed items listed in the request. When you get an inspection like this, it is crucial that you meticulously photograph and report on each item. Having to go back to a dealership for a second inspection because you missed one or more items on the failure list wastes everybody's time. READ THE REQUEST CAREFULLY! Before the inspection, make a handwritten, vertical numbered list of the parts needing to be inspected. This will take a minute but may save you from having to go back to the repair facility a second time. Let's say one item on the list is “failed front sway bar links.” The technician tells you that is incorrect; that the vehicle has failed rear sway bar links. He then demonstrates failed rear sway bar links. Ask the technician if he will also demonstrate that the front sway bar links are okay. If he will do this, take photos of the demonstration of the good links. And of course, make sure to include photos of the failed rear links as well.

Fault Codes

Let's go HIGH TECH. At least half of today's inspections involve fault codes. When you start your inspection, the technician has already pulled the fault codes and he has a printout of the codes (or a handwritten version). We have all stood there debating with the technician about how the warranty company wants a photograph of the fault code screen (and not a piece of paper). The technician wants to know who will pay him for rechecking fault codes (and checking freeze frame data and clearing the fault codes and rechecking them to see if they returned - all items not on most printouts). The short answer is nobody wants to pay this labor charge. DON'T ARGUE! It's a waste of time and it’s not your place to argue. You can explain that it will probably take less time to recheck fault codes than it will to debate over who will pay for this service. You can also point out that it will probably save the time of a second inspection.

Happy trail blazing. Get out there and be the best that you can be at what you do!