Automated Oil Changes / Scheduler

[motley06]

So a while back I noticed that some customers were getting automatic reminders for oil changes very soon after they had just been in. Today I was finally able to take the time to figure out what is going on. I'll do my best to explain the scenario and hopefully someone can help me out. The situation happened as follows:

1. The customer came in on 11/18/2016 for an oil change with 46924 on the odometer. The tech printed the oil change sticker from his tablet which created a recommendation for an oil change on 4/19/2017 at 51900 miles.

2. The customer came in on 2/21/2017 for his next oil change at 48388. Yes, he came in a little early according to the mileage, but that was his intention. I did explain to him that he could go 5,000 miles on his oil changes, and he decided that is what he would start doing. The technicians printed another oil change sticker which deleted the old automatic oil change recommendation and replaced it with a new one of 8/21/2017 or 53,400

3. The day is 4/19/2017. The customer arrives saying that he received a text message indicating he had an appointment on the schedule for 4/19/2017...

So, I understand that when the technician prints a lube sticker, 2 things are generated. A recommendation and an appointment on the scheduler. However, the next time a lube sticker is printed, it appears that only the old recommendation is being replaced. The original appointment is being left on the scheduler, which is where the text messages are being generated from. Is it possible to have the 'lube sticker program' not only REPLACE the recommendation with the new one, but also REPLACE the scheduler appointment as well?

In the meantime, we can do our best to look a week ahead in the schedule and try to catch these things, but it makes it a little tedious since you have to look at each appointment and decide if it matches up with the recommendation or if it should be deleted.

[Auto Repair Coach]

Thanks for the comments and question.

You are correct in that Lube Sticker Pro takes out the old recommendation but not appointment.

It is a good idea, so I will submit it for consideration in development

Thanks.

[scarruther1]

If a customer comes in before their appointment, does Lube Sticker Pro take out the old recommendation and the appointment it created?

Thanks

[motley06]

no, that's the problem. They remove the recommendation, but it does not remove the appointment. Essentially, you end up with a customer having 2 or 3 appointments spread out for the same service...

[Auto Repair Coach]

Entering a request for Lube Sticker to look for an appointment to delete along with the recommendation when a customer comes in early.

[motley06]

That would be awesome. We essentially stopped the auto scheduling feature since customers were becoming due for their next service before the scheduled appointment, then getting the reminder for the appointment not long after they came in because we would forget to delete the automated appointment.

[Auto Repair Coach]

I did submit this request and have added another vote to it.

[scarruther1]

Any update on this? If customers are coming in before their Lube Manager scheduled appointment,does Message Manager still send a reminder text?

[motley06]

I haven't noticed an update yet. We ultimately turned off the 'auto schedule an appointment' feature until they fix it. Customers were annoyed getting an appointment reminder for an oil change when they just got one last week

[scarruther1]

I am going to turn this "feature" off too. Going through the schedule in advance is a PITA. Kinda defeats the object.

[Auto Repair Coach]

Sorry, as of this time no development has been done with this.
I will push it along again.

[motley06]

I am going to turn this "feature" off too. Going through the schedule in advance is a PITA. Kinda defeats the object.

We tried the same thing. Every day/week, we would go through the schedule for the next few days and try to find appointments for people who already had been in, but sometimes you'd forget to go through it or fail to remember that customer had already come in recently. Hopefully they'll have it updated soon

[Auto Repair Coach]

Thanks for your patience. It is a valid point.

[motley06]

JB, any news?

[Auto Repair Coach]

Again, I am sorry to say, no answer at this time. I will see what I can do.

Thanks for the patience.

[BenjaminPeterson]

Again, I am sorry to say, no answer at this time. I will see what I can do.

Thanks for the patience.

Any update?

[Auto Repair Coach]

Sorry.
No update yet.
I will look into and give further info.

[BenjaminPeterson]

No offense but you have been looking into this for almost a year and a half, is there someone else there that can maybe look into things and get things done because that does not seem to be you. Your answer to everything is I do not know but I will look into this or I will see if I can get this done but yet nothing ever seems to get done or answered. This is a major issue for us shops that makes it to where we have to disable this feature for over a year and a half.

[motley06]

No offense but you have been looking into this for almost a year and a half, is there someone else there that can maybe look into things and get things done because that does not seem to be you. Your answer to everything is I do not know but I will look into this or I will see if I can get this done but yet nothing ever seems to get done or answered. This is a major issue for us shops that makes it to where we have to disable this feature for over a year and a half.

Gonna have to agree here. We've had this disabled for a long time!!! Seems like this should be an easy fix

[Auto Repair Coach]

With hundreds of requests each month for fixes or new features in addition to developing new software and features, things like this can take a while.

As per development, "This is an approved feature request that will be available in a future update (unknown ETA)"

When the update is released it will only affect appointments for oil changes made by Lube Sticker Pro, not other appointments. So a suggested best practice is to use appointments to generate estimates. This way you will be able to combine any work and recommendations into the current estimate and remove the unneeded appointments at the same time.