Motor Doctors has been a reliable name in the Wellington automotive industry since around 1992, and Dave Gibbons has been with the business for the last 24 years. These days a lot of his day-to-day job involves business admin and paperwork for their three branches, so when a solution pops up that makes things a little easier, it’s a big win for Dave.
SmartCheck eWoF is a shiny new feature designed to make WoF checks a breeze, taking out the pesky paperwork and streamlining the experience for workshops and their customers. Through digital handling and storage of NZTA-approved checksheets, WoF checks can now be stored online, bundled with invoices, and sent to customers in a format that’s much easier for them to digest.
Prior to eWoF, Dave reckons the biggest problem with WoF checks for him was the handling of the paperwork. After every WoF, physical checksheets would need to be stored and filed away for safe keeping*. Not only did this mean a lot of clutter, but it also made it hard to quickly find old WoF records when a customer needed it.
“We do a lot of WoF checks, and you’d have to store the copies for a year, so we’d have cartons of them around! If you wanted to find an old checksheet, you’d have to go through it all to find it. With eWoF it’s easy; a quick search on your computer and you’ve got all that info right there for the customer.” – Dave Gibbons, Motor Doctors.
Dave reckons having paper checksheets can leave a lot more room for things to go wrong too. “Someone could misplace them, chuck them in the passed file instead of failed. If the customer has lost their copy too that could cause a real pickle.”
On top of that, Dave didn’t enjoy being at the mercy of their old printers much, disliking the hassle of out-of-paper notifications and other printing fiascos. Hearing that eWoF was on the horizon, he made the call to hold off on upgrading their printers for a new-age, more efficient way of doing things, and he couldn’t be happier.
Another benefit of eWoF is customers now get a digital copy that’s all typed out and easy for them to read— and it can be bundled with images and invoices. Customers no longer need to decipher messy handwriting. Something the admin staff at Motor Doctors are also pretty chuffed about.
“We can now hand the WoF checks to the office when they’re done, and they can understand it because it’s written clearly and it’s easy for them to process the warrant online. They aren’t a trained mechanic, so having everything typed out instead of in a rushed scribble makes a huge difference for them.”
Some of the mechanics were a bit hesitant to pick up the new tech, but Dave said with no paper checks around they’ve had no choice but to crack on and give it a go— and he’s found they are picking it up quickly once they give it a chance.
To other businesses thinking of introducing eWoF, Dave’s message was clear, “I would definitely recommend it, because you do away with all that handling of paper and storing of checksheets. It’s all electronic now, it’s there, typed in clear English, and it doesn’t get lost. Once you start using it, you pick it up quickly and you realise it’s actually easier.”
* NZTA recommends you keep a physical WoF book on hand in case of online outages.
SmartCheck eWoF is an add-on that lets you digitally manage and store NZTA approved WoF checksheets. It’s faster, easier, and you can say goodbye to printer and paper costs. eWoF is available on Orion, SAM, webSAM and webWorkshop.
