Know where bookings come from
Before changing anything, look at how bookings arrive now. Most workshops take a mix of phone calls, walk-ins, texts and emails, and some take online requests. Each one ends up written somewhere, and that somewhere isn’t always the same place.
Keep a rough tally for a couple of weeks. If most bookings still come by phone, an online booking tool won’t remove the phone work, but a single shared calendar might. If many come after hours, an online request form could catch work that would otherwise go to someone else.
Write down your booking rules
Online booking only works if it follows the same rules your service desk uses in their head. Writing those rules down is the most useful step in planning, whatever tool you end up using.
- How many hoists and technicians are available each day
- How long common jobs take, such as a logbook service, tyres or a roadworthy
- Which jobs need a phone call before they can be confirmed
- Drop-off and pick-up times, and whether customers wait on site
- How much notice you need, and how far ahead people can book
- What happens when a customer cancels or doesn’t show up
Request or instant booking?
There are two broad approaches. An online request lets the customer pick a preferred day and describe the job, and someone at the workshop confirms it. An instant booking takes the slot straight away.
Requests suit workshops where job lengths vary a lot or where diagnosis comes first. Instant booking suits simple, predictable jobs. Many workshops use both: instant booking for a standard service and a request for anything else.
Service reminders by date or kilometres
A service reminder is only as good as the record behind it. At minimum, the system needs the vehicle, the date of the last service, the odometer reading at the time and the service interval.
Date-based reminders are simple: six or twelve months after the last service, send a message. Kilometre-based reminders are harder, because the system doesn’t know how far the car has travelled since. It can estimate from past visits, but that estimate will be wrong for some customers. Many workshops send whichever reminder comes first and let the customer say if it’s too early.
Some workshops also record other due dates, such as registration on fleet or customer vehicles. In Victoria, VicRoads sends its own registration renewal notices, so a workshop message should be clearly from the workshop and shouldn’t read like an official notice.
SMS or email?
SMS tends to be read quickly and suits short messages such as a booking confirmation, a day-before reminder or “your car is ready”. Each message costs a small amount through an SMS provider, and long messages may be charged as more than one.
Email costs less to send and suits longer messages, such as a service reminder with a booking link and details of what’s due. Decide where replies go, too. A customer who replies “can I come Thursday?” to an automated text needs that reply to reach a person.
Consent and unsubscribes
Australia’s spam rules, under the Spam Act 2003 and enforced by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), apply to commercial emails and text messages. A reminder that encourages a customer to book a service can count as a commercial message, so it is worth treating reminders that way.
In general, that means having the customer’s consent to receive these messages, clearly identifying your business as the sender and including a simple way to unsubscribe that you act on promptly. A tick box at booking that asks whether the customer would like service reminders, recorded against their details, is a straightforward way to handle consent.
This is general information, not legal advice. ACMA publishes guidance for businesses, and it is worth checking it, or asking an adviser, if you are unsure how the rules apply to your messages.
Start with what you already have
Many workshop management products already include online booking and reminders. If you use one, check those features first, because turning them on may be all you need.
A custom tool makes more sense when your existing software doesn’t offer what you need, when reminders need to follow your own rules, or when bookings from your website need to flow into the system you already use. Often that means connecting to existing software rather than replacing it.
What to put in a brief
Custom software and apps are quoted individually. I write down the agreed scope and give a fixed price for it, and I quote any changes before doing them. I’m not registered for GST, so no GST is added, and I usually reply to enquiries within two business days. The detailed Project Builder asks for most of the following.
- How bookings arrive now, with a rough split between phone, walk-in and online
- Your booking rules, including bays, technicians and typical job lengths
- The workshop or accounting software you use and want to keep
- Which reminders you want to send, and whether they are based on dates, kilometres or both
- Whether you prefer SMS, email or both
- How you currently record customer consent for reminder messages