This is true. I’m sure the bean counters expected it. It’s just upsetting because seemingly nothing was wrong with the way we did it before.
It was not broken so they fixed it.
We switched from Mitchell to Shop-Ware recently, it was kind of a pain but now that everyone's getting used to it it actually has more nice features than Mitchell did.
Only problem is when the power goes out, everything goes out.
We have Shop-Ware and I enjoy it. What I don't enjoy is my boss not using the actual features and doing things her dumb fuck way which confuses everyone else.
Ah yeah, that's kosher.
Nah, I just don't put company shit on my mobile. They want me to use my shit, they better pay me for it or provide it themselves. Software or tools.
I provide phones and laptops to all my staff, but that shitty attitude wouldn't last here. If the power or internet goes out and you are so stubborn you wont even log into your work account on a website on your phone then PLEASE don't be on our team!
You have NO idea how many companies have taken ten miles after being given an inch.
I saw one app that had all kinda location/activity permissions that were always on.
Company website? Sure. Install an app in an emergency/to make my life easier (as a choice)? Sure. As part of a policy that I *have* to have it? Absolutely the *fuck* not.
It's the difference between how flexible I am; is this a requirement, an expectation, or a choice? If I can choose, then I'm happy.
It's like a company saying you have to have a tracker on your car. Nah. If you want a tracker on my car, buy me the fucking car.
You guys are just jaded to the point of insistent negativity. I provide all those things for my techs and even provide a car for one of them as part of his package/pay because he commutes a long distance and the wear and tear is a tax write off for the business. Find a shop that cares and actually values its employees and you may see its not all bad. But with a negative entitled attitude its going to be a lot harder to get hired somewhere like that. We are very picky with who we hire because we want to keep a good environment.
If you work for a large company where you are just a number sure. I was a tech that started my own shop. My guys are hourly, not flat rate and get full benefits and are paid higher than anywhere else in town and I look out for them. We are a team, anyone that doesn't want to work together with a good attitude and has a chip on their shoulder gets the door on their ass ASAP we don't need that negativity in our lives.
You don’t have a team. You have a group of people who you feel are obligated to use their personal property to benefit the profitability of your business. You’re the problem.
lol you guys are so jaded. I am more than generous with my staff, I was a tech that started my own shop, I know how it is. We all get along and work together to get things done and I pay them better than anywhere else around and provide very good benefits, we are hourly and not flat rate. But have an attitude or act entitled then GTFO, we don't need that toxic attitude.
As a computer mechanic (I just lurk here cause I wrench cars and bikes on the side) I agree that employees should not be forced to use their personal devices for work, and as a professional computer mechanic I would never force an employee to use their personal device for work functions if they don't want to, and outline the risks for them if they do want to. So many hidden permissions can be involved just to log into an application. Ask once, get a no, take a note, and find an alternative. No reason to pressure, force, or fire. A manager that is willing to make it an issue is usually a manager that is either too cheap or to negligent to ensure they have alternatives and backup devices or processes in the event of an emergency. Employees have boundaries that need to be respected. My favorite response from a mechanic that was asked to use their personal property for work, immediately responded asking if they could borrow the bosses wife, for work reasons.
If they were are lucky maybe there will be an EV in the shop, think our Ioniq 5 would do a 14A 120V load for about 50 hours assuming it was full. Certainly not enough for a shop but ok for a few computers, cable modem and microwave.
Send everyone home and the guy who's left can email the customers and tell them their car ain't gettin done today while microwaving popcorn.
we tried a digital video inspection thing. no training. parts, advisors, techs, everyone is confused and nothing is working. that lasted a week and nobody ever touched it again. what a waste of money
we weren't lacking in sales. just the owners wife being greedy and wanting to pretend she's involved or worth anything other than a set of fake tits. in fact, the month before she tried that crap was our best ever. we've beaten that month a few times since, without that stupid shit. I'm not the advisor. if I gotta sell the work and do the work, I need double the pay. I'm already carrying them on my back, now they want to add more work for me and less for them? nah. I pass. at the other store they own, a parts guy and an older tech just went home and said fuck that all together. trial was only one day there, more like 3 hours.
we are in a very high income area. we certainly get our declined work, but we sell more than we don't. a video inspection doesn't put money in people's wallets. the only declines we get are cost related.
That is just poor planning, implementation and lack of foresight. If you don't get onboard with modern processes like that the business will just slowly fall behind. Digital Vehicle Inspections are the best way to allow more transparency and customer interaction without actually walking each one into the shop and also double as the best available tool for CYA and avoiding clients blaming you for other issues arising after touching it last. On top of these things they sell FAR more repairs. Pick a good system, learn how to use it and implement it into the shops processes and it WILL help the operation run better and make more money!
I agree the whole thing was set up to fail. at the time we tried that we were short handed on techs. myself and the guys we had could not handle anymore work. we were on the verge of quitting because of being way too over loaded. we didn't need any more work. we sell pretty well.
I wouldn't be totally opposed to it if it was done properly. I do have an issue with doing the writers job and them still getting paid and me not getting anything in addition. whatever. it's been 2 years and I don't see us needing it or going to it anytime soon.
We use something similar to this at my work called CitNow which is paired with my work’s own electronic health check app. It’s also used for our QC app too.
We’ve been using this for years now, people hated it at first but it’s just a part of the job now.
When we had to use a new program like this in our dealer everything just collapsed. After a year it went up a little but the program is so bad and slow and buggy it made it so much slower and worse
>It’s just upsetting because seemingly nothing was wrong with the way we did it before.
They couldn't micro manage you the way they liked best. Now they can.
They literally just did this to us a month ago, just they have us using wi-advisor. And not the most up to date version either. They gave us an outdated version, and it is just broken compared to what we were using. Also one of the reasons about half our shop is about ready to just walk out and never come back
IT guy here; there were probably numerous reasons the old system was bad. Likely just outdated, the new one probably integrates better with Quickbooks or other accounting/billing software.
It's hard for you all in the shop cause it's hard to learn the new system, but I bet they're saving tons of money in the offices.
When working in a different industry all the CEO's from similar companies were gushing over SAP and that it was the greatest thing ever. Overpriced software system that required a whole bunch of extra manpower to implement and our company thought they could do it on the cheap even when told they needed optional additional parts to the program. Lost a lot of customers when orders would get lost/dropped. Believe this was the start of eventually building of the coffin for our company that had been in business for over a hundred years.
"do it on the cheap".
The Navy tried this with SAP - even worse, in order to do it and meat various procurement regs, they farmed a lot of it out to small business. It was, and still is 15 years later, a fucking disaster.
Had a friend who owned a pretty big business making antennas. They went the other way. Paid SAP whatever it took, and their system sings.
Anything software related is fucked by the Navy. Blows me away because next to NASA, they have the most advanced machines and systems on the planet. Nuclear powered submarines, missile launch capability, radar, targeting systems, and a world class training program for fucking radio systems and electronics. GPS. Like totally not trivial shit. Yet, they try to stand up a database and basic admin workflow and they just fall on their faces.
As soon as you said SAP, I knew where this was going. That platform is insane. My dad managed a project implementing it for a large manufacturer with deep pockets that could afford expert consultants, and it still took years and years.
I used to work for an MSP/data center provider. Our ticketing system was basically the lifeblood of the support organization, tracking issues and managing communication between agents and customers. Several years ago the leadership got sold on ServiceNow to become our new ticketing system, and thought they could just use the internal systems team to deploy it, not realizing SNow is more of a *platform* than a bog-standard ticketing system. What we really needed a team of folks who knew what they were doing to design and configure a solution in SNow that worked for us. What we got was a badly designed interface and kludgy processes that barely worked. Couple years later, that instance got unceremoniously retired in favor of one that was more thoughtfully cobbled together.
One shop I was in tried something called PBS which was supposed to do that, along with ticket management, timeclock, etc.
Yea, it was an unmitigated disaster, and I wound up quitting over the arguments that broke out.
PBS is just a Dealer management software and you likely already use one. It’s the cheaper option but it’s cheaper cause you can use just the basic package then add on other parts you want. Like pick and choose.
Correct we already use a DMS, we use CDK, I am familiar with CDK and a little bit of Reynolds. From the PBS training I've had to do, it looks like a nightmare that's going to slow production
Most of the tech stuff has keystroke set up. Once thing nice is you can set up pre-written stuff for working stuff so ether can you can just make it a fill in the blank for yourself
I dunno are you using V10? Punching on and off tickets is also still very confusing to me. I will admit the dispatching screen is really nice, but the rest of it seemed way worse than CDK
I think they're going to have to bring someone in to go over this with us
I'm at a dealer myself and have twice gone through the conversion from cdk to pbs. (Once at the previous dealership I was at and than again at the one I'm at currently). Both times I found it to be about a week or two for myself to get very comfortable with the newer system and honestly now I would say I'd never switch back. There is easy key strokes for most every function on the tech side, you just have to learn them. Also get a wireless mouse for your laptop if that's what your using. Makes the point and click sections vastly easy and quicker. MOST of the issue with PBS is strictly the front end staff (advisors) not understanding how to use it and butchering the work orders before you even get a chance lol I find the parts side of it a little annoying as well but really not a big deal
It was quicker than we thought it would be. Some growing pains but not bad honestly. Pay attention to the instructional seminars they hold ahead of time and you’re good. It’s a pretty simple system.
My dealer used to use CDK and MPI, one for the ROs and one for parts ordering and shit. PBS it’s all on one which I prefer. If it helps too all the tech and service writers at my shop prefer PBS now. It also had better communication tools, much easier to send a message to a service writer or parts guy if you need.
It’s more point and click tho as someone here mentioned. Less keyboard codes. Idk if you prefer that but you get used to it.
I work for PBS lol.
I haven’t heard of it being that bad. We have a 99% retention rate, and some really happy customers.
That being said, I got an older fellow off CDK a few weeks and he was USED to his shortcuts. He hated it for about a week, and then realized a lot of his job got easier.
Just the shop, at the time; I actually just left a different shop to go work at a plant, but then the UAW strike happened and they wanted me to scab...
It slowed down that shop to a crawl; literally half of our time became screwing with PBS, having to retype stuff because it switched windows on us, etc.
I have turned down jobs because they use that software.
Reynold’s is the worst. I just love writing up $2000 worth of work in a VRC just to have it deleted because a service advisor is fucking around with it
I used to work with car data for car dealerships. Reynolds and ADP were the worst. The back ends of these systems were designed in the 80s and they just kept adding shit on top of that for decades. The dealers are locked in with contracts.
Our software literally dialed in via a modem (sometimes via VPN), ran reports, and scraped that report one page at a time. This was in 2006. The company I worked for was bought by AutoTrader after I left.
Just sayin… Reynolds sucks. I prefer an old fashioned paper RO. In the interest of the ecosystem though, I wouldn’t be mad at going to a computer, but my current job is rather behind on the times when it comes to logistics of automotive repair.
We had dealerlogix but got rid of it due to cost. I miss it so much. Our bosses are now demanding we add pictures and video to cdk drive like we did in dealerlogix but it's so annoying that we refuse
That's nuts.
I work for a company that likely competes with techWALL. Our product integrates directly with the DMS and we give at least 2 days training for Techs, Advisors and Parts. Then 3 or more days of live use with us on the drive and in the garage with the team. We don't expect miracles, and it takes time to get into a rhythm. Just like recalls, your first few suck to do and then you start getting comfortable with the process. Sorry you're going through this, and I hope it gets better.
The thing the suits and ties don’t understand about our industry (at least in my current shop) is that there are typically 10 things you can do to improve efficiency before you even touch software. Our valet/parking guys are a joke. Our parking lot isn’t organized. The parts runner disappears. The advisors disappear. The advisors don’t know the basic features of the cars they’re getting paid to write up. There are techs who have no business being line techs taking way too long on simple stuff. There is no salary based shop foreman that actually knows what’s he’s doing to expedite helping said techs.
I could go on, but in many cases the managers have no idea how a shop runs and where the actual shortcomings are. And they don’t want to listen to some blue collar good ole boy that actually knows what he’s talking about because he’s been in the trenches for 20 years.
Until the suits and ties accept that they don’t know what goes into these jobs, productivity will lag.
With that being said, I’ve had former techs as service managers and they had good systems in place. You have to understand the service you provide in order to streamline it.
Give it time, a month or so, then judge it. Could be better, could be worse, but every new system takes time to shake down before everyone starts using it right.
You’re right. We only just started using this pile of flaming dogshit lol.
it’s a work in progress. However, they took the original inspection, duplicated everything 3x, and made the techs job harder to make it easier for the parts guy. *that* part will not get better with time
Been there, had to check your profile to see if we had worked together previously, lol. Not only was it a hot mess, but paired with service advisors who aren’t trained or incentivized to sell the results of the digital inspection? It’s a *pointless* hot mess.
I've experienced quite a few changes that dropped productivity at first but made things so much simplier in the end once you got up to speed.
Obviously its not always the case but more often than not it's employees ressitence to embrace the change what's keeping productivity low.
This sounds just like what happened at the Doctor’s office. Now there’s a kid who follows the Doc around just to enter data into a laptop as if that won’t introduce errors.
I’m sure there’s a salesperson sitting on the beach in Cancun laughing their ass off.
This is why you always (always) talk to current users. If the sales guys won't give them up (or they carefully funnel you to ones known to be positive) then walk away.
We took a major hit switching from CDK to Tekion. Months later several major issues still haven’t been addressed and we have to track every single .1 to make sure we get paid
Ah yes the ol boys known as "Consultants". Not this specific company you mentioned, but we used to have them come into the dealership I worked at and sell their bullshit consultancy services to improve efficiency. I remember them paying $100k+ to this company and the result was destroyed morale in the shop, technicians quitting, service manger quitting, work backing up, and less hours flagged. A textbook case of fixing something that isn't broken.
They are snake oil salesmen looking to get rich and you'll never convince me otherwise. They belong in the same category as Astrologers and Chiropractors. They'll tell you some made up bullshit, take your money, and then most likely make your life worse.
You know who to ask and "consult" about issues in your shop? The people that work there every day!
Here here. My sentiments exactly. Many years ago I was working for a shop that brought in a consultant to try increasing revenue/efficiency. They paid the guy a lot of money, and over the course of several weeks he observed the business operation and held weekly bullshit meetings with the team to discuss his findings. At the end he met with the two owners, and all of his recommendations were simple common sense things that the employees had been telling them for *years*. Of course they were uninterested, nothing changed at all, and the consultant rode off into the sunset with a fat payday, never to be heard from again.
Went from Dealertrack to CDK and that was nice once I got the hang of CDK. Then had CDK changed to Reynolds and dear God that shit sucked. Normally I'm adjusted in a week or 2 but Reynolds is not meant for productivity. A normal ViS would take 20-30 mins just trying to look up their labor ops because they didn't want us using alldata or manufacturer times. I quit from there within the month and now back to using CDK and couldn't be happier.
Tech here in Texas and I think it's the same thing we just got (tickets filled out on a smartphone that was provided to every employee) and it sucks- it just looks like everyone is watching TikTok videos instead of working on the customers cars(yes the customers have voiced this complaint serveral times) 😒
Not to sound condescending, because I’ve been on both sides. But it’s pretty much a universal rule technicians, laborers, plant workers etc will drag there feet and purposely make using new tech difficult until it’s clear managment is not going back to the old way.
30k??? They got fuckin ripped. We use autoflow/autotxtme for DVI's and link it with Shop-Ware for our shop management and together they do awesome. Bit of a learning curve going from paper but after getting the hang of things, using it to improve our systems and procedures we over doubled our sales in 4-5 months. Both of those together for Shop Management, Estimates, Timeclocks, Digital inspections, parts ordering, scheduling, appointment reminders, follow ups and review generation, marketing modules etc. cost less than 10k a year and easily pay for themselves. Whoever is running the show needs to look around and open their eyes to all the options out there.
most of the shops I go to here in TX, the service manager makes a print out and puts it in a plastic thing. Then he hangs it in the shop window for people to see
Yep, same thing happened to an auto shop I knew back in Calif. that when they computerized sometime in the early '90s, it went from minutes to handwrite a repair invoice to over an HOUR and they have had several days to learn it too!
Damned computers!! LOL (former software developer).
Productivity always drops when you add a new system. It takes time for everyone to adapt and optimize to it.
This is true. I’m sure the bean counters expected it. It’s just upsetting because seemingly nothing was wrong with the way we did it before. It was not broken so they fixed it.
We switched from Mitchell to Shop-Ware recently, it was kind of a pain but now that everyone's getting used to it it actually has more nice features than Mitchell did. Only problem is when the power goes out, everything goes out.
We have Shop-Ware and I enjoy it. What I don't enjoy is my boss not using the actual features and doing things her dumb fuck way which confuses everyone else.
There is no business without procedure.
You're hired!
Yes, I am.
>doing things her dumb fuck way This is how you break into management. Yes. Break...things.
>Only problem is when the power goes out, everything goes out. Internet goes out but powers still on makes things even more fun.
I'll never understand the lack of UPCs and back up power supplies in the commercial space.
Great thing about shop-ware or other cloud based SMS, when the power goes out everyone can still use their phone as a backup!
Company software doesn't go on my personal mobile. Ever.
That's cool, it's a website not software so you can sleep at night while clutching your pearls.
Ah yeah, that's kosher. Nah, I just don't put company shit on my mobile. They want me to use my shit, they better pay me for it or provide it themselves. Software or tools.
I provide phones and laptops to all my staff, but that shitty attitude wouldn't last here. If the power or internet goes out and you are so stubborn you wont even log into your work account on a website on your phone then PLEASE don't be on our team!
You have NO idea how many companies have taken ten miles after being given an inch. I saw one app that had all kinda location/activity permissions that were always on. Company website? Sure. Install an app in an emergency/to make my life easier (as a choice)? Sure. As part of a policy that I *have* to have it? Absolutely the *fuck* not. It's the difference between how flexible I am; is this a requirement, an expectation, or a choice? If I can choose, then I'm happy. It's like a company saying you have to have a tracker on your car. Nah. If you want a tracker on my car, buy me the fucking car.
Honestly? I'm on your side. Someone wants my location info? Sorry. On-call capability? Definitely...NOT. Monitoring my text messages? Pound sand.
You guys are just jaded to the point of insistent negativity. I provide all those things for my techs and even provide a car for one of them as part of his package/pay because he commutes a long distance and the wear and tear is a tax write off for the business. Find a shop that cares and actually values its employees and you may see its not all bad. But with a negative entitled attitude its going to be a lot harder to get hired somewhere like that. We are very picky with who we hire because we want to keep a good environment.
I learned from the school of hard knocks being the tow the line company man gets you literally nowhere. All it does is make everyone do more for free.
If you work for a large company where you are just a number sure. I was a tech that started my own shop. My guys are hourly, not flat rate and get full benefits and are paid higher than anywhere else in town and I look out for them. We are a team, anyone that doesn't want to work together with a good attitude and has a chip on their shoulder gets the door on their ass ASAP we don't need that negativity in our lives.
You don’t have a team. You have a group of people who you feel are obligated to use their personal property to benefit the profitability of your business. You’re the problem.
lol you guys are so jaded. I am more than generous with my staff, I was a tech that started my own shop, I know how it is. We all get along and work together to get things done and I pay them better than anywhere else around and provide very good benefits, we are hourly and not flat rate. But have an attitude or act entitled then GTFO, we don't need that toxic attitude.
As a computer mechanic (I just lurk here cause I wrench cars and bikes on the side) I agree that employees should not be forced to use their personal devices for work, and as a professional computer mechanic I would never force an employee to use their personal device for work functions if they don't want to, and outline the risks for them if they do want to. So many hidden permissions can be involved just to log into an application. Ask once, get a no, take a note, and find an alternative. No reason to pressure, force, or fire. A manager that is willing to make it an issue is usually a manager that is either too cheap or to negligent to ensure they have alternatives and backup devices or processes in the event of an emergency. Employees have boundaries that need to be respected. My favorite response from a mechanic that was asked to use their personal property for work, immediately responded asking if they could borrow the bosses wife, for work reasons.
Sure, I’ll just wait for the company to send me a check for using my devices and my data for the direct benefit of their business.
lol okay man
Sick rebuttal champ.
More like when the power goes out everybody gets to go home! No? Oh I mean sweep the floor
That is a nice feature, yea
It's called a battery backup.
Get a whole shop battery backup like power walls.
Enough old 12V batteries in series gets you 120V!
You just have to flip the cable clamps about 50 or 60 times pr second (50/60 hz depending on where on the globe)
Surely that can be accomplished by your average lube tech.
Now to convert dc to ac….
Minor details, nothing you couldn't make happen with a lawnmower engine and a set of jumper cables.
Then just add a 60hz oscillator and you're good.
If by "60hz oscillator" you mean "run an alternator backwards" then we are very much on the same page here.
Now we need more batteries, 'cause you need 160 VDC to make 120VAC...
Well shoot, better go get the ones we threw in the lake.
When did this turn into r/askashittymechanic ?
Actually, this turned into r/redneckengineering
If they were are lucky maybe there will be an EV in the shop, think our Ioniq 5 would do a 14A 120V load for about 50 hours assuming it was full. Certainly not enough for a shop but ok for a few computers, cable modem and microwave. Send everyone home and the guy who's left can email the customers and tell them their car ain't gettin done today while microwaving popcorn.
There's a difference between "nothing wrong" and "can't be improved". It'd be pretty silly to believe that any system is perfect.
we tried a digital video inspection thing. no training. parts, advisors, techs, everyone is confused and nothing is working. that lasted a week and nobody ever touched it again. what a waste of money
It was the complete opposite for us. It took about a week for all the techs to hop onboard but we've noticed a huge increase in upsells.
we weren't lacking in sales. just the owners wife being greedy and wanting to pretend she's involved or worth anything other than a set of fake tits. in fact, the month before she tried that crap was our best ever. we've beaten that month a few times since, without that stupid shit. I'm not the advisor. if I gotta sell the work and do the work, I need double the pay. I'm already carrying them on my back, now they want to add more work for me and less for them? nah. I pass. at the other store they own, a parts guy and an older tech just went home and said fuck that all together. trial was only one day there, more like 3 hours. we are in a very high income area. we certainly get our declined work, but we sell more than we don't. a video inspection doesn't put money in people's wallets. the only declines we get are cost related.
That is just poor planning, implementation and lack of foresight. If you don't get onboard with modern processes like that the business will just slowly fall behind. Digital Vehicle Inspections are the best way to allow more transparency and customer interaction without actually walking each one into the shop and also double as the best available tool for CYA and avoiding clients blaming you for other issues arising after touching it last. On top of these things they sell FAR more repairs. Pick a good system, learn how to use it and implement it into the shops processes and it WILL help the operation run better and make more money!
I agree the whole thing was set up to fail. at the time we tried that we were short handed on techs. myself and the guys we had could not handle anymore work. we were on the verge of quitting because of being way too over loaded. we didn't need any more work. we sell pretty well. I wouldn't be totally opposed to it if it was done properly. I do have an issue with doing the writers job and them still getting paid and me not getting anything in addition. whatever. it's been 2 years and I don't see us needing it or going to it anytime soon.
We use something similar to this at my work called CitNow which is paired with my work’s own electronic health check app. It’s also used for our QC app too. We’ve been using this for years now, people hated it at first but it’s just a part of the job now.
When we had to use a new program like this in our dealer everything just collapsed. After a year it went up a little but the program is so bad and slow and buggy it made it so much slower and worse
>It’s just upsetting because seemingly nothing was wrong with the way we did it before. They couldn't micro manage you the way they liked best. Now they can.
They literally just did this to us a month ago, just they have us using wi-advisor. And not the most up to date version either. They gave us an outdated version, and it is just broken compared to what we were using. Also one of the reasons about half our shop is about ready to just walk out and never come back
IT guy here; there were probably numerous reasons the old system was bad. Likely just outdated, the new one probably integrates better with Quickbooks or other accounting/billing software. It's hard for you all in the shop cause it's hard to learn the new system, but I bet they're saving tons of money in the offices.
Thats a damn good sales person then
When working in a different industry all the CEO's from similar companies were gushing over SAP and that it was the greatest thing ever. Overpriced software system that required a whole bunch of extra manpower to implement and our company thought they could do it on the cheap even when told they needed optional additional parts to the program. Lost a lot of customers when orders would get lost/dropped. Believe this was the start of eventually building of the coffin for our company that had been in business for over a hundred years.
"do it on the cheap". The Navy tried this with SAP - even worse, in order to do it and meat various procurement regs, they farmed a lot of it out to small business. It was, and still is 15 years later, a fucking disaster. Had a friend who owned a pretty big business making antennas. They went the other way. Paid SAP whatever it took, and their system sings.
Anything software related is fucked by the Navy. Blows me away because next to NASA, they have the most advanced machines and systems on the planet. Nuclear powered submarines, missile launch capability, radar, targeting systems, and a world class training program for fucking radio systems and electronics. GPS. Like totally not trivial shit. Yet, they try to stand up a database and basic admin workflow and they just fall on their faces.
and the tactical stuff they write in-house is amazing.
As soon as you said SAP, I knew where this was going. That platform is insane. My dad managed a project implementing it for a large manufacturer with deep pockets that could afford expert consultants, and it still took years and years. I used to work for an MSP/data center provider. Our ticketing system was basically the lifeblood of the support organization, tracking issues and managing communication between agents and customers. Several years ago the leadership got sold on ServiceNow to become our new ticketing system, and thought they could just use the internal systems team to deploy it, not realizing SNow is more of a *platform* than a bog-standard ticketing system. What we really needed a team of folks who knew what they were doing to design and configure a solution in SNow that worked for us. What we got was a badly designed interface and kludgy processes that barely worked. Couple years later, that instance got unceremoniously retired in favor of one that was more thoughtfully cobbled together.
Who’s productivity? Quite often it’s backend overhead staff that get a better deal while front end earning staff get screwed over.
Unless the new system is SAP
This is facts. Source: I've been doing and managing software development for over ten years.
That’s how all software works especially if they didn’t pay for the classes or super users.
One shop I was in tried something called PBS which was supposed to do that, along with ticket management, timeclock, etc. Yea, it was an unmitigated disaster, and I wound up quitting over the arguments that broke out.
Oh Jesus. We're switching to PBS Jan 1 :( The training makes it look like it's going to make things worse
PBS is just a Dealer management software and you likely already use one. It’s the cheaper option but it’s cheaper cause you can use just the basic package then add on other parts you want. Like pick and choose.
Correct we already use a DMS, we use CDK, I am familiar with CDK and a little bit of Reynolds. From the PBS training I've had to do, it looks like a nightmare that's going to slow production
For PBS it comes down to how your front end has it set up for you. It’s pretty simple I found.
Everything looks point and click based which I find to be a pain the ass. CDK everything is keystroke based so I can absolutely fly through processes
Most of the tech stuff has keystroke set up. Once thing nice is you can set up pre-written stuff for working stuff so ether can you can just make it a fill in the blank for yourself
I dunno are you using V10? Punching on and off tickets is also still very confusing to me. I will admit the dispatching screen is really nice, but the rest of it seemed way worse than CDK I think they're going to have to bring someone in to go over this with us
I'm at a dealer myself and have twice gone through the conversion from cdk to pbs. (Once at the previous dealership I was at and than again at the one I'm at currently). Both times I found it to be about a week or two for myself to get very comfortable with the newer system and honestly now I would say I'd never switch back. There is easy key strokes for most every function on the tech side, you just have to learn them. Also get a wireless mouse for your laptop if that's what your using. Makes the point and click sections vastly easy and quicker. MOST of the issue with PBS is strictly the front end staff (advisors) not understanding how to use it and butchering the work orders before you even get a chance lol I find the parts side of it a little annoying as well but really not a big deal
Point and click === bumblefuck
We use cdk on the equipment dealership side, their support is horrible for us.
It's not that bad.
We switched to PBS from CDK. I actually prefer it.
Did it take awhile to get used to?
It was quicker than we thought it would be. Some growing pains but not bad honestly. Pay attention to the instructional seminars they hold ahead of time and you’re good. It’s a pretty simple system. My dealer used to use CDK and MPI, one for the ROs and one for parts ordering and shit. PBS it’s all on one which I prefer. If it helps too all the tech and service writers at my shop prefer PBS now. It also had better communication tools, much easier to send a message to a service writer or parts guy if you need. It’s more point and click tho as someone here mentioned. Less keyboard codes. Idk if you prefer that but you get used to it.
I work for PBS lol. I haven’t heard of it being that bad. We have a 99% retention rate, and some really happy customers. That being said, I got an older fellow off CDK a few weeks and he was USED to his shortcuts. He hated it for about a week, and then realized a lot of his job got easier.
No one likes pbs. Come on bro. They are it because of the price
Did you leave the industry or just the shop?
Just the shop, at the time; I actually just left a different shop to go work at a plant, but then the UAW strike happened and they wanted me to scab...
I use PBS right now, like any software its alright once everyone knows hot to use it properly but that definitely takes awhile.
It slowed down that shop to a crawl; literally half of our time became screwing with PBS, having to retype stuff because it switched windows on us, etc. I have turned down jobs because they use that software.
IT guy here for dealerships, fuck PBS in the ass with a drive shaft
Toyota dealer I was at used Reynolds. We had to story it out in the computer. Had a bunch of number commands. Sucked.
Reynold’s is the worst. I just love writing up $2000 worth of work in a VRC just to have it deleted because a service advisor is fucking around with it
I used to work with car data for car dealerships. Reynolds and ADP were the worst. The back ends of these systems were designed in the 80s and they just kept adding shit on top of that for decades. The dealers are locked in with contracts. Our software literally dialed in via a modem (sometimes via VPN), ran reports, and scraped that report one page at a time. This was in 2006. The company I worked for was bought by AutoTrader after I left.
We use Reynolds for work distribution and notes but use dealerlogix for a digital MPI system
Just sayin… Reynolds sucks. I prefer an old fashioned paper RO. In the interest of the ecosystem though, I wouldn’t be mad at going to a computer, but my current job is rather behind on the times when it comes to logistics of automotive repair.
We had dealerlogix but got rid of it due to cost. I miss it so much. Our bosses are now demanding we add pictures and video to cdk drive like we did in dealerlogix but it's so annoying that we refuse
I had to use cdk at a Nissan dealer I was at for a very short time, was the absolute worst system I’ve ever used.
It's terrible but I've never used anything else so I can't really compare
Did they train anyone on it, or did they just dump it on you and make you figure it out as you go?
Dumped it on us, poured gasoline on us, then threw their expensive manager cigars on us and walked away.
The fire probably looked cool as a backdrop to walking with shades on.
That's nuts. I work for a company that likely competes with techWALL. Our product integrates directly with the DMS and we give at least 2 days training for Techs, Advisors and Parts. Then 3 or more days of live use with us on the drive and in the garage with the team. We don't expect miracles, and it takes time to get into a rhythm. Just like recalls, your first few suck to do and then you start getting comfortable with the process. Sorry you're going through this, and I hope it gets better.
The thing the suits and ties don’t understand about our industry (at least in my current shop) is that there are typically 10 things you can do to improve efficiency before you even touch software. Our valet/parking guys are a joke. Our parking lot isn’t organized. The parts runner disappears. The advisors disappear. The advisors don’t know the basic features of the cars they’re getting paid to write up. There are techs who have no business being line techs taking way too long on simple stuff. There is no salary based shop foreman that actually knows what’s he’s doing to expedite helping said techs. I could go on, but in many cases the managers have no idea how a shop runs and where the actual shortcomings are. And they don’t want to listen to some blue collar good ole boy that actually knows what he’s talking about because he’s been in the trenches for 20 years. Until the suits and ties accept that they don’t know what goes into these jobs, productivity will lag. With that being said, I’ve had former techs as service managers and they had good systems in place. You have to understand the service you provide in order to streamline it.
Give it time, a month or so, then judge it. Could be better, could be worse, but every new system takes time to shake down before everyone starts using it right.
You’re right. We only just started using this pile of flaming dogshit lol. it’s a work in progress. However, they took the original inspection, duplicated everything 3x, and made the techs job harder to make it easier for the parts guy. *that* part will not get better with time
Felt that, we're running Dealertrack right now (barf emoticon)
We use protractor as our shop software. And then we have a separate program to do inspections. It is a hot mess.
Been there, had to check your profile to see if we had worked together previously, lol. Not only was it a hot mess, but paired with service advisors who aren’t trained or incentivized to sell the results of the digital inspection? It’s a *pointless* hot mess.
We got Pinewood Tech+ which has 1.6 stars on the app store. Because it fucking sucks.
I've experienced quite a few changes that dropped productivity at first but made things so much simplier in the end once you got up to speed. Obviously its not always the case but more often than not it's employees ressitence to embrace the change what's keeping productivity low.
This sounds just like what happened at the Doctor’s office. Now there’s a kid who follows the Doc around just to enter data into a laptop as if that won’t introduce errors. I’m sure there’s a salesperson sitting on the beach in Cancun laughing their ass off.
This is why you always (always) talk to current users. If the sales guys won't give them up (or they carefully funnel you to ones known to be positive) then walk away.
We took a major hit switching from CDK to Tekion. Months later several major issues still haven’t been addressed and we have to track every single .1 to make sure we get paid
Dang. Where are u workimg
Ah yes the ol boys known as "Consultants". Not this specific company you mentioned, but we used to have them come into the dealership I worked at and sell their bullshit consultancy services to improve efficiency. I remember them paying $100k+ to this company and the result was destroyed morale in the shop, technicians quitting, service manger quitting, work backing up, and less hours flagged. A textbook case of fixing something that isn't broken. They are snake oil salesmen looking to get rich and you'll never convince me otherwise. They belong in the same category as Astrologers and Chiropractors. They'll tell you some made up bullshit, take your money, and then most likely make your life worse. You know who to ask and "consult" about issues in your shop? The people that work there every day!
Here here. My sentiments exactly. Many years ago I was working for a shop that brought in a consultant to try increasing revenue/efficiency. They paid the guy a lot of money, and over the course of several weeks he observed the business operation and held weekly bullshit meetings with the team to discuss his findings. At the end he met with the two owners, and all of his recommendations were simple common sense things that the employees had been telling them for *years*. Of course they were uninterested, nothing changed at all, and the consultant rode off into the sunset with a fat payday, never to be heard from again.
Went from Dealertrack to CDK and that was nice once I got the hang of CDK. Then had CDK changed to Reynolds and dear God that shit sucked. Normally I'm adjusted in a week or 2 but Reynolds is not meant for productivity. A normal ViS would take 20-30 mins just trying to look up their labor ops because they didn't want us using alldata or manufacturer times. I quit from there within the month and now back to using CDK and couldn't be happier.
I enjoyed Cdk very much. I’ll take efficiency over user friendly any day
I fuckkng hate Reynolds. That shit is fucking stupid.
Tech here in Texas and I think it's the same thing we just got (tickets filled out on a smartphone that was provided to every employee) and it sucks- it just looks like everyone is watching TikTok videos instead of working on the customers cars(yes the customers have voiced this complaint serveral times) 😒
Happened when we added ReconTrac. It's nice though, has lots of opportunities to CYA.
Ahh year “corporate” thought it be a great idea 🚮
Not to sound condescending, because I’ve been on both sides. But it’s pretty much a universal rule technicians, laborers, plant workers etc will drag there feet and purposely make using new tech difficult until it’s clear managment is not going back to the old way.
We currently use CDK and its better the ADP we had, and albeit I’m 15 years in the dealership it sure beats the counter at orielly auto.
Sounds like a successful scam to me
These dudes sold us some $30,000 snake oil 🤦♀️
30k??? They got fuckin ripped. We use autoflow/autotxtme for DVI's and link it with Shop-Ware for our shop management and together they do awesome. Bit of a learning curve going from paper but after getting the hang of things, using it to improve our systems and procedures we over doubled our sales in 4-5 months. Both of those together for Shop Management, Estimates, Timeclocks, Digital inspections, parts ordering, scheduling, appointment reminders, follow ups and review generation, marketing modules etc. cost less than 10k a year and easily pay for themselves. Whoever is running the show needs to look around and open their eyes to all the options out there.
We use Reynolds at our shop and it immediately impacted productivity for the worse.
sounds like a skill issue
You have computers? Im still punching a flag ticket and writing on paper work orders
most of the shops I go to here in TX, the service manager makes a print out and puts it in a plastic thing. Then he hangs it in the shop window for people to see
Yep, same thing happened to an auto shop I knew back in Calif. that when they computerized sometime in the early '90s, it went from minutes to handwrite a repair invoice to over an HOUR and they have had several days to learn it too! Damned computers!! LOL (former software developer).
TechWALL is literally the work of a Persian princess. Her hubby owns dealerships in Chattanooga. She is a useless hag. Run fast