Every hour a service technician spends updating records to reflect a customer’s shiny new two-door track toy or making last-ditch appointment reminder phone calls to likely no-shows marks one fewer hour spent in the garage repairing vehicles.
Auto repair scheduling software exists to free up more of those hours each week, maintaining customer relations while allowing the day’s repair jobs to remain on schedule. As you’ll see below, many scheduling apps have integrated AI capabilities into their programming for added personalization, humanization, and (perhaps most importantly), automation.
What Is a Scheduling App?
Scheduling apps shoulder the burden of booking appointments for your business so you can stay focused on providing top-notch services. Apps will generally include a combination of features that either ease communications between a business and its customers or automate them entirely.
Appointment scheduling software and automated appointment reminders each encourage customers to remember their appointment times, arrive on time, cancel when busy, and minimize no-shows. That means more streamlined processes for your company’s front desk and a better overall customer experience—after all, no customer likes to sit in a waiting room because the day’s schedule is backed up.
What Is an Automotive Scheduler?
Scheduling apps are frequently designed to be all-purpose, but there are many advantages to using software built with a specific vertical in mind. For auto shops, that means getting all the features needed to assign and track repair jobs, monitor inventory, and connect with customers without paying for an app full of unnecessary tools and integrations.
Why Would an Auto Repair Shop Need One?
In the automotive business, it pays to carve out more time in the garage and less time phoning no-shows and tracking down old auto service records.
Think about how many customers come through your auto repair shop in a year—now consider how useful it would be to have a tool that remembers precisely when to reach out to each of them around the time their vehicles are due for an oil change. Depending on the app, auto shops can even update customers on the progress of their vehicles’ repairs and assist with online booking for follow-up appointments.
Key Benefits of Auto Repair Scheduling Software
Effective lead generation and management is a baseline requirement for any automotive service provider interested in staying afloat. Above all else, scheduling software puts your business on the fast track to driving leads more effectively toward regular vehicle inspections, necessary repairs, and routine checkups throughout the year.
Apps boost the lead-to-loyal-customer pipeline by performing three major tasks to improve operations:
Streamlining Appointment Scheduling
Fun as it may sound, phone tag isn’t generally an efficient use of an auto technician’s time. Online scheduling frees up mechanics to do their thing while the customer engages with scheduling software for their basic booking needs.
Improving Workflow and Efficiency
Automating the booking process makes it easier for customers to make and keep appointments without the trouble of a phone call. Through a scheduling app, auto shops can maintain an open line of communication with customers (including text and email reminders) while their service techs complete jobs uninterrupted.
Enhancing Customer Experience and Satisfaction
Auto service doesn’t have to be a messy or drawn-out experience. The function of an online booking app designed expressly for automotive repair keeps appointments top-of-mind for customers who may have forgotten (it happens), encourages them to arrive on time, and aids the shop in noting the repairs needed and any relevant service history.
Many scheduling tools will also either include or pair with conversational AI to answer frequently asked questions in real-time via chatbot. This way, instead of the same handful of questions pulling a busy technician aside to the phone (or going unanswered entirely), customers can be in touch about simple questions without causing any fuss among shop employees.
In other words, software solutions help customers and auto shops stay on top of things for better transactions from start to finish.
Features and Functionality of Auto Repair Scheduling Software Apps
You’ll often see scheduling apps promoting dozens of features designed to address overly specific issues or that allow extensive customization for unique use cases. These added functions can sometimes present businesses with a list of “nice-to-haves” that don’t actually move the needle when it comes to smoothing out the online booking process.
There are, however, a few foundational features every appointment scheduling software needs to make a noticeable impact on an auto shop’s bottom line. When you start evaluating tools and apps for compatibility, make sure these three features are prominently offered, fully supported, and regularly updated:
Appointment Booking and Management
Unsurprisingly, appointment scheduling software should…well, schedule appointments. But a good one will do it in a way that feels quick and easy to every customer, even if it’s their first time booking through an app or online portal. Appointment management also involves syncing calendars to avoid double-booking, text and email reminders, follow-up scheduling, (potentially) handling service information, and invoicing at the appointment’s end.
Automated Reminders and Notifications
Automated messages aren’t restricted to simple appointment reminders—a customer always appreciates status updates while repairs are underway, even if they’re just sitting a few feet away in the shop’s lobby. Likewise, regular reminders for tire rotations, vehicle inspections, and simple maintenance (like topping off fluid levels) can help repair shops keep in touch with customers throughout the year.
Plus, it doesn’t hurt to build some rapport with a customer at times when they aren’t actively stressing out about a sudden, unforeseen issue with their car.
Integration with Inventory and Billing Systems
While outward-facing features like appointment bookings and notifications attract most of the attention, don’t overlook the internal features that benefit your team when shopping for an auto repair scheduler.
Always check for available integrations before committing to any one tool to make sure the scheduling software streamlines processes rather than complicating them. If your entire business runs on Microsoft products, be sure your app of choice supports Microsoft. Likewise, check CRMs, messengers, and payroll apps for compatibility.
Scheduling software can be a huge help to your existing ecosystem of tools or a major hindrance—just be sure you find one that makes sense with your current stack.
How AI Can Be Integrated Into an Auto Repair Scheduler
The utility of AI in the automotive repair sphere is vast. Customer data management alone can save shops time and money. AI can respond directly to returning customer inquiries with a perfect memory of their previous visits or suggest open appointment times without forgetting to fit another recent caller into the calendar.
AI scheduling mitigates human errors like those above and replaces inefficient (sometimes damaging) processes with a workflow that aids the shop’s time management and saves the customer experience from confusion or miscommunication.
How Do AI Schedulers Work?
Most scheduling apps built for auto repair operate on the same set of principles: automate messaging to engage with and retain customers, provide easy appointment scheduling, refine the customer’s in-person experience, and fully optimize the shop’s own resources and operations.
You’ll notice each of these directly serves the customer in some way at a different level of the traditional sales funnel. Be it shorter wait times, transparent status updates, or easy appointment cancellation when life simply gets in the way, AI schedulers can realistically impact an automotive repair business at every level.
How Do They Differ From Normal Scheduling Apps?
Software built for automotive repair shops requires less intense customization than all-in-one tools. They’re also more likely to integrate seamlessly with other tools unique to the automotive space and provide familiar features to employees—that means fewer disruptions to daily operations when it’s time to actually implement the app into your company workflow.
Why Choose Podium?
Podium’s AI-powered lead conversion platform for repair shops provides consolidated customer channels, message automations, and other easy-to-use features that will reduce hours on the phone and let you choose ROs with the ASP you want.
Learn more about Podium’s AI tools for auto repair, or watch a demo today.
