The used vehicle market suffered a steady decline in 2022, putting a spotlight on the need to improve efficiencies turning vehicles. While the default thinking may be to invest in more people to speed up reconditioning, that could actually have the opposite impact you’re looking for. Instead, invest in your process to make it the best it can be. An informed process is an efficient process, which is key to driving turns in a slower market.
Information Builds Momentum
Increasing communication and improving how information travels among your team creates better momentum and an overall smoother process. You wouldn’t expect a technician to complete their work without all of the necessary parts, so why would decisions be made without the necessary, easy-to-access information? There is no time to waste tracking down information to determine what work needs to be done.
For example, nothing kills your momentum like when you’re getting into a groove with a job, but the part isn’t in stock. Then you have to pause the job, order the part, hope it is available quickly and then jump back into it later on as your schedule continues to fill up. Or when you’re trying to schedule work with an outside vendor but you end up playing phone tag over the course of two days. When this happens, you aren’t able to build an informed schedule for the vehicle and it gets delayed without progress.
When issues like these arise, you spend unnecessary time sorting out the problems and continuously adjusting your shop schedule. If you had the right information for every vehicle, that time could be more efficiently used working through tasks that are ready, building out a more realistic and accurate timeline to operate off of and completing your reconditioning jobs.
Information Sharing Leads to Success
Creating a strong knowledge base that is easy to input, find and share with every person involved in the recon process reduces the unnecessary time needed to search for information. Automating the way information gets pushed along to different people, departments and vendors throughout the reconditioning process keeps everyone in the know and reduces time spent chasing people or parts down.
Assuring your team has access to real-time information for each vehicle before starting them allows them to avoid getting caught up in the start and stop. Ensuring everyone is aware of what jobs need to be done and what supplies are on hand keeps cars moving.
A more informed reconditioning solution will allow your dealership to work with greater efficiency — with both the teams inside your dealership and the partners you work with outside — giving everyone the tools and information they need to carry out their work. You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken, and you can’t complete the task you don’t have the right information for. Having more information about your entire recon process as a whole, combined with automation, allows you to maximize the efficiency and profitability of your reconditioning process.
