Technology is making us antisocial, but customers still need to reach us. Self-service tools are taking over the customer experience. Read on to find out how Autoline is keeping up with Service Online. 

Systime has been working in partnership with Experico, software developers, Experico to deliver a dealer-initiated web workshop booking system. With this offering of Service Online (SOL) you don’t need to enlist your own web developer. 

Service Online has been developed by the makers of Autoline, Keyloop (formerly CDK), and integrates directly into your Autoline Dealer Management System for instant bookings. 

Why implement a self-service booking tool? 

  • Anytime, anywhere booking capability for maximum convenience. The rise of smart cards has meant that customers are receiving alerts from their vehicles for their next service. Providing minimum effort solutions can boost your customers loyalty by upto 36% (link) 
  • Increased upselling by putting the customer in the drivers seat. Customers feel pressured when the offer is made by a person, having upsells in the self-service portal makes them feel in control and more likely to say yes.  
  • Customer service teams have increased capacity to provide superior service to the calls coming in. Calls are most likely made by people unfamiliar with technology or when there’s a problem. Both these instances require care and attention that can be difficult to provide when calls are backed up. “78% of consumers say that a single contact centre interaction has permanently changed how they felt about a brand.” (link) 
  • Scalable to handle increased traffic as your business grows. There’s no need to invest in recruitment and training as there is with customer service teams. 

What impact has Service Online already had?

In September 2019 Farmer Motor Group implemented Service Online, an online booking tool from CDK Autoline. The group is dedicated to delivering a superior customer experience and began asking themselves how this value can be applied to the service booking process to meet the needs of their audiences to make it as convenient as possible. 

The self-service booking tool was required to integrate with their existing dealer management system, Autoline, and their website, something that was easily managed with the Service Online product.   

The tool is hosted on a sub-domain, where customers follow the steps to enter their details, have the car history downloaded from the a database, select services and upsells, choose a courtesy car option and then finally select a time and date convenient to the customer. Upon submission, this information is sent to the DMS where the customer and vehicle records, courtesy car schedule, job cards and WIP schedule are automatically updated.  

Return on investment has been seen consistently since the implementation, but at no point more so than following the NZ government announcement that NZ would be moving from Level 4 to Level 3 lockdown restrictions in 2020. The team scheduled an email campaign to notify customers they were open for business and were taking online bookings, as a result 180 bookings were received in 24 hours. “We were sitting around having Zoom drinks and I got one alert for a booking, and let the team know. Then they just kept coming in. There’s no way we could’ve taken all those booking over the phone in the same timeframe.” 

The results FMG have seen since implementation include: 

  • 3,725 bookings made online in 12 months, that’s 71 bookings per week that are no longer going through a human touch point. 
  • Customer service representatives now have more time to spend with customers on the phone and during check in/out, increasing customer satisfaction. 
  • Increase in customers taking up upsells. 
  • The implementation of the tool has eliminated the need to hire another staff member