Book test drives and service bays at a dealership

Two books, one number

The number on the listing, the workshop card and the banner over the lot is one number. A caller who wants the grey Peugeot on Saturday and a caller who wants an oil change this week both dial it. Before anyone says yes to a time, the assistant has to know which job this is.

A test drive holds a salesperson and a car. It usually wants a licence in the driver’s hand. It has a length you already use, and it cannot sit on top of another drive in the same car. A service booking holds a bay, a lift, a technician, and often parts. An oil and filter is not a clutch. A KTEO prep is not “have a look at a noise”. Those are two diaries. They do not use the same person, the same keys, or the same stretch of ground.

Saturday, a buyer who saw the listing at breakfast wants 11:00. Your salesperson is already in a used Peugeot, in the passenger seat, with the only keys for that car. In the workshop a technician is under a diesel on the lift. Someone at the desk is writing a job card. The phone on the pillar rings. Nobody at the desk can finish the booking by hand.

Taking a message and promising that someone will look at the book later is the job a voicemail already does. Finishing the call means the time it offers is free when the buyer sits down, or when the car goes up on the lift. Read the matching diary before you offer. Write the booking before you confirm. If that diary cannot be reached, say so and take a callback. A time the caller was promised and the desk has never seen is worse than no booking.

What goes wrong when the books are one book

The failure is a time that sounded finished and was not.

A buyer is given Saturday at 11:00 from the sales diary. That hour is a workshop drop-off. They arrive with a licence. A technician has a car on the lift. There is no salesperson free, and the Peugeot they asked for is not the car in the air.

A service customer is given Thursday at 08:30 from the sales diary. They turn up with the keys. The bay is already holding a clutch. They wait on the gravel, or they leave.

A test drive is booked because a salesperson is free. The car is not. That Peugeot left on a drive at ten, or it left the lot yesterday and the listing is still up. The buyer drove across Athens. Someone is pulled off the next walk-in to explain a gap on the gravel.

None of that is a missed call. It is a time that should not have been offered.

Sales or service — then the matching book

The first question is the split the person at the desk already asks. Sales or service. Then the car they mean, or the work they need. Then the book that matches.

Sales. If they name a listing, write it down exactly — make, year, colour, the fuel if they said it, the site if they said Car.gr. Do not add a status the stock file has not confirmed. If they have not picked a car, take what they can actually say: body type, automatic or not, when they can come. “Used, small automatic, Saturday late morning” is something a salesperson can work from. A new-car order is not a used car on the lot. If you have a demonstrator and you wrote that it can be driven, the assistant can book a test drive against that car. If they want to order, it takes the model and a callback.

Service. What they want done, the registration if they have it, and when they can leave the car. An oil and filter, tyres, a KTEO prep: those are bookable once you have said you do them and how long they hold a bay. A noise they cannot describe, or “can I drive it to Thessaloniki”, is a request or a bay, not a diagnosis. A caller who left a car yesterday, or who wants to know if it is ready, should not be asked whether they are calling about a car for sale. Listen for the job card, the registration, the word “ready”.

The assistant may offer a time only when the type, the person and the length all match, and only after it has read the diary you actually work from. A free sales hour is not a workshop bay. A free lift is not a test drive.

A test drive is two things at once — and the car has to be there

A free salesperson is not enough. A free car is not enough. If that Peugeot is already out, the next drive is not at 11:10 just because the sales diary has a gap. Two drives in the same car need the length you already use between them — the return, the talk on the lot, the next set of keys.

Write how a test drive works. How long. Who can take one. That they should bring a licence. If only certain people on the desk take drives, do not treat the sales book as one pool. A free hour on the person who does finance paperwork is not a drive.

The assistant books a drive against a named car only when your own stock record says that car is still on the lot. The listing is not that record. If the file is silent, stale, or unreachable, it takes the car they mean and leaves the confirmation to you. It does not put 11:00 in the sales book against a space on the gravel. A used car and a new-car demonstrator are not the same type. If you have no demonstrator for that model, it takes the model and a callback. It does not invent a car that would “do”.

If two people want 11:00 on the same Peugeot, it must not invent a second 11:00. It offers the next real stretch with that car. When the stock file cannot be reached, the answer is a callback, said plainly.

A service time is a bay, not a sales hour

Give it the types you already run, and last month’s real lengths. Oil and filter. Tyres. A KTEO prep if you actually do that work. Each type has a length and a bay it may use. The assistant looks at the workshop book only after it knows which type this is. An oil and filter dropped into a clutch-length gap wastes a lift. Write whether you do the official KTEO test, the prep, or neither, so it does not book a sticker you cannot issue. If you do not do that work, say so.

Saturday morning, on plenty of lots, is sales walk-ins and booked workshop drop-offs, or the other way around. Mark those hours the way you mark a technician’s lunch. If the assistant treats every Saturday hour as a free test drive, the lifts sit idle. If it treats every Saturday hour as a bay, a buyer is told to come back on Tuesday.

“Is my car ready?” is not a booking. The assistant reads the job card. If the card says ready, it can say so. If the card does not say, it takes a name and a number. It does not invent half past five. A caller who wants to move a bay follows the workshop book, not the sales diary. Set the notice you actually enforce, and say it at the end of a service booking.

“The car is making a noise, can I keep driving it?” is not a reception answer. The assistant does not say yes, and it does not say what the noise is. It offers a bay if one is free and you allow that type, or it puts the description in front of a technician.

Moving Saturday

The caller already has a time. They are changing one, not making a new booking. Handled as “cancel, then book”, Saturday at 11:00 is still in the book while the assistant looks for 15:00. The caller is told their preferred hour is taken — by a system looking at their own drive. Then, if the new time fails, Saturday is gone as well.

The order is: find the existing appointment, release it, offer two times that are actually free, place one, send the new confirmation. In that order.

A moved test drive still needs that salesperson and that car. The afternoon is not the morning moved. The car may already be booked at 15:00. Confirm the stock file still shows the car. A moved service booking still needs a bay of the right length. Thursday’s oil change does not become Friday’s clutch gap.

Test this before anything else. Pick a buyer who already has Saturday at 11:00 on a named car. Ask the assistant to move it to the afternoon. Watch whether their own hour blocks them, and whether the car is still free at the new time. After a move, the reminder goes to the new date. The old SMS must not still say 11:00.

The courtesy car, and what it must not place

If you run a courtesy car, that is a third resource. A bay can be free and the Polo already out. The assistant offers one only when you have marked it free against that booking. Do not store a sentence that “we always have a courtesy car”. A courtesy car is not a test drive. Do not let a sales caller take the Polo because the demonstrator is out.

It will not invent stock. A caller who asks if the Peugeot is still there gets a confirmation only from the file, or a request. It will not invent a price — not on used stock, not as a new-car discount, not as a trade-in from a description. It will not put a test drive on a workshop hour if you gave it two books. It will not say a car is ready unless the job card says so. It will not diagnose a noise, approve finance, or promise a delivery month. It takes the request. A human decides.

A trade-in from a description is not a test drive. Make, year, kilometres, and which car they want to put it against. No figure. A handover is not a test drive. If you wrote a list of what to bring, the assistant can read that list back and put them in a time you marked for handovers. It does not give legal or tax advice.

The text, the cancel, and the first thirty

Send the confirmation at the moment of booking. The assistant sends the SMS itself, in the language of the conversation. Seventy-plus languages. The message goes out after the diary entry exists in the matching book. For a test drive it names the hour and the car you are willing to put in writing — or it names the hour and says the car is still being confirmed. For a service booking it names the hour and the work. It does not name a ready time the job card has not marked. No entry, no message. A text for a Peugeot that left yesterday is worse than no text.

A Saturday drive released on Friday evening can be offered to the next person who asked about that car. A Thursday bay released on Wednesday can take the next oil change. Write the cancellation back to the matching diary immediately. Freeing a salesperson does not free a lift. Freeing a lift does not put the Peugeot back on offer. Treat “I need to move it” as a change, not as a cancel plus a hope. Say the notice you actually enforce. Do not invent a fee the desk does not use.

Look at the first thirty bookings by hand. Watch for a test drive sitting in the workshop book, a drive booked against a car the stock file no longer shows, an oil and filter given a clutch-length gap, and a courtesy car promised when none was marked free. If a stock question received a firm Saturday on a car the file had not confirmed, tighten the stock rule before you count how many appointments the assistant placed.

What you turn on first

Start with the split, not with a menu.

1. Sales or service as the first question, and two books — who is on sales and when, and which bays are free. Do not let it offer a lift time from the sales diary.
2. Four types only. A used-car test drive. A demonstrator drive, if you have a car marked for that. An oil and filter. One other published workshop job you actually do. Lengths from last month’s real diary.
3. The stock rule. Confirm a named car only from the file you connected. If you are not connecting a feed on day one, take the car they mean, take a window, you call back.
4. How a test drive works — length, who can take one, licence in the hand — and Saturday workshop hours marked separately from Saturday sales.
5. The change path, tested with a real name already in Saturday, on a named car.
6. The SMS rule: after the booking exists in the matching book, never before, never with a car you have not confirmed.
7. A failure sentence the assistant is not allowed to improve: if the diary or the file cannot be reached, it says someone will call back. It does not hold an hour it cannot see.

Leave new-car orders, trade-in figures, finance, “is it ready”, and anything with a noise or a warning light as callbacks. Turn the SMS confirmation on the same morning you turn booking on. Turn the reminder on before the week is out.

When those four types have produced a week of bookings you would have been happy to have made yourself, add the next type. Add opening hours, who is on sales on Saturday, whether you close the workshop in August, where to park, how to find the lot from the national road.

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