Show notes
In this weeks episode our two special guests Teri Scafidi and Sara Savio join our co-hosts Tom Dorsey and Frank Scandura III to talk about workflow management inside a Digital Shop. Teri and Sara are going to share valuable insights about how they implemented a digital workflow inside their shops, what challenges they faced with the transition from paper to digital, and how you can avoid that and save yourself a bunch of time and future headaches. Transcript of Recording: Tom Dorsey: 00:01 Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the Digital Shop Talk Radio. It’s Wednesday, February 13th 2019, my name is Tom Dorsey and I’d like to welcome my special guest co-host Frank Scandura III. Frank, say hi. Frank Scandura III: 00:18 Good morning from Las Vegas. Hi, everybody. Tom Dorsey: 00:21 Good morning from Las Vegas. And we are really thrilled to welcome our two special guests today. You know, women… dynamic women in the industry, leaders in the industry; Teri Scafidi from Eastside Bavarian. Hi, Teri. Teri Scafidi: 00:39 Good morning. Tom Dorsey: 00:41 And Sara Savio from Sac specialty. Sara Savio: 00:44 Good morning. Tom Dorsey: 00:45 Welcome Sara, good morning. We’re really excited to have you on because today’s topic we’re going to be talking about workflow management. And the three shops that we have represented here today have really done a fantastic job of implementing the workflow management tool from Auto Vitals into their business. And you know really the objective for today is to talk about why they did it, how they did it, and what the benefits of implementing that workflow management and it… Really, what I want you to take away today is an understanding of how that workflow management steps implemented into your shops can benefit you and at least get you started on the path towards implementation. If you’ve been struggling to implement, this is going to be the show for you because you’ve got three people in here that have taken it really to the next level. So, I don’t want to bogart all of the time let’s get to the experts but if you want to ask questions we’re live streaming to Facebook, go ahead and chat in your questions there, we’ll answer them live on the air and don’t be shy. So, let’s get it kicked off. Frank if you want to kind of give us a background on what you’ve done with your workflow management in your shop and why it was important to you to have a tool like the Auto Vitals workflow management. Frank Scandura III: 02:14 Sure. So, for us before we were paperless, hundred percent paperless with Auto Vitals, we had a rack system and a lot of people may be familiar with it where you had a rack for new work going into the shop, each technician had a rack for the work assigned to him, there was a rack for parts needed, there was a rack for waiting for authorization, there was a rack for everything, there was paper all over the place. So, when we switched to Auto Vitals and no longer had those racks, we had to imagine now what are we doing in place of it, and then I looked at each column as a repair order, and had to look at it, that’s my paper repair order but it’s on the screen now. So, what I did was I basically duplicated all of my racks in my workflow steps. So, take for example, I think we start with five basic workflow steps in Auto Vitals, because a lot of places like you said, (03:02) leave them all in one column, probably just have a bunch of paper piled up and they were constantly trying to figure out what’s next and who’s doing what and where does this go. So… Tom Dorsey: 03:12 And they’re doing duplicate work, right? Because I think a lot of people have, you know, the (03:16) in the digital inspection but they’re still printing paperwork, they’re still hanging clipboards, they’re still shuffling paperwork around, and now you’re running around with the clipboard and a tablet in your hand instead of consolidating and becoming more efficient. Frank Scandura III: 03:29 Yes. And that’s the whole point of, what did I used to do with a piece of paper, how am I going to do that digitally now? And that’s what we did. So, we created, in our waiting for inspection was cars getting dropped off and then once it was inspected we moved over to build estimate, and because I have a separate parts department then I moved the title over to need parts at it. So, he has a screen, a TVP; (03:52) vehicle page with what he needs to see. So, as soon as he sees the title populated, he’s on it; he doesn’t have to wait for somebody to say, I need these parts. Then he moves it to waiting for approval. So, once the service advisor sees it’s there, then he knows, call the customer and then (04:08) then it get it moved over to needs parts order, then it’s waiting for parts, then it’s waiting for work finished, quality control, car wash and pick up. So, I’ve got a step for every single person and in the building. What was hard for a while was integrating my quality control workflow steps and my car wash workflow steps until I got over my own cheapskates, that’s the real word. I bought tablets for everybody, right? Tom Dorsey: 04:37 Also for like Porter’s. Frank Scandura III: 04:39 What’s that? Tom Dorsey: 04:40 For like a porter role. So you got (04:42) the parking lot, you just work up… Yeah! And I know, you know, I know shops that give tablets to their shuttle drivers and their… So, you know, if you got a tow truck, you got a tablet in it and now you can dispatch on the road and track where they’re at. Teri you’re…. you know, I was looking at your workflow the other day and it’s pretty awesome, it’s really detailed out. How did you come to that workflow and what’s the benefits for you in how you have your workflow setup? Teri Scafidi: 05:11 Sure. Thanks for asking. You know, we… I was looking back to see how long we’ve been with Auto Vitals, that’s always has been a question for folks and this month will be our five year anniversary. So, we came on, very similar to Frank’s set up, a lot of paper, we were actually doing anything… Frank hadn’t talked about this before, we were actually taking pictures like Frank wasn’t, having… we had discs for customers for all the pictures we took and we were like (05:35) something else, so we were very, very fortunate to find you guys. Well, you know, my background is HR Compliance, so outside of this before helping my husband with the shop, I was in charge of a lot of operations. So, for me, you know, setting expectations, understanding workflow processes, continuous quality improvement, having people invested in that are really… is really, really critical. So, we were kind of fumbling along with some things for a while, growing as Auto Vitals is growing, in about two, two and a half years ago, I decided that, you know, after having some of that correspondence and that weekly meetings that we were doing with our teams, would like team 25 and team 29 with Auto Vitals, I put together a workflow process that was detailed and everybody knew the areas that they were responsible for and the expectations. So, and I think I’ve shared it with Cheney, a couple other people have (06:31) and Chris and Nick, and I’m happy to share that with anybody. We took… morning we actually closed, we closed the morning, we didn’t open for, you know, about an hour and a half after we normally open and we had every single person on the team in a team meeting and we went through; I had workbooks made out for everybody, everybody understood the process, they have their tablets with them as well as, we had our desktops up there and we walked through and made sure everybody understood what they’re responsible for, why they’re responsible for it and they had a base understanding of what each component was in that workflow. So, pretty detailed but it really set the stage for people to understand why we’re doing what we’re doing and why it’s so important, whether you’re… you know, like Frank was saying, we have a dedicated parts department, in our big workflow on the TVP you’ll see pull parts, but he actually has his own workflow behind the scenes, his own TVP… Tom Dorsey: 07:29 Yeah! Teri Scafidi: 07:29 It tells you exactly where he’s ordered the parts from. So, he’s got a yet another workflow so that everyone can see, oh! This parts are coming from I.M.C, or they’re coming from WORLDPAC, or they’re coming from Bellevue BMW, wherever they’re coming from. So, the folks can know at any given point in time, they can know exactly what’s going on with their car, the people within the organization, where things are at and they don’t have to run off and ask somebody. It’s all right there in front of them. And then they also know like Frank was saying, oh! It’s in creating ethics and creating estimate, guess what? The inspections done, it’s time for me to create that estimate, send this off to the customer, make the time to make sure that we call them to follow up if they haven’t already called us to discuss what we found on their car. So, really setting the expectations for us with our team was a big turning point. Tom Dorsey: 08:16 So, you know and that’s a great point Teri because… you know, what Teri is saying is that because of the way the workflow management tool is so flexible, you can… you know, it’s how to eat an elephant one bite at a time and so if you have a big complex process or something that you can’t really, you know, you’re struggling to overcome the challenges and the hurdles that are in that process, break it down and start to specialize. And so she has a workflow specifically for a role, it might only have one or two steps in it, you know, check the vehicle in and hang a sticker or whatever. But if it helps to compartmentalize the process then the process becomes more manageable, and if it’s more manageable, it’s going to become more efficient. And so really look at your process from that perspective to see where you can specialize and break down that workflow to make: a) your staff understand their responsibilities better and then execute better, and for you really get a big picture of how everything’s working together so that you can find bottlenecks in that process and then continue to refine and work to improve. So Teri let me ask you, once you implemented that workflow, what did… what were the results? What benefits did you achieve? Teri Scafidi: 09:42 It’s just like with any learning curve, you know, took a couple people a little bit longer, you know, they have learned at their own pace but we continue to have meetings every week, it’s not as much every week now but probably every other week. We do tips and tricks at every meeting for the technicians on things that they discovered, whether it’s within Auto Vitals itself or even how better to use our iPad. All of our technicians not only do they have their pads but they actually have a desktop, so it’s helpful for them, sometimes it’s easier for them to sit at their at their station and type stuff but then they can also look at their big TVP and get a bit of a bigger picture. So, we just continue you know, it’s drip, drip, drip, as far as education is concerned, and we just continue to learn together and attending these things, you know, attending the conference, learning from that, bringing back that information, getting our foreman involved, getting our service advisors involved, whether that’s being able to listen to the shop talks or listening to the audio. So, I think it’s… I really enjoy having the meetings that we have because I think it’s an opportunity for us to share as well and to learn without having to stumble through the whole thing on our own. So… Tom Dorsey: 10:38 Well, definitely that’s great. Help each other help each other. It’s awesome. (10:44) but like you said, its constant learning process because, you know, hey! We take some information and try to build a solution and then get input from the shops and then just continually to tweak it so that we can get better. I mean, it’s like with our pro sports teams are going to, you know, reach that championship level, it’s always, you know, measure and then refine. And we really, you know, appreciate, we’re blessed to have, you know, folks like you that are contributing and giving us feedback all the time. You know, Sara, you’ve had the pleasure of implementing Auto Vitals into shops, right? Sara Savio: 11:18 Yes. Tom Dorsey: 11:19 And did you find yourself going in and creating the workflows for them, the digital workflows or did you find yourself incorporating their workflow into the… into Auto Vitals? Sara Savio: 11:31 Done about a little bit of both. The nice thing about the Auto Vitals system is that you can consistently change it and to… you know, as you want to change your workflow you find that you need something else, you know, that there’s something else you want to measure, there’s another step you want to take, it’s so easy to go in and, you know, just set that new workflow step up. What I really liked most about the system and where I find it helps us the most is when we started integrating the work step, workflow notifications (12:06). So, by setting those expectations, you know, we’re able to set our workflow up so that we’re not setting ourselves up to fail, the customer is receiving the inspection when we want them to receive it and then we know that we have ample time, you know, to allow for that phone call back if they haven’t called us within 20 minutes. We’re finding, you know, by setting the expectation and then following up we can see that they’ve been opening the… opening up the inspections, looking at the pictures, how much time it’s taken that it really has a big impact on how the rest of our workflow goes, and that has been extremely beneficial for the shop, Tom Dorsey: 12:49 Yeah! That’s fantastic. You know, and so you have mentioned, you know, about going in there and setting up your automatic notifications, so can you, you know kind of tell the listeners a little bit about once you establish those automatic notifications, what benefits did you notice? I mean, did you find yourself getting more free time at the counter? Because a lot of that stuffs getting done for you and then how were you able to apply that free time if any existed? I don’t want to put words in your mouth but, what did it end up turning around, I mean from an efficiency perspective for you at the counter? Sara Savio: 13:25 Sure. So, the… You know, the expectation at drop off is, you’re going to receive, you know, the notification once the technician is complete with the testing and the inspection, at that point go ahead and click on the link, take a look at the pictures and all of the notes. I mean at that point you’ll know that we’re working on pricing and options, and then really bringing it home with them once you receive that notification, take a look and they need to very much buy into that. And then the next step is that once we have pricing and options ready for you, you’re going to receive the next workflow notification that says, call Sara for pricing and options. So, at that point I know, you know, that I sent it correctly; we have the time for the customer. What it helps to do, it prevents those phone calls in-between. If you have those long diagnostics or, you know, you’ve got a busy day, you definitely want to make your status calls but as far as setting the expectation we’re just getting less calls, you know, coming in, do we have any answers? What’s going on? We’re managing our time as opposed to being reactive and having to deal, you know, a… it’s just the expectation and everybody understands it. Tom Dorsey: 14:41 So, what would you say is the big… Like if you had to give advice to folks that aren’t using the notifications in their workflow, what would you say is the biggest thing that they’re missing out on? Sara Savio: 14:53 The biggest thing I think that you’re missing out on is that opportunity to, you know, express once again, and we’ll ke…
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