Q. How do customers access the program to make an online appointment?
They go to the dealer’s website. If you want the customer to select a preferred service advisor, they can click on the photo of the advisor or they can just click on Make Service Appointment. This will take them to the dealer’s service appointment calendar, allowing them to schedule a real-time appointment.

Q. Many of my customers don’t want to have to “register”…that’s why I am using the email request form. Do they have to register to use TimeHighway?
A. No – customers may choose to use “”Quick Appointment” – we actually do the registration for them and send me an email with their username and password that can be used on subsequent visits.

Q. One of my other concerns is that no one actually “sees” the appointment since it is sent directly to the DMS. What if my customer has questions prior to the appointment and needs to be contacted?
A. One of my other concerns is that no one actually “sees” the appointment since it is sent directly to the DMS. What if my customer has questions prior to the appointment and needs to be contacted?

Q. Do my customers have a choice of contact method?
A. Yes, they can choose email, text or both.

Q. How do my customers know they actually have an appointment?
A. They receive a confirmation email or text message immediately after the appointment is made and a courtesy reminder email the day prior to the appointment.

Q. How do I make my customers aware of the availability of online service scheduling?
A. Some will find it on your website. We also send an Announcement email to all your customers for whom you have an email address, plus if there is an email address in the customer record, we generate a Welcome email to all new customers when we import new customers into TimeHighway. Utilizing an “on hold” message making customers aware of the availability of confirmed, online service appointments is very effective. We also recommend that the salespeople register the customer at time of delivery and schedule First Service.

Q. How does the customer change or cancel an appointment?
A. There is a link in their confirmation email, as well as in their courtesy reminder email that will take them directly to the appointment book and they can cancel or change the services, date or time. They can also go to your website, log in and access their customer profile and make the change from there.

Q. What percentage of my customers can I expect to schedule online?
A. Very quickly you will find 10-15% of your customers will book online. And, as more and more become aware of this convenience, this will increase dramatically. We have dealerships that are experiencing over 30% of their appointments being created by customers from their website.

Q. What about customers that don’t show up for their appointment?
A. Due to the reminder notification, you will find that no shows are decreased considerably. However, there will be times when a customer does forget or has an emergency and isn’t able to keep the appointment. With ADP this customer automatically receives an email requesting they reschedule; with other DMS providers, you can click on a button to send this customer an email requesting they reschedule.

Q. Are the emails generic or can I provide the verbiage I want to use for my dealership?
A. Every email is totally customizable and can include HTML as well as text.

Q. How is my customer notified when the services on the vehicle are completed?
A. He can log into the dealership website to see the status of his repair or, if you choose, we can automatically generate an email or text message to the customer when the RO is invoiced advising him the services are complete and he can pick up the vehicle at his convenience. You also have the option of placing a link “Today’s Service Appointment Status” on your website.

Q. The customer receives a confirmation email, a courtesy reminder email and a completion notification email or text message. Is there any other communication generated by TimeHighway.com?
A. Yes, there is the email that can be generated to the customer who doesn’t show up for their appointment and an automatic CSI Thank You email generated after the RO posts to Accounting.

Q. I’ve been thinking about some sort of loyalty program to increase customer retention. Ideas?
A. We can provide tracking of loyalty programs for you: • If you want to offer a loyalty program based on customer pay dollars, we can track these dollars and include the points in the customer profile. You determine how you want the points utilized – for services or as down payment for a new vehicle. • We also have the ability to track specific services for loyalty – perhaps you wish to offer a program whereby the customer pays for “x” number of services and gets the next one free. We can track these, based on op code and customer and automatically generate a coupon to the customer when they are eligible for the free service.

Q. Can my customer see their service history?
A. Yes, you have the choice of including 18, 24 or 36 months service history.

Q. I have been thinking about putting something in my customer lounge so customers know when their services are completed. What do you have that can assist with that?
A. TimeHighway provides the ability for you to customize the information that you can display either on an LED Display Board or on a flat screen TV in your customer waiting area which can include the status of the customer’s repair. You can also include advertising banners if you wish.

Q. If I want to show service pricing to my customers, will the system allow me to do this?
A. Yes, you can elect to show pricing of all services to your customers.

Q. I have a printed service menu – can my customer access this?
A. Yes, we can display your actual service menu to the customer.

Q. I have a real issue keeping the service menu updated, as parts pricing continues to change. Can you help me in this regard?
A. Yes, TimeHighway offers an eMenu product. This program provides dynamic service menus for the dealership for all factory mileage packages, as well as any dealer recommended services (if you wish to also include these). The appropriate menu is displayed to the customer based on year, make, model of vehicle and mileage. This solution includes the maintenance and synchronizing of the dealership’s op codes, parts, labor hours and up-to-date pricing, based on year, make, model, engine and drive train. These menus are also used by the service advisors when reviewing needed services at time of write-up and their screen provides talk tracks explaining the benefits of specific services included in the maintenance package.

Q. I’m concerned that customers who schedule online will just schedule oil changes and minor maintenance. How can we prevent that?
A. We may not be able to “prevent” that, but we can prompt the customer for mileage and recommend services.

Q. My service department books by service advisor and teams. Can the system handle that?
A. Yes, the system is extremely flexible and can be set up to handle this. For those dealerships that book “one big book of business”, we can set it up that way or we can also set up a book for standard services and one for express lane services.

Q. Who determines the services that are listed on the website for customer selection?
A. All services are totally customizable by each dealership.

Q. What if I want to continue to use my DMS to schedule those customers who call in?
A. You may do that. Most dealerships elect to utilize TimeHighway internally as well as they want the customer to receive the confirmation email, courtesy reminder email, completion notification and thank you email. TimeHighway also provides outstanding shop loading capability. Because we set up a back-end matrix with all parameters, this also allows anyone who answers the phone to take the call and schedule the appointment, as they don’t have to know op codes, how, what or when to schedule, etc.

Q. How do you access my customer database?
A. We import your customers into TimeHighway.com at time of setup and then poll your system on a nightly basis to maintain the database in TimeHighway.com.

Q. How does the system prevent customers from booking times that are unavailable?
A. We set up a back end matrix with all services, service duration, service depth and appointment time increments, so when services are selected – either by the customer or your internal personnel (if you elect to utilize internally) – the system will only show dates and times that are available for those particular services.

Q. My waiting area becomes extremely crowded on some days. Can I limit the number of appointments scheduled by customers who want to wait for service?
A. Yes, you can set up a depth of waiters per time slot. For instance I want 3 appointments every 15 minutes, but I only want 1 waiter every 30 minutes plus I don’t want any waiters during the lunch hour.

Q. I have reduced service hours on Saturday. Is it possible to limit the services for which I accept appointments on Saturday?
A. Yes, you can elect to flag services for which, when selected, Saturday just will not show as an available day for an appointment.

Q. Am I able to limit the hours an appointment can be scheduled for particular services?
A. Yes, you can set both a start time and end time; for instance, I don’t want SOP appointments scheduled before 8:30 a.m. or I don’t want Engine Concern appointments scheduled after 3:00 p.m.

Q. My manufacturer has different scheduled maintenance intervals for different years and models. Can the system accommodate that?
A. Yes, we can attach specific scheduled maintenance with descriptions to any year, make and model of vehicle.

Q. I provide loaner cars to my customers. How do you handle those?
A. You tell us how many you have available and we set up the depth for that number and track them as they are selected.

Q. How do I know what appointments are scheduled for a particular day?
A. You can view the Appointment Report in TimeHighway.com which provides all information regarding each appointment. Or you can view on your ADP, Reynolds & Reynolds or Arkona appointment screen.

Q. What if I’m limited as to the number of particular services my shop can perform on a certain day?
A. We set up the depth for those services so that number can’t be exceeded and, if one of those services is selected and is fully booked for that day, the system will show the next date that is available.

Q. How do I handle it if I have a technician out of the dealership for training or on vacation?
A. You advise our Help Desk and we adjust the time bucket hours for the days the technician is gone.

Q.If I want to load my shop and use technician hours, will the system keep track of these?
A. Yes, plus you can see at any time the total numbers of hours booked and hours left to book for any particular day, by team and by shop.

Q. My shop books by skill level. Can TimeHighway handle this?
A. Yes, you can attach a skill level to each service and set up daily technician hours by skill level.

Q. Is there any ability to follow up the customer who has declined a recommended service?
A. Yes, the service advisor can select the declined service – “declined brakes”, at which time a calendar comes up – the advisor selects a future date, perhaps two weeks hence, and the customer will automatically receive a customized email on that date indicating they were recently in for service, recommendation was made to have brake repair….etc. Dealership can also include a coupon or a discount as part of the email if you wish.

Q. I want my service department to perform a multipoint inspection on every RO, but many times this gets missed. Can you prompt for this?
A. We can do better than that – we can automatically push any op code with every appointment so it prints on every RO.

Q. Does TimeHighway.com pass the appointment to my DMS system?
A. Yes, there is a seamless and immediate data transfer into ADP, Reynolds & Reynolds and Arkona.

Q. What if my DMS system is down?
A. You will always be able to review your appointments on the TimeHighway.com system and, when your DMS system is back up, the appointments will transfer.

Q. I have a real problem during the busy times of the day – so many calls come in and we just can’t get to them. How can TimeHighway assist with this issue?
A. We can help in several ways – as more customers begin creating confirmed appointments from your website, this will reduce inbound calls to service. We can offer a live call center that can take incoming calls for appointments or just provide “backstop” for these calls. We also have integration with GetAbby, a virtual service assistant that can take incoming calls for appointments – either take the call on first ring or you can elect to set this up so she takes the call if the phone isn’t answered after 3 rings. She can actually take the call and – in integration with TimeHighway – provide the customer 3 options for service on the customer’s preferred day of appointment. Once the customer selects their preferred date/time, the appointment is sent to TimeHighway and we seamlessly transfer the appointment to the DMS.

Q. We like to have a pre-work order which expedites the early morning “rush”. Can you assist with that?
A. Yes, you can print a pre-work order from TimeHighway and use that to review services, upsell the customer and obtain the customer signature for the work to be performed.

Q. We are always looking for ways to follow up to be certain our customers had a positive service experience. Can TimeHighway help with that?
A. You can elect to include a customized survey in your pre-CSI Thank You email that the customer can complete and when they hit “Submit”, the survey will be immediately returned to you. Abby can also survey the customer – her contact rate is the same as a live person and we find most customers are more open when answering the questions from Abby than when responding to a live caller.

Q. Can the system assist me in notifying my customers for whom their special ordered parts are in?
A. You can elect to generate an email or text message to these customers.

Q. I’m attempting to eliminate the backlog in the afternoon when people are coming in to pay for their service and pick up their vehicle. Can TimeHighway assist with that?
A. You can elect to use our PayonLine. When the customer receives notification the services on their vehicle are completed, they can elect to use your Express Pay.

Q. Am I limited as to the number of personnel who have access to the system?
A. No, your license fee provides unlimited access to the program. You can also log in even when you are out of town or out of the dealership as long as you have Internet access.

Q. What can I expect as far as service and what happens if I am dissatisfied with the program or the support?
A. We pride ourselves on complete customer satisfaction; if you find the program isn’t working for you, you are free to provide us notice that you wish to cancel.