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Trailer Inspection Reminders not sent

Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2023 8:00 am
by GUTHTIRE
I called CRM Technical Support today on behalf of one of our customers. They never received an email reminder that PA State Inspection was due on his trailer. After reviewing everything that I thought was needed; valid email, state inspection date was set, etc. I called support. Apparently, emails are NOT sent to customer's when a trailer inspection is due as they are for automobiles.

This was news to us. We have a lot of customers with trailers who would greatly benefit from a reminder on a trailer inspection due notification.

Is there a technical reason why email reminders are not being sent for trailers? Seems pretty straight forward...we have the email, we have the trailer Y/M/M, we have the inspection due date. We could be leaving a lot of money on the table when customer reminder would get them in our shop. Same would be said for motorcycle inspections...are reminders being sent for motorcycles?

Re: Trailer Inspection Reminders not sent

Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2023 11:56 am
by timbre4
Dan - I checked into this with SocialCRM management to better understand the situation and see what was possible. There is a technical reason.

The SocialCRM email remainders are based on the maintenance schedules we reference mileage readings against to determine which vehicles were eligible to receive service reminders. It was explained to me that SocialCRM does not factor the inspection field data in Manager SE for inspection reminders for any vehicles. Without that data in the equation there is no possibility of sending out email reminders predicated on inspections.

As you may already be aware, Manager SE supports postcard reminders for vehicle inspections. It is recommended that this method be engaged to manage this need.
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Re: Trailer Inspection Reminders not sent

Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2023 4:24 am
by GUTHTIRE
Thanks for the update.

Just so I understand correctly, SocialCRM does NOT automatically send an Inspection reminder for any vehicles. If this is the case then it's much worse than my initial understanding of how the automated emails work. If indeed the reminders are sent solely based upon mileage then zero inspection reminders are going out. Does that mean the Next Inspection field is used for viewing only?
While the postcard method may work its somewhat manual. One would think if there are manual steps those steps could be automated.

With the understanding that SocialCRM does not currently send automated Inspection reminders can we propose a SocialCRM enhancement to send automated emails using the Next Inspection field or via some other method? It seems the data to automate such a task is all there.

Re: Trailer Inspection Reminders not sent

Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2023 4:44 am
by ShopManTim
For what it is worth, in our shop, when I finish printing an invoice and the question pops up "Do I want to schedule another appointment?" I will click YES and I can then set up a reminder to contact the owner and set up an appointment for the next inspection, oil change, or whatever. Furthermore, this thing of automatic emails etc, are not reliable enough to depend solely on that. Our customers also like the personal contact we offer by doing it ourselves as opposed to a machine. I do not, will not use CRM or any kind of social media thing to manage and control what we do here. In so saying, I'm not saying it's wrong, but rather that I want to control how we operate and the public image and perception we offer and wish to retain. Yea, I understand, it sounds like a bad attitude coming through but it is not. I love what I do. I love our customers, vendors and the support MOD is to our business but sometimes the imperfect and problematic electronic revolution is getting in the way of good business ethics.

Re: Trailer Inspection Reminders not sent

Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2023 10:06 am
by GUTHTIRE
ShopManTim wrote:
Fri Mar 10, 2023 4:44 am
For what it is worth, in our shop, when I finish printing an invoice and the question pops up "Do I want to schedule another appointment?" I will click YES and I can then set up a reminder to contact the owner and set up an appointment for the next inspection, oil change, or whatever. Furthermore, this thing of automatic emails etc, are not reliable enough to depend solely on that. Our customers also like the personal contact we offer by doing it ourselves as opposed to a machine. I do not, will not use CRM or any kind of social media thing to manage and control what we do here. In so saying, I'm not saying it's wrong, but rather that I want to control how we operate and the public image and perception we offer and wish to retain. Yea, I understand, it sounds like a bad attitude coming through but it is not. I love what I do. I love our customers, vendors and the support MOD is to our business but sometimes the imperfect and problematic electronic revolution is getting in the way of good business ethics.
Thanks for your opinion. Our customers like the personal contact as well however, this issue was generated by a customer who likes the email notification. In addition, the software is called CRM (Customer Relationship Management). It was to be designed specifically for things like reminders and we purchased it to do just that. In this case an automated reminder is not being sent for a vital part of our business which one would think CRM should be able to automate that function. If you want to manually schedule something when you already have a field that has next inspection date being maintained then that's your choice...you can turn off CRM.

Re: Trailer Inspection Reminders not sent

Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2023 10:22 am
by timbre4
While vehicle maintenance by mileage intervals and outstanding recommendations inside Manager SE are fairly universal across US and Canada, state inspections are not. I believe this is why they aren't factored in the datasets used by SCRM to generate the email reminders. I can re-check with SocialCRM group but I don't think it's on their radar.

If we gave you the wrong impression somewhere along the way, I apologize on behalf of the company. If you never asked us about this specifically, I'm not sure what I could do about that.

It's recommended that state inspections can be handled by a program that is designed for the task and reads data out of Manager SE. Take a look here, looks like $39 a month:
https://www.mvirs.com/pricing/

Re: Trailer Inspection Reminders not sent

Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2023 10:52 am
by GUTHTIRE
timbre4 wrote:
Fri Mar 10, 2023 10:22 am
While vehicle maintenance by mileage intervals and outstanding recommendations inside Manager SE are fairly universal across US and Canada, state inspections are not. I believe this is why they aren't factored in the datasets used by SCRM to generate the email reminders. I can re-check with SocialCRM group but I don't think it's on their radar.

If we gave you the wrong impression somewhere along the way, I apologize on behalf of the company. If you never asked us about this specifically, I'm not sure I could do about that.

It's recommended that state inspections can be handled by a program that is designed for the task and reads data out of Manager SE. Take a look here, looks like $39 a month:
https://www.mvirs.com/pricing/
Thanks for the info. MVIRS request email addresses to be maintained within MVIRS and MVIRS only has 1-way communication -> to ShopMgmt. This means you cannot import email address from ShopMgmt. So that would create double data maintenance, first in ShopMgmt. then again in MVIRS.

I agree with your first sentence in that state inspections are not universal across US and Canada but there's a field for "Next Inspection Date" on the Vehicle page...which in this case would be the interval.

Re: Trailer Inspection Reminders not sent

Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2023 2:17 pm
by timbre4
Please accept my apologies for the misunderstanding on this question. I am working to rectify this knowledge gap on my part and will advise.

Re: Trailer Inspection Reminders not sent

Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2023 3:02 pm
by timbre4
Okay, I heard it wrong yesterday. This is what I have confirmed today:

1. SocialCRM will generate reminders for vehicle inspections as long as they are valid class 1-3 (light duty) vehicles that we recognize (selected from drop-down lists on Vehicle screen).
2. Reminders will not be generated if a 'suppress' tool is applied to the shop's SocialCRM account at customer request.

3. SocialCRM agent can generate an inspection campaign; default is 30 days prior but a savvy shop (who frequents this forum) told me has his campaign set to 3 days before due date.
The same qualifiers as #1 apply; recognized class 1-3 light duty vehicles will be included.

Re: Trailer Inspection Reminders not sent

Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2023 3:22 am
by GUTHTIRE
timbre4 wrote:
Fri Mar 10, 2023 3:02 pm
Okay, I heard it wrong yesterday. This is what I have confirmed today:

1. SocialCRM will generate reminders for vehicle inspections as long as they are valid class 1-3 (light duty) vehicles that we recognize (selected from drop-down lists on Vehicle screen).
2. Reminders will not be generated if a 'suppress' tool is applied to the shop's SocialCRM account at customer request.

3. SocialCRM agent can generate an inspection campaign; default is 30 days prior but a savvy shop (who frequents this forum) told me has his campaign set to 3 days before due date.
The same qualifiers as #1 apply; recognized class 1-3 light duty vehicles will be included.
Got it. Thanks for confirming how SocialCRM works in it's current state.

How do we go about enhancing SocialCRM to incorporate trailers & motorcycles similar to #1 above? Currently we seems to have all pertinent information in the system to accomplish this. Just b/c SocialCRM does not currently send inspection reminders for non class 1-3 (light duty) vehicles should not limit the possibility of incorporating other vehicles if appropriate fields are maintained.

Re: Trailer Inspection Reminders not sent

Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2023 5:50 am
by timbre4
I'm going to steer you back to your SocialCRM agent to relay that request to that product management team.